Pulse rifles vs. High Fantasy

I did something dangerous last year…

I opened the archives.

I dug up a manuscript from my late teens called Darklight.

Space marines. Dragon lords. A love triangle that made Twilight look restrained. It had edges sharp enough to cut glass and the subtlety of a brick fight.

The pitch was simple. Aliens meets Army of Darkness. It was a tonal disaster. I loved it.

I should have left it in a drawer to rot. That would have been the safe choice.

Fuck that.

I couldn’t shake the hook. High-tech crew, low-tech world. Assault rifles versus dragons. The friction was too good.

So I rewrote it.

I stripped out the teen angst. Kept the chainsaw energy. Built a crew that actually felt like a crew.

The result is my novella: The Wall, The Wing, and The Warrior.

It’s the first book in The Siege of Aegis series and it’s available now.

The Setup

The starship Aegis crashes on a planet that looks like a fantasy novel cover. Castles. Swords. Dragons.

But the scanners pick up something else.

Not magic. Something industrial. Something waiting for them.

The Crew

The crew of the Aegis is a family. They are dysfunctional, loud, and loyal.

At the center is E.U.T.E.R.P.E., the ship’s AI. She swears like a dockworker and loves them like a mother.

But something under the mountain knows her name. It speaks her language.

The crew has to survive the locals, the dragons, and the revelation that their crash might not have been an accident.

Why you should read it

My usual books are about the machine winning.

This is about the people who break the machine. It’s the same sharp edges, just swinging in a different direction.

When the starship Aegis crashes on a world of prophecy and fire, Captain Vance’s crew discovers they’ve landed in the middle of a siege and a family’s breaking point.

An ancient AI called Z.E.U.S. has awakened, demanding the return of his ‘daughter’—the Aegis’s sarcastic, music-obsessed intelligence, E.U.T.E.R.P.E. She doesn’t yet know the dark secret buried in her code.

His psionic armies march on the Silver Bastion, last fortress of its kind, where Lord Caedric’s son has been turned into a weapon against his own blood. Now two families face impossible choices. One is bound by lineage, the other by loyalty forged in fire.

To endure, Vance and his crew must decide what they’re willing to fight for and what they’re willing to lose. Because when gods demand obedience and prophecy is carved in stone, the only answer left is defiance.

Family isn’t just what you’re born into.
It’s what you choose to die for.