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Metaphysical Talents
Legacy of Valor follows Major Liam O’Connor as he leads a fractured alliance into a brutal campaign on a hostile moon—while navigating family, loyalty, and a mysterious Dreamscape power. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Earth’s recent history contains many memorable battles and warriors to draw inspiration from. The Civil War’s Gettysburg and the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam inspire much of Legacy of Valor. At the Battle of Gettysburg, during the defense of Little Round Top, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his regiment were on the extreme left of the Union line with orders to hold at all costs. He used the terrain to his advantage, ultimately driving the Confederates back. As Chamberlain did to win the battle (and possibly the war), Major Liam O’Connor does in Legacy of Valor, using the ground topography to win the Battle of Treespo; outnumbered, he held his position until reinforcements arrived.
Another battle on Earth that took place 100 years later was in the Ia Drang Valley of Vietnam. Lt. Colonel Harold (Hal) Moore faced a numerically superior North Vietnamese force. He coordinated his troops to use the artillery on the ground along with air power to hold their position. Using these same battle tactics, Major O’Connor channeled the spirits of Chamberlain and Moore by remaining outwardly calm in the face of overwhelming odds and thinking quickly. He employed the terrain, artillery, and air power, along with orbital forces, to keep his warriors alive.
In this second novel of the series, Legacy of Valor, the triplets are still children who grew up hearing stories of their father’s exploits. Liam now leads Etursci’s Special Operations Company and is attached to the New Terran Marine Corps’ Third Division to retake the moon called Treespo, orbiting the planet Beta Proximus IV, from Marshal Kergan’s Rebel forces. “No plan survives its first encounter with the enemy,” is an old Marine saying. Minutes after landing on the hostile surface of Treespo, treachery decapitates the division, leaving Liam the senior combat officer. Deception has stripped the Third Division of its support. As forces scramble to assist both sides, Liam must keep the warriors under his command alive.
For personal inspiration, there are science fiction books that use psionics like ESP (Extra Sensory Perception), though I put my unique twist on it. Few Military Science Fiction books explore a person’s consciousness being used outside the body, which is called “Dreamwalking.” While Dreamwalking, a person often has to fight enemy Dreamwalkers. I also drew inspiration from video games such as Halo, in particular with weapons and tactics in space combat.
The Dreamscape adds a unique layer to the story. What narrative challenges came with blending physical and metaphysical combat?
I explore the military use of Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) powers. For such metaphysical talents to be convincing, I must clearly explain the ESP abilities and their associated costs. To do this, I show that the protagonist does not have an overwhelming advantage, or the reader won’t believe they could lose in a battle.
Belief is critical in the Dreamscape. If a person doesn’t believe he or she can do something in the Dreamscape, such as fly or walk through something, they will not be able to do it. Conversely, when someone is attacked in the Dreamscape, weapons directed at them don’t really exist. Therefore, the victim can only be harmed if they believe the weapon can harm them. This makes the ability to disbelieve an important defense against someone’s attack. However, believing and disbelieving require years of training to discipline one’s mind. As Jarek (an expert at Dreamwalking in Dreamscape Warriors Series) said, “the slightest doubt could kill you.”
While moving around, one’s own subconscious uses very little energy, communicating over a great distance or moving outside the body uses energy more rapidly. When a person is exhausted, the Dreamscape seems filled with fog to the point that they might not be able to find their way back to their body.
Related to Dreamwalking is the ability to “Step Out of Time.” This technique enables a warrior to slow the time around him without it affecting him. In battle, they can move very rapidly, giving them a distinct advantage over their enemy for a limited time. However, like Dreamwalking, it uses energy, and a person can be dragged back into regular time once they become tired.
Are there more stories planned in this Dreamscape Universe?
In my books, I explore family dynamics, especially during times of crisis and separation. The triplets and their brother play a major role in the third novel, Promise of Mercy. Aisling, Bayvin, and especially Deirdre, needed to be their father’s daughters. The girls returned home after advanced training in the Finnian Shock Forces. They’ve inherited their father’s marksmanship, his leadership skills, and his ESP powers. However, they aren’t clones of each other. Deirdre is their best shot, and leadership comes naturally to her. Aisling is an explosives expert and pilot. Bayvin specializes in electronic warfare and excels in military intelligence. Their brother is still in his teens but is already a skilled pilot. We also meet Marissa, a former Rebel war criminal who must confront her past once her daughter, Gayla, is born. Marissa goes against Kergan to befriend Liam and return him to his family.
