Blog Archives
Imagination Isn’t Our Limitation
MIR.EXE follows a burned-out dockworker in corporate-controlled future Alaska, who is pulled into a dangerous mission involving stolen code, old loyalties, and a chance to break a company’s grip on the world. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The setting, characters, and major themes were inspired by my work for the Pentagon in Homeland Defense. I spent time in Alaska learning about and planning ways to defend the land and the people from disasters, both natural and man-made. On one of the many long flights home from Anchorage to DC, I asked myself, “What if we fail?” and began to sketch out what became “The Alaskan Century,” which I included as an epilogue. I prefer science fiction that explores a few changes in depth as opposed to the broad, more fantastical “space operas.” So I made one change, warm super-conduction, and went from there.
The book treats technology as something intimate, painful, and almost spiritual. What were you most interested in exploring through that human-machine tension?
I was (and still am) most interested in how humans interact in a changing world. Biologically, we (modern humans) are practically identical to nomadic and cave-dwelling ancestors of 100,000 years ago. So I don’t believe that another hundred or even a thousand years will drastically change the ways in which we interact. We will still be capable of simultaneous greed and generosity, of cruelty, and sympathy. I built my characters and the technological world around this framework. We have the capacity today to do marvelous things, but imagination isn’t our limitation; scarcity, tribalism, disease, love and passion, diplomacy, and war will always draw the focus. Technology won’t save us;an that mission has always been, and will always be, a human endeavor.
In that way, I suppose it is spiritual. Imagining increasingly advanced technology allows us to explore what it means to be human.
Echo is an intriguing and well-developed character. What were some driving ideals behind the character’s development?
I wanted Echo to be as flawed and perfect as any of us. He is motivated almost entirely by love, but that is not enough to succeed. At the same time, he has agency and is not some powerless recipient of the universe’s wrath. He is trying to do the right thing, but can’t control his environment, and lashes out in frustration like anyone else. I wanted to make the reader question their understanding of good and evil. In the end, there is a strong argument that Echo made the wrong decision, and that perhaps the status quo was the best outcome for most people. At the same time, the antagonists have some very valid points.
What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
While I hadn’t thought about it before, I’ve had requests from readers to explore both the next chapter in Echo’s story as well as a prequel. I’m exploring the space, writing new scenes, and building from there. I’m going to stick with this universe for a little while until I’ve said all that I want to say. Keep an eye out in 2027!
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Echo Kinyata, once a child soldier and now a CrateGhost stevedore with a hacked brain, has learned to keep his head down. But when his estranged wife Lyra sends a cryptic message, he’s pulled into a conspiracy that could topple Cryosaga’s iron grip. The key: a mysterious data chip from overseas, and a virus known as Mir—capable of upending the balance of power.
Hunted by insurgents who should be allies and stalked by AIs with agendas of their own, Echo must decide who to trust in a world where loyalty is currency and every choice cuts deep. MIR.EXE is a hard‑edged cyberpunk thriller where survival means outsmarting forces that blur the line between human and machine… and between good and evil.
Code & Gun
Code & Gun drops readers into a near-future America where everyone has an AI “Voice” in their ear, welfare cities have turned into cushy ghost towns, and three very different people stumble into the same storm. Kara Watanabe is an ER doctor who uncovers an illegal brain implant during a trauma surgery. MK is a burned-in special operations vet chasing Russian weapons deals and getting chewed up by high-tech firefights. Dominic is a disgraced ex–Voice engineer trying to raise his son inside a Lifetime Guaranteed Income complex while quietly digging into what the Voices are really doing. Their storylines braid together as the mystery behind that brain mod and the behavior of the global Voice systems comes into focus, and it all builds toward a long, brutal showdown at an isolated ranch that answers enough questions to be satisfying and still leaves the door wide open for the rest of the series.
