The Protectorate, Book One

Back in 2013, I published a book. It all started the first time I was laid off. It was 2009, and I found myself with no job for the first time in my life. I learned, rather quickly, that too much idle time is not great for my mental health, and so I started to write.

Then, around three years ago, I found myself not working again, and I decided to start writing book 2 of the series. I had started it a long while back but it sat there, unattended, for way too long. While I was writing book 2, I started to think about book 1 again, and decided to go back, read it, and maybe edit it a little bit. After a couple of years, I ended up adding two new chapters, around 100 pages, and giving it a serious edit (it needed it).

At the end of 2025, the book was done, covers were being designed, and now they are ready. Here are the links:

Ebooks:

Printed:

Amazon (coming soon!)
Barnes & Noble (coming soon!)
I have ordered author’s copies (1/8/2026), and will be distributing them locally when I receive them. I will have a couple extras around.

Here’s a peek at the cover art (Thanks Merri Collins)

Book 1, Part 2 — Cover art by Merri Collins

If you are interested in Science Fiction, I would love to have you acquire a copy. I think you’ll enjoy it. Here’s the brief description:

There comes a point, inevitably, when a civilization must mature. For Thalea, that was its first interaction with another species, mistakes, and centuries of war. For Brax, a Thalean who lives centuries after this history, his own growing up becomes encumbered by the weight of the history of those mistakes. Despite his surviving the greatest calamity his civilization has ever seen, the trauma of it pulls him into a world of secrets and power.

The Cooperative, a political and economic alliance of five worlds and their colonies, seems to be in its height of peace and prosperity after 14 centuries of collaboration. But it is an illusion, hidden by efforts of men and women—if you can call them that anymore–who are burdened with a kind of power that few without it could hope to understand.

What mistakes has history, culture, and secrets wrought? What can a traumatized boy, who becomes a man in the gauntlet of such history, do about it? Who and what are the Protectorate, and what is the source, and consequence, of their power?

Share with all of your friends, and please let me know what you think!

Ignore this. This is just me sharing what I usually don’t post to the “real” world

It’s all real.

(Bon sees you, and also me, and considers us primitive, yet there’s still time for us to figure it out)

So, forgive me for bothering the like 6 people who read this, but I was trying to solve a puzzle.

OK, so I have talked about how I get into these phases where I read a lot, think a lot, then become grumpy.

OK, I”m lying, I was grumpy the whole time.

In any case, this particular time I did that (like, today), I was also done writing for like 5 out of the last 6 days (had to take a night off to see a 90’s cover band, because that’s what you do when you become my age, etc) when I realized that I had forgotten to write down the ideas I had while waiting between bands.

I had dragged my friend out (let’s call him Patrick, because that’s my middle name) because he had had his heart trampled upon 2 weeks earlier, and the dude just needed to scream out some Rage Against The Machine (Fuck you, I won’t do what you told me) like we all do sometimes. In any case, good show. But before they came on, I had a thought. I had been trying to figure out how to sum up, into something simpler, the theme of what I was writing for the last week or so, and it came to me after some No Doubt song (which I sort of like, actually).

And, with no further ramblings, here is essentially what it was, as reconstructed in a hot shower, after the fact:

January 15, 2024

Shower Power Thoughts

Power

Control

Transcendence

*****

In the trauma of our young age, we sought power

Having gained power, we realized we weren’t in control

Having gained Control, we realized it wasn’t ours, so we set it free

*****

It is a hard thing to do, perhaps, but it is the only way for us to transcend into….

We are not in control; without control, whose power are we wielding?

Transcendence won’t make sense to us yet; that’s the only thing I understand about Transcendence.

*****

I abdicate my role in your story, for now.

But remember: Power, Control, and maybe Transcendence.

Power now available via Smashwords!

Thanks to Ginny, who created this image for me — My book cover (thanks Ginny!)

I wrote yesterday about how I wrote a book and got it epublished on Amazon.com. Well, I had at least one person who requested that I make it available for the Nook, and so went over to Smashwords and got it epublished there as well. So, if you have a Nook, and iPad, (or a textpad!) you can read it now.

Get your copy today!

Sorry paper book readers, no dead tree copies available. I won’t get any printed until there is any significant demand for that. Right now, the demand is light (I did sell a couple of copies on Amazon yesterday, which was fun to see). I may decide to get some printed just so I can have one on my bookshelf, and maybe to give out to some friends and family who may want one, but for now that’s not a direction I’m going.

Again, let me know what you think, and if you do like it tell your friends. It would make me happy to share this universe in my head with more people.