In the fourth book, Addiction of Power, Liam is older. His daughters are now middle-aged. His son, Aidan, is a veteran fighter pilot. The daughter that Liam and his wife Celinia conceived in Promise of Mercy, Tetia, is in her teens and planning to follow her mother’s path as a priestess and healer. The theme of family carries over. Aidan agrees to deliver information to Finnian Intelligence while on a trip with his Great Aunt Máire and sister Tetia when Kergan attacks their ship. After escaping, Marissa and her daughter Gayla, whom the audience meets in Promise of Mercy befriend Aidan and his family. This starts a journey to end a 700-year interstellar civil war. Factions on both sides of the conflict must wrestle with the implications of peace: an end to the bloodshed versus losing power. It also plants the seeds for threats from beyond the Milky Way.
While I was writing the Dreamscape Warriors Series, I realized my central characters had interesting personal life adventures—and I wanted to write about them. These can be major emergencies that only last a matter of minutes, or everyday surprises that take us down unexpected roads. They make up the backstories of each person’s life. This realization started me writing the Sci-Fi Short Book Series based on the characters in the Dreamscape Warriors Novels.
The first short book in the series, Way of Forgiveness, highlights the main character, Liam O’Connor, between the first and second volumes. Liam is not sitting idle between the novels. Things happen in his life that are not covered in the full-length novel, but make a good story in this short book. Here, I focus on Liam’s journey to understand the nature of forgiveness as he struggles through and learns from his archenemy, Licinious.
In the next short book, Evolution of Leadership, Deirdre (one of Liam’s triplet daughters) goes from being a scamp who always leads her siblings to mischief into a military leader. As she goes through her advanced trooper training, Deirdre learns to make responsible decisions when others’ lives are on the line.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Kurt’s Frontier | Facebook | Price of Vengeance | LinkedIn | X (Twitter) | Amazon
Legacy of Valor
Legacy of Valor follows Major Liam O’Connor, soldier, husband, reluctant legend, bookended by the sight of a spaceport’s lights pulling him home. In the prologue, he’s greeted not by one newborn, but a tidy ambush of three, and that quiet domestic jolt becomes the heartbeat under the armor. Eleven years later, the wider fuse is lit: Marshal Kergan’s rebellion seizes Treespo, a methane-skied mining moon stuffed with rare elements, and the Alliance throws together a hybrid special-ops company, Neo-Etruscan SPEC CO plus New Terran Marines, under Liam’s command to carve out a landing zone and hold it in an atmosphere where a bad seal can turn you into a torch.
What surprised me first was how much tenderness the novel dares to keep on the page while everyone is carrying rifles. The triplets aren’t just “stakes”; they’re texture, little gravitational bodies pulling Liam’s thoughts back toward mercy even when the mission wants him reduced to a tool. And the dreamscape element, this half-mystical, half-disciplined mental terrain, doesn’t feel pasted on as a flashy gimmick; it’s intimate communication, spiritual practice, and battlefield vulnerability all at once. When Liam has to drop into trance while rounds fly, it reads like stepping onto thin ice: you can be brilliant and still go under.
I also liked the book’s willingness to let war be complicated without getting coy about it. The antagonist side gets real oxygen, Kergan isn’t a cardboard tyrant, and when the fighting turns personal, the consequences land with a dull, ugly thud. The dreamscape combat sequences, in particular, have a sharp, almost tactile choreography, less “wizard duel,” more knife-fight conducted in belief and misdirection. Some briefing-and-spec passages linger a beat too long, but even then the author’s fondness for practical detail (suits, procedures, unit culture) gives the story a grounded, lived-in smell, like hot metal cooling after a firefight.
This is for readers who want military science fiction, space opera, psychic fantasy, and alien-contact adventure braided into one campaign narrative, especially if you like competence under pressure, squad dynamics, and a dash of metaphysical weirdness that still behaves by rules. If you’ve enjoyed the disciplined military heft of David Weber (with a more mystical sub-current), you’ll likely settle into this world fast.
Pages: 442 | ASIN : B0CW974QW3
Dreamwalking
Price of Vengeance follows a traumatized soldier on a besieged alien world who must choose between revenge and redemption as war, political betrayal, and a telepathic enemy force him to confront the true cost of vengeance. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
No matter how enviable another person’s life seems to be from the outside, on the inside, we all have demons we have to confront. For many people, these demons begin early in childhood. Liam became an orphan at two when giant insects called “Chitin” murdered his family. After witnessing his parents’ deaths at such a young age, a prominent family brought him up. Even though he was raised by people who loved him, including an older foster brother who swore to protect him, nightmares plagued Liam.