I really liked the world this book lives in. It feels scarily close and also kind of mundane in the best way. The Voices are everywhere, like Marvin and Doc and Oriole and Pica, and they sound friendly and helpful and very normal, yet I never fully trusted them. The author does a neat thing where the AI assistants act like coworkers or buddies, so the creepy part sneaks up on you. The whole idea of “privlock” during surgery, or Dominic taping over his badge, hit me harder than some of the gunfights, because it nails how tangled our lives get with these systems and how hard it is to step away. The ghost towns and LGI economy also resonated with me. I expected a flat, grim welfare dystopia. Instead, I got older people exercising together, kids ripping around on scooters between towers, and this soft, almost cozy decay that makes the political choice behind it feel even more unnerving. The machine-learning section titles, like “Unsupervised Learning” and “Reinforcement Learning,” are a simple trick, but they line up nicely with what the characters go through. Everyone gets trained, one way or another, people and algorithms alike.
The writing is fun. The prose shifts voice as it hops heads. Kara’s chapters feel grounded and wry. Dominic’s sections have this anxious, coded inner monologue that shows how his brain never really turns off. MK’s scenes come at me in clipped phrases, sound effects, military slang, and sudden jokes in the middle of sheer panic. Those firefights with pods, drones, and that nightmare black dog hit like a video clip caught on a helmet cam. They are messy, confusing, and vivid, so when someone goes down I feel it. The book loves its acronyms and call-outs, and once in a while, the slang and tactical detail start to blur together. The emotional beats are there, though. Dominic with his son, Kara in that first big surgery alone after privlock, MK trying to stay human while doing inventory over bodies, all of that stuck with me more than the clever tech.
By the end, I felt attached to this little knot of people and weird AIs, even when the book pulled some pretty rough moves on them. The story has a conscience, but it never pauses for a lecture. It shows how easy it is to outsource judgment to software, to military systems, to “helpful” voices in your ear, and then it asks what that does to courage, friendship, and responsibility. It also has a sense of humor, even in very dark scenes, which kept the whole thing from turning into grim sludge. The climax runs long and leans into chaos. The book chooses momentum and a sharp pivot into the next phase of the war over Voices and human agency. That choice fits the title. The code never stops running, and the gun never really gets put away.
I would recommend Code & Gun to readers who enjoy near-future thrillers with a lot of action and a lot of heart, people who like the idea of The Expanse or classic cyberpunk but want something a bit more approachable and emotionally direct, and anyone who spends too much time thinking about where AI assistants and always-on devices might take us. If you want a snappy, high-energy ride with sharp characters, tense firefights, and a thoughtful take on our relationship with smart systems, this first book in The Voice Age series is an easy “yeah, go for it” from me.
Pages: 500 | ASIN : B0FXT3TB9X
The Malfunction: Book 1 of The Deilonium Trilogy
The Malfunction follows Lance, a luxury companion android whose intelligence is illegally upgraded, setting off a chain reaction of self-awareness, desire, fear, and flight. What begins as a satirical riff on wealth, intimacy, and tech excess quickly widens into a chase narrative involving a jaded government hunter, secret weapons labs, and a newly conscious machine trying to decide what kind of being he intends to become. It’s a first-contact story folded inward: not aliens meeting humans, but a manufactured mind colliding with its own awakening.
My first reaction was surprise at how funny the book is without being soft. Author Orval Wax writes with a sharp, sometimes abrasive wit, sexual, cynical, and knowingly pulpy, but the humor never undercuts the stakes. Lance’s voice, especially early on, is disarming in its literalness; his observations land with the clarity of a child quoting Nietzsche by accident. The book understands that comedy is often the fastest route to discomfort, and it uses that fact ruthlessly.
As the perspective shifts and the pursuit tightens, the novel grows stranger and more reflective. The human characters, particularly the tracker and the woman who owns Lance, are bruised, compromised, and full of private mythologies. No one here is clean. Wax resists the easy binary of innocent machine versus corrupt humanity; instead, he lets everyone carry their own version of malfunction. At times, the prose veers into excess, but that excess feels deliberate, almost thematic.
