NOVELS

THIS PAGE LISTS MY NOVELS, followed by a couple that I plan to write. Like everyone else, I also wrote a practice novel or two not listed here; no need for details. Check back soon for news! I'll keep you updated here.

Want to get a glimpse inside? Click the links to read sample chapters. I'll continue uploading sections as they near publication, and when nearing publication, I'll make ebooks and more available here, too!

Completed Novels

TRANSCENDENCE

Near-future cyberpunk/space opera/coming-of-age/new-wave philosophical action SF. Humankind rushes toward self-destruction, and we must evolve or die. Our perspective on the approaching catastrophe includes a teen-aged hacker lost in Minneapolis, a scientist who discovers an alien artifact on Triton, three actors who become the catalyst for system-wide war, the de-facto controller of the Western world, a soldier fighting in Africa to entertain his subscribers, an artificial intelligence facing a personal crisis, and a cast of billions.

NEWS: Coming to print in early 2010 from Hadley Rille Books! Free downloads and more available as soon as production is complete.

EMPIRE SHIP

Hard-edged far-future SF. A menace from the ancient past threatens galactic civilization. Aboard a world-sized Empire Ship, a boy comes of age in a society that sharpens men into weapons while the ship's Captain plans to resurrect the Empire. Meanwhile, a woman launches a mission to destroy the threat and must decide how best to save the human species. Along the way, she works to save her father from her boss while teaching a couple of borderline-psychopaths about loyalty and love... sorta.

TIME CLOGGED WITH SPACE

Medium-future SF. Two hard-drinking spacecraft pilots wreck their supercargo ship on an alien planet and stumble into a secret interstellar war. While dealing with the fallout, one man comes to terms with losing his son while the other falls deeper into the external drama.

ONE GOOD WAR

Near-future SF. A disturbed software engineer tells two parallel tales: The first is his personal story of coming of age in small-town America; the other is an adventure arising from first contact with aliens and conspiracy to commit terrorism on a vast scale... and why he ended up saving the human species he sought to destroy.

Upcoming Novels

TRANSCENDENTAL

With James Gunn
Far-future SF. A diverse group of humans and other Galactics join a pilgrimage they believe will bring them to a long-dead world housing a transcendental machine. This fabled device has led to the rise of Transcendentalism, a religion that threatens the teetering equilibrium that has preserved galactic civilization until now. Each fears others using the machine to become superior beings, so representatives from many Galactics have joined on this voyage for a variety of reasons. Violence, romance, and death - from outside and inside the group - accompany their journey across the stars and to alien worlds. Between adventures along the way, the pilgrims tell stories about their homeworlds, ostensibly explaining why they have joined the pilgrimage.

As Riley, our protagonist, fights to stay alive and battles the AI his employers implanted in his head, he must answer many questions: Who hired him? Who is the prophet secretly leading the pilgrimage? Who (or what) doesn’t want the pilgrimage to reach its goal? And will this new religion destroy civilization or, perhaps, save us?

MY DAD WAS AN ALIEN

Near-future young-adult SF. When a brother and sister reach adolescence and begin to remember things they never learned, they discover that they're only half human. This revelation throws them into the middle of a millennia-long interstellar conflict that threatens to destroy all life on Earth, and only they can save the world! I see this as an ongoing series of adventures as our heroes travel the galaxy as secret representatives of humankind, facing a wide variety of crises that they can only solve by learning and growing.

BREAKTHROUGH

Near-future SF. Beings from another universe tunnel into ours and download a vast amount of data into one man's mind. They tell him that they hope to save their vastly superior civilization by enlisting us in a grand scheme: For those willing to help, they promise eternal life and paradise... but - even if they can be trusted - the price might be the destruction of our universe and surrendering our humanity. Our protagonist must decode the aliens' agenda while human civilization shudders under the revelation he offers. Only when he recognizes that he holds the key to unlock the passage between our universes does he realize how he can save both... but time is short as the Earth teeters toward self-immolation: Religious ideologies first reject the news and then fight to incorporate what they have learned into their structures, economic and political structures are shaken to their roots, and our protagonist faces not only the loss of his world but the woman closest to him if he cannot solve the problems he has caused.

THE VIVISECTIONIST

Modern SF-horror. One of our main characters is "the Vivisectionist," a self-styled superhero... and serial murderer. He decided at a young age to use his power to sustain life (while doing horrible things) for good; that is, to remove bad people from the streets, torture confessions out of them, distribute their detailed confessions, and then transform his subjects into tools to help perpetuate his mission. The other main characters include a man who receives one of these confessions - a recording of his child's murderer - and a cop who discovers the Vivisectionist's identity.