When cut off from the city, Liam learns that an alien intelligence controls the insects. More devastating is that a person who was a political rival to his foster father arranged his parents’ deaths. When he returns to the city and learns of his foster mother and father’s deaths, many of the old wounds reopen.
For personal inspiration, there are science fiction books that use ESP (Extra Sensory Perception), though I put my unique twist on it. Few military science fiction books explore a person’s consciousness being used outside the body, which is called “Dreamwalking.” While Dreamwalking a person often has to fight enemy Dreamwalkers. I also drew inspiration from video games such as Halo, in particular with weapons and tactics in space combat.
What drew you to tell this story through a young, emotionally wounded protagonist rather than a seasoned commander?
It should be pointed out that at the beginning of Price of Vengeance, Liam holds the rank of sergeant, and sergeants are not green recruits. The Neo-Etruscan Self-Defense Force draws its officers from the ranks rather than using specialized officer training programs. Liam is 22 at the beginning of the story and began serving at 18. He has fought Chitin before. However, until the events of this book, he had never had to kill a sentient being.
Most combat soldiers acquire wounds, both visible and invisible, as they serve. Like Liam, they must learn to face down their demons. The Dreamscape Warriors Series often depicts how the warriors cope with the traumas they have faced. Kergan, the antagonist in the next three books, was orphaned when alliance warships bombed his family’s home. Having watched his parents and sisters incinerated, he grew into a ruthless Rebel Commander, while still being considered an effective leader by both sides.
In contrast, Liam’s own children, who are featured in the next books in the series, the triplets Deirdre, Aisling, and Bayvin, with their younger brother Aidan, grew up with both parents, loving their mother and looking up to their father. One doesn’t need to be emotionally wounded in their youth to be a hero or villain.
The book never lets revenge feel free or clean. How did you approach writing violence with consequence?
Revenge, especially revenge carried out in rage, is never clean. Liam’s foster parents brought him up with the belief that revenge is wrong—a belief many religions preach. The traitor, Licinious, had his birth parents and foster parents murdered. One cannot dispute that Liam had a right to be angry. However, he chose to feed his rage.
Once Liam exacted his revenge on Licinious, his religious upbringing reasserted itself. The shock was terrible. Liam realized that what he had done was wrong and could not be undone. Once safely back at the building he was using as a base, he needed to do some soul-searching.
Jarek, who has been mentoring Liam through the Dreamscape, cannot offer comfort, only perspective. Liam must learn to live with what he has done. Jarek offers some hope that because Liam feels this way, it means he still knows right from wrong and knows he must find a way to atone.
Is this the first book in the series? If so, when is the next book coming out, and what can your fans expect in the next story?
There are currently three books in the series, with a fourth planned for late summer of 2026. Legacy of Valor takes place on the world of Treespo, where Liam must help retake the moon. Promise of Mercy features Liam’s children as they try to rescue their parents and prevent the launch of a weapon with the potential of destroying civilization.
The importance of family carries over to the fourth book, Addiction of Power. Liam is older. His daughters are middle-aged. His son, Aidan, is a veteran fighter pilot. Liam and his wife Celinia conceived a fourth child in Promise of Mercy. In the fourth book, Tetia is in her teens and planning to follow her mother’s path as a priestess and healer.
In Addiction of Power, Aidan agrees to deliver information to Finnian Intelligence while on a trip with his great aunt, Máire, and sister, Tetia, when Kergan attacks their ship. Aidan escapes with his family and is befriended by a war criminal and her daughter, whom we meet in Promise of Mercy. This starts them on a journey to end a 700-year interstellar civil war. Factions on both sides of the conflict must wrestle with the implications of peace: an end to the bloodshed versus losing power. It also plants the seeds for threats from beyond our galaxy.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Price of Vengeance | LinkedIn | Website | Kurt’s Frontier | Amazon
Courage Facing Overwhelming Odds
Promise of Mercy blends political upheaval, telepathic warfare, and a frantic intergalactic rescue mission involving the Dreamscape Warriors. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The triplets (Deirdre, Aisling, and Bayvin) get their inspiration from their father, who is their hero. In the first book, Price of Vengeance, Liam became an orphan at two when giant insects called “Chitin” destroyed his family’s farm and killed his parents. Taken in by a prominent family on the planet of Etrusci, they raise him alongside their own son, Randolf. Liam joined the city’s military as an adult. When he is cut off from the last city on the planet, he discovers an alien intelligence (named Azurius) controlling the Chitin and that a traitor is responsible for his parents’ deaths. After getting back into the city, he discovers the traitor had his beloved foster parents murdered. While doing what he can to thwart the alien, he gives in to his desire for vengeance and slaughters the traitor. However, his moral upbringing reasserts itself. Left full of remorse, he still needs to defeat Azurius and save his people from destruction.