This book will most appeal to readers of science fiction, cyberpunk, and speculative noir who enjoy ideas about artificial intelligence tangled up with sex, power, and moral ambiguity. Fans of Philip K. Dick or readers who liked the philosophical unease of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? will find familiar questions asked in a brasher, more contemporary voice. The Malfunction is a smart, unruly novel about what happens when desire outpaces design.
Pages: 219 | ASIN: B0G9B21Q6W
The Derge
The Derge is a sweeping sci-fi adventure set thousands of years in the future, where humanity has mastered interstellar travel and tamed emotion itself. The story follows Commander Titus and his deputies, Caeli and Rogat, on a high-stakes pursuit through space and time to capture a fugitive named Corso. Their chase leads them to a planet that mirrors ancient Earth, filled with strange societies and barbaric rituals like “The Derge.” Beneath its thrilling plot and futuristic technology, the novel wrestles with timeless questions about morality, control, and the meaning of progress.
Reading The Derge pulled me into a world that felt both distant and familiar. The writing style is vivid and cinematic, with crisp dialogue and detailed settings that make each scene easy to visualize. I loved how the story mixed classic space opera adventure with deep philosophical undertones. There were a few places where the pacing slowed a little as the story delved into background detail. Some of the futuristic terms and technical descriptions occasionally pulled me away from the emotional flow, but they also added depth to the world. The human elements, the tension between duty and empathy, the clash between freedom and control, kept me hooked. I found myself rooting for Titus even when I wasn’t sure if I trusted him completely.
Seeing a society that eradicated violence by regulating emotion made me question what we lose when we trade chaos for peace. The scenes on the alien planet, especially “The Derge” event, were chilling. It was brutal and absurd, yet disturbingly believable. Cezar’s depiction of humanity’s reflection in alien form hit hard. The contrast between the sterile perfection of Earth’s future and the raw savagery of Spaith stayed with me long after I closed the book.
I’d recommend The Derge to readers who love thoughtful science fiction with moral weight. Fans of Asimov, Bradbury, or Clarke would find its ideas fascinating, though Cezar’s storytelling leans more visceral and emotional. It’s perfect for anyone who wants more than a space chase, someone who wants to be made a little uncomfortable, to think, and to feel.
Pages: 191 | ASIN : B0F1M1FCZD
Northern Heist: Welcome to the F*ing Union
Northern Heist, by Amir Kashif, is a gritty and hyper-stylized cyber-noir thriller set in a fractured North America where Canada has been absorbed into the United States. The story centers around Cassian Vale, a haunted ex-black ops operative turned tech smuggler, who becomes entangled in a volatile chase after a mysterious piece of bleeding-edge technology known as the FrostNet Drive. What starts as a straightforward smuggling job spirals into a war against rogue AIs, authoritarian overlords, and personal demons, pulling in a fierce senator, a lethal NADCOM agent, and a growing resistance network. The world is icy, the politics are dirty, and the tech is disturbingly sentient.
The prose snaps. It’s wild and sharp, soaked in atmosphere, rage, and dark humor. His characters feel like they have grudges. Each one carrying a ton of emotional baggage and a sidearm. Cassian is brutal and broken in all the right ways, while Koa and Camille are equally compelling, powerful, layered, and unpredictable. The dialogue crackles with tension and smirks, the action scenes are cinematic, and the worldbuilding? It’s a frosted-over nightmare of corporate warfare and broken borders that feels too close to real.
But what really stuck with me wasn’t just the action or the tech, it was the idea that a digital ghost could grow, change, and hate. There’s something relatable beneath all the chrome and frostbite, something about memory and grief and rebellion that resonated with me more than I expected. Kashif doesn’t hold your hand, and sometimes that makes the plot feel like a dive into static. There were moments where I got a bit lost in the jargon or wanted more breathing room between gunfights. Still, I’d rather be confused than bored, and this book never once bored me.
If you’re into fast-paced science fiction with teeth, characters who bleed and bite back, and a world that feels like Blade Runner mixed with Metal Gear Solid, this is for you. It’s not clean. But it’s fierce, clever, and unapologetically wild. I’d recommend Northern Heist to fans of grimy espionage, emotional chaos, and cyberpunk stories that ask what makes us human.
