Books

These are the writing projects holding my interest the most. Some of these may be dropped or left to wait while other books are completed. Thus is the nature of the creative process.

The Starlight Monad

Long ago, after the Storm annihilated their planet’s technology, bards became the sole purveyors of history. By the Tower older than songs know and taller than eyes see, Shran Mattian receives an invitation for him and his mother, Liza, to enter. The disturbing events atop the Tower grant gifts, separating son, father, and mother. Through his gift, Shran flees into the monad, a pocket-sized world whose nature defies expectation, while Liza’s new powers over vibrance, the sustenance of all life, pull her into a web of dark secrets.

I’m very excited for this novel, which stands complete at 80k words prior to publishing. The whole thing is a microcosm of a much larger world and much larger struggle on the planet Tew, with all events packed into a few days of time, and ostensibly within a couple mile radius of each other. The inspirations behind this story and these events are too numerous to credit here, but the first inspiration was a dream upon which the climax of the first section is based.

As a little pre-release treat, I’ve included the first three chapters here for no charge. Check them out below, and let me know what you think when you’re done.

Read sample

Back-burner projects

Hallow Frames

Medieval sci-fi fantasy mechs help mankind fight a much more advanced race of alien conquerors. When the lead character’s love from childhood accepts the proposal of another, our hero decides it’s time to take the oaths of the Hallow Corps.

In order to pilot the gigantic armored battle-mech, members of the Corps must temporarily bond with its Hallow. Hallows are powerful but denuded aliens that animate the mechs, to protect mankind. A pilot must have as complete ownership of himself as possible, any less and the bond will fail. So, the young hero and his buddies in the Hallow Corps must forsake any bonds of marriage to stand a chance at driving the powerful mechs, before mankind is wiped out.

Everwatch

A decade ago, a vile swarm of wisps invaded the mayorship of Enteron. A human’s prolonged stare is enough to wash one of these creatures out of the physical realm for a while, but the swarm persists wherever no one’s looking.

They turn turning sleeping men, beasts and even molds into rabid monsters suitable only to be locked up or cut down. Yet, one abandoned orphan finds the wisps cannot steal his will completely. Can he overcome, and can the scourge ever be stopped?

This was inspired simply by the name of Shad Brooks, second big YouTube channel. Therein he always ends with the tag-line, “Stay on watch.”

The novel is planned to take place on the same planet as The Starlight Monad, and would explore in more depth some of the disturbing entities encountered in that book.

Obliviators

In this project, there are several rival clans, each with unique psychic powers.

The lead clan has Obliviation as their in-born ability. An “obliviator” uses the psychic energy bound to a certain memory to make part of the memory recur. The original memory is burned up like fuel, and the more powerful the memory, the greater potential for the recurrence.

A rival clan has the ability of Cognitics–irreversibly bonding to someone else’s memory. Whenever the subject thinks of that memory, both of them are equally aware of it. This is also the only way to bring back obliviated memories. Cognitic powers over one person increase based on how many bonds are formed with him or her.

There is also a psychic power called Harmonics, which allows for reversable memory sharing. It should not be confused with Cognitics.