In the second novel, Legacy of Valor, the triplets are only children, having grown up hearing stories of their father’s exploits. Liam now leads Etursci’s Special Operations Company and is attached to the New Terran Marine Corps’ Third Division to retake the moon of Treespo, orbiting the planet Beta Proximus IV, from Marshal Kergan’s Rebel forces. “No plan survives its first encounter with the enemy,” is an old Marine saying. Minutes after landing on the hostile surface of Treespo, treachery decapitates the division, leaving Liam the senior combat officer. Treachery has stripped the Third Division of its support. As forces scramble to assist both sides, Liam must keep the warriors under his command alive.
For personal inspiration, there are science fiction books that use ESP (Extra Sensory Perception), though I put my unique twist on it. Few military science fiction books explore a person’s consciousness being used outside the body, which is called “Dreamwalking.” While Dreamwalking a person often has to fight enemy Dreamwalkers. I also drew inspiration from video games such as Halo, in particular with weapons and tactics in space combat.
How do you manage character development throughout your series?
I decide what type of character I need. Sometimes it develops organically. Other times, I must do research on the type of training they would require and the equipment they would use. Then I develop their backstory to figure out what motivates them. Things like childhood trauma, safety, and support during formative development, and how this shapes a character in the novel. This was especially true in Price of Vengeance, where the death of Liam’s birth parents helped to shape him.
In Legacy of Valor, I set up a scenario where Liam was forced to take charge of a campaign, fighting against overwhelming odds. I needed characters who were combat veterans on both sides. This included a solid Rebel Commander in the form of General Sorel Maranz. Marshal Kergan, who, like Liam, suffered from childhood trauma but dealt with it by becoming vengeful. The story also required an experienced, no-nonsense non-commissioned officer. Enter Gunnery Sergeant Anthony Russo.
In Promise of Mercy, the triplets, Aisling, Bayvin, and especially Deirdre, needed to be their father’s daughters. The girls returned home after advanced training in the Finnian Shock Forces. They’ve inherited their father’s marksmanship, his leadership skills, and his ESP powers. However, they aren’t clones of each other. Deirdre is their best shot, and leadership comes naturally to her. Aisling is an explosives expert and pilot. Bayvin specializes in electronic warfare and excels in military intelligence. Their brother is still in his teens but is already a skilled pilot. We also meet Marissa, a former Rebel war criminal who must confront her past once her daughter, Gayla, is born. Marissa goes against Kergan to befriend Liam and return him to his family.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
As this is the third book in my series, several themes from the first and second novels carry through: the importance of family ties, the pitfalls of vengeance, and the need for courage when facing overwhelming odds. Liam draws strength from his family, even though he was an orphan. His love for family led him down a path of revenge against a traitor. Upon achieving his vengeance, Liam instantly realized it was a mistake, eventually evolving past the need for revenge.
Kergan lost his family when he was young as well and is still traumatized by it. This makes him obsessed with punishing those responsible. Kergan is an effective leader, and his followers are loyal. Yet, holding on to his pain has made him ruthless to his enemies. Deirdre, in Promise of Mercy, has sworn to kill a Rebel war criminal named Marissa for her crimes. As she continues the search for her father, doubt gnaws at her.
Courage is another central theme. Liam and his family face overwhelming odds throughout the series. Liam has needed to push past physical injury in Price of Vengeance. In Legacy of Valor, he must step into shoes seemingly too big for him and keep the combined human forces alive until help can arrive. Deirdre keeps a larger Rebel force at bay as they search for their father and seek to deny Kergan the use of his new terror weapon.
Can we look forward to a fourth installment of the Dreamscape Warriors series? Where will it take readers?