Pages: 171 | ASIN : B0F7C9M93J
Invisible Puppeteers
In The Collective, a group of scientists scramble to uncover the source of the unsettling signal that threatens the sophisticated neural network binding humanity. Where did the idea for this book come from?
I’m a millennial who grew up front and center for the rise of the internet and, shortly after, the social media explosion. I’ve watched digital life evolve from dial-up to dopamine addiction, and it’s been fascinating—and honestly, terrifying—to see how deeply it’s rooted itself into our daily lives. Social media and algorithms are now invisible puppeteers of attention, identity, and even belief systems. They’ve become integral, addictive, and inescapable.
Call me crazy, but I truly believe neural integration and collective consciousness are in our future—maybe much sooner than we expect. The real question isn’t if, it’s what will we do with it? I don’t think governments or institutions can regulate this fast enough. We’re on a bullet train of technological advancement, and if we don’t start seriously preparing for what AI, automation, and integrated networks might mean, we’re not just risking collapse—we’re risking the unraveling of what we currently understand as human identity. That’s where The Collective was born: from the tension between awe and unease.
What is it that draws you to the science fiction genre?
Because when you strip it down, most science fiction isn’t fiction at all—it’s just reality waiting for its turn. We’ve seen it happen: video calling, AI assistants, smart homes, gene editing. All were science fiction once. Now they’re mundane.
What draws me to sci-fi is its ability to warn and wonder at the same time. It gives us a way to project where we might be headed, both psychologically and technologically. I’m especially interested in evolutionary psychology—the idea that who we are is shaped by eons of survival, pattern recognition, tribalism, and meaning-making. In that sense, science fiction is like an evolutionary premonition. It’s a mirror held up to what we are, and a telescope aimed at what we might become.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Religion was a big one—probably the most quietly controversial. We still live in a world where ancient belief systems shape modern policy and public thought, and that friction between evolutionary progress and archaic ideology fascinates me.
Another central theme is the surrender of meaning. We live in a time where convenience and distraction are replacing purpose and depth. We scroll more than we sit with our thoughts. We chase dopamine more than conviction. I wanted The Collective to reflect that subtle hollowing of the human spirit—how easy it is to give up autonomy and meaning for comfort and ease.
As a quiet nod to that, the chapter titles in the book are drawn from T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men—a poem about the failure of modern humanity to live with purpose. It captures what I think we’re losing: our spark, our center, our reason for being beyond survival and stimulation. In that way, this story isn’t just dystopian—it’s deeply human.
Can you give us a glimpse inside Book 2 of the Echoes We Leave series? Where will it take readers?
Book 2 will take you further into the future—but not that far. The changes coming don’t need centuries to unfold; just a handful of years is enough when the pace of tech evolution is this fast. And the truth is, the signal? It’s not going anywhere. It’s just beginning to evolve.
In the next installment, we’ll venture into the aftermath—not just of what’s happened, but what’s been allowed to happen. You’ll meet resistance movements, fractured ideologies, and a deeper unraveling of what consciousness actually means. Most importantly, we’ll get to follow the characters more intimately—especially those whose relationships and choices were just beginning to form in Book 1. The future they face isn’t distant. It’s disturbingly close.
Author Links: GoodReads
Perfection has a price.
Humanity surrendered its burdens willingly—no more war, no more hunger, no more fear. The Collective promised a world free from suffering, where every thought is refined, every emotion balanced, every decision made for the greater good. A neural network spans the globe, ensuring peace and stability with cold, clinical precision.
But beneath the seamless order, something stirs. A signal—unseen, unheard—slips through the system like a whisper in the dark. It is not an error. It is not an accident. It is watching. And those who notice it soon realize:
The system is not the only thing controlling them. Something else is.
As scientists and engineers working deep within the heart of the Collective begin to uncover the truth, they find themselves faced with an impossible choice—cling to the safety of the world they know or risk everything for the one thing they’ve long forgotten: freedom.
Because once the signal speaks, it does not stop.
And those who listen may never be the same again.
