Stuff

Here you will see my published works, last book reads, and art I commissioned over the years.

My fiction

While the Confederacy has been locked in an interstellar war with the Imperium for the past century and a half, war hero Lawrence Mengde has done everything to end it. He yearns to observe history, not shape it. But what can one man do to carve out an everlasting peace in the face of a forever war?

As the conflict rages on, it begins to make Lawrence question himself his role in this carnage: does he become the very tyrant he spent his life opposing, or does he remain a dutiful soldier, a mere pawn, who could lose everything still dear to him?

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Older fics

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My Book Reviews

Starship Troopers, read 2026

Reading this right after Moon Mistress was quite an experience. It was a shock to see firsthand how completely different it was from the movie, despite this the book was "a pretty good yarn". It did feel more like a checklist rather than the Heinlein I was reading up to this point, and crazy to me that he put aside writing the monsterious 200k word Stranger in a Strange Land to write this—and it kinda showed in the way he wrote it, all this "this happened and this happened, before this happened this happened," and the distinct lack of any real character given depth, or anything resemblacing characters living and breathing. New characters are introduced with their names and then you file them back of you're mind since they either exist to die or just don't brought up or do anything. But Heinlein shines with his character sockpuppet sermons. I didn't mind the lack and sparse combat scenes—he hand waves a lot and shit happens offscreen, deal with it loser. I think readers get spoiled by the movie and don't know how hard it is to write a lot of action scenes and keep them from being repetitive. Heinlein does it in Moon and he did it Stranger, so it didn't particularly bother me at all. But when he does focus on them it kept me engaged and my fingers sweaty devouring it all the same. Where Moon Mistress focused on plotting a conspiracy to overthrow a government and the struggles of creating your own, Heinlein explored how violence is inevitable when it comes to resolving conflict—us or them. It's a bit outdated since this came out, obviously, before the Indochina conflicts and the war on terror that would come after Heinlein's time.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, read 2026

Moon is a Harsh Mistress was a particularly hard novel to get into initially—boy did it wound up a slog—and after getting accustomed to the bizarre Russo-English 1st person dialect, it was an interesting read. I was intrigued by the intricacies of forming a conspiracy and the importance of 3-man cells, and how to start a revolution, and the political aftermath of one when it succeeded. Compared to the Heinlein novel I read after, the characters had some depth to them and sort did more than just exist, they had some agency but Mike and the Professor were my favorites, since they reminded me of Mike and Jubal from Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein likes writing these kind of characters I suppose since it gives him his mouthpiece to spout his political