In the fourth book, Addiction of Power, Liam is older. His daughters are now middle-aged. His son, Aidan, is a veteran fighter pilot. The daughter that Liam and his wife Celinia conceived in Promise of Mercy, Tetia, is in her teens and planning to follow her mother’s path as a priestess and healer. The theme of family carries over. Aidan agrees to deliver information to Finnian Intelligence while on a trip with his Great Aunt Máire and sister Tetia when Kergan attacks their ship. After escaping, Marissa and her daughter Gayla, whom the audience meets in Promise of Mercy befriends Aidan and his family. This starts a journey to end 700 years interstellar civil war. Factions on both sides of the conflict must wrestle with the implications of peace; an end to the bloodshed versus losing power. It also plants the seeds for threats from beyond the Milky Way
Author Links: GoodReads | X | Facebook-Author | Facebook-Book | LinkedIn | Website | Blog
Price of Vengeance
Price of Vengeance is a military science fiction novel with a strong young adult feel, laced with paranormal dreamwalking, telepathic creatures, and a slow-burning romance. On the besieged planet Etrusci, Liam grows up as the adopted son of a city leader after chitin insectoids slaughter his farmstead family. As an adult soldier, he is still haunted by that night, volunteering for lonely border outposts and hiding from festivals and crowds. A massive, engineered attack, political betrayal from Councilor Licinious, and the ruthless alien mastermind Azurius rip the last safety nets out from under him. Liam is blown clear of a doomed outpost, teams up with a telepathic “bear lizard” named Swift Hunter, uncovers sabotage and assassination plots, and fights his way back toward his brother Randolf, the empathic high priestess Celinia, and a city under siege. The book builds toward a brutal final confrontation with Azurius and a hard-earned, quietly hopeful ending where family, faith, and love survive the wreckage.
What I enjoyed most was Liam himself and how author Kurt Springs lets his trauma bleed into everything he does. Liam is never just a badass sniper. Even when he is holding the line at Taho and choosing to destroy the portal rather than let the enemy into New Olympia, you can feel how much the little boy who survived the farm massacre is still inside the lieutenant. His guilt over Jorge’s death, his parents’ murder back in the city, and the way he replayed choices in his head felt painfully human. I liked that the military science-fiction side isn’t all shiny tactics and tech. The battles are loud and messy and sometimes unfair, and people die because of sabotage or politics, not just because the chitin are scary. The book’s title pays off: every step toward vengeance costs someone something, and Springs does not let Liam or Randolf look away from that.
The author’s choices around the “dreamscape” and spiritual elements surprised me in a good way. Celinia helping Liam reshape his nightmares instead of just banishing them was one of my favorite sequences, because it made healing feel active rather than magical. Their relationship grows out of that inner work, plus shared danger, instead of insta-love. The telepathic bond with Swift Hunter adds another emotional layer. Those campfire conversations about family, hatchlings, and the “Maker” gave the story a warm, almost mythic texture in the middle of all the plasma fire. I also appreciated that Azurius is not just a cackling villain. He quotes Shakespeare, respects skill, and genuinely tempts Liam with a chance to save lives if he will just compromise himself. When he dies, quoting Romeo and Juliet back and forth with Randolf, it comes across as sad and eerie rather than just “finally, the monster is dead.”
The writing itself is straightforward and clean, which fits the tone. Action scenes are easy to follow, with clear stakes and geography. The big set pieces – the fall of the Taho outposts, Liam stumbling injured across abandoned sectors, the sewer interception of Licinious’s assassins, the last stand around the Temple – all have that tense, cinematic feel. At the same time, there are quiet moments the book lets breathe: Randolf comforting a terrified toddler in a crib, Liam becoming “Uncle Liam” to Jorge’s twins, the wedding scene where the dead briefly appear at the altar. A few conversations explain ideas a bit more directly than they need to, but I’d rather have a science fiction novel wear its heart on its sleeve than try to be cool and detached when it is clearly about grief, faith, and choosing who you become after loss.
Price of Vengeance feels like a solid fit for readers who enjoy character-driven military science fiction that leans into emotion and spiritual questions as much as tactics. If you like the idea of a YA-flavored story where a small, scarred sniper wrestles with survivor’s guilt, bonds with a telepathic predator, falls in love with a dreamwalking priestess, and has to decide what kind of warrior he wants to be, this is worth your time. If you want an action-heavy, hopeful story about family, faith, and the real cost of revenge, Price of Vengeance delivers.
Pages: 309 | ASIN : B0CQ5QH3D6