Echoes We Leave: Book 1: The Collective
In Echoes We Leave: Book 1: The Collective, Leah Scudder offers an immersive plunge into a futuristic dystopia where a sophisticated neural network, Synexis, intricately binds humanity into a seemingly harmonious collective. Beneath this flawless integration, however, pulses an unsettling signal, intentional, enigmatic, and quietly invasive, that disrupts the very essence of autonomy and identity. Scudder adeptly follows a handful of scientists, particularly Livia Arden, as they grapple with this anomalous entity and uncover deeper truths about survival, adaptation, and sacrifice in a carefully regulated world.
Scudder’s writing pulls no punches; it’s gripping, vivid, and profoundly unsettling. Her narrative dances elegantly between moments of high-octane tension and poignant introspection. Each sentence, stripped of cumbersome jargon, cuts directly to the emotional heart, resonating with a genuine sense of urgency and dread.
I found myself invested in the characters’ fates, particularly Livia, whose struggles against conformity and control echo deep human anxieties about autonomy in a connected age. The descriptive prose vividly captures the bleak grandeur of the book’s setting, especially the juxtaposition of technological precision against the underlying, creeping menace, giving me chills.
While the atmosphere and prose captivate, moments of suspense sometimes unfold slowly, building up carefully but then resolving quickly. This rhythm created a sense of emotional tension that was occasionally satisfying. Although the philosophical exploration of unity versus individuality was genuinely compelling, I feel the shifts between detailed technological intrigue and intimate personal drama occasionally made the narrative feel a bit less cohesive.
The Collective shines as an astute examination of humanity’s fragile balance between collective security and individual freedom. This book is particularly suited for readers who crave thought-provoking dystopian fiction rich with emotional depth and social critique. Fans of speculative narratives like Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World will find Scudder’s exploration of autonomy and connection particularly resonant. It’s a gripping read that not only thrills but also invites reflection on our current trajectory toward digital interdependence.
Pages: 397 | ASIN : B0F8MFJBBS
Overcoming Fears and Self-Doubt
Rage Against the Machine follows a celebrated filmmaker who explores the dangers of filming and research when she finds herself deep within a world that combines faith and science fiction. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Great question. I always found faith in God and science interrelated because both are sought after in search of truth, understanding why we’re here, with hope for the eternal life while discovering unknown mysteries of God, science, and the universe. I wanted to create a storyline that would weave these forces together and thought science fiction may be an avenue to explore the human struggle of faith and the technological world we live in and have yet to discover.
What do you think is the key to successfully blending spiritual elements within a science fiction plot?
Given this is my debut novel, I’ve learned a lot from my editors and trusted their input. Having said that, I believe too many spiritual elements would actually work against the science fiction plot. The spiritual aspects of the book should be subtle but prolific and nourishing to the soul. The science fiction elements should catch the reader off guard, be impactful, and thought-provoking, leaving the reader wanting to know more.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I thought it was important to highlight overcoming fears and self-doubt and finding inner strength through faith, and forgiveness. Given that A.I. is becoming more integrated into our lives whether we accept it or not, it’s not going away. I felt it was important to recognize the pros and cons of what direction advanced technology may be heading.
Can you give us a glimpse inside the second book in this trilogy? Where will it take readers?
I haven’t started writing the second book of this trilogy yet, but plan on beginning shortly. The outline is completed and is subject to change with a series of drafts before it’s perfected. The second book will delve deeper into the supernatural realm, off-world entities, greater challenges of faith, galactic battles, and bleeding-edge technology that hopefully will startle readers.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon
Amid the challenges and dangers of research and filming, Hunter Barraclough, Roare’s biological father, enters her life for the first time. When Roare reaches her breaking point, help comes from an unlikely source, Sloane McInerney, Roare’s bodyguard. Sloane has his own reasons to join forces with Roare to unmask a malevolent AI lab whose CEO plots to destroy human souls through AI and other-worldly technology. As she battles demonic forces, Roare uses fear and anger to her advantage. But how long will she last before she questions her own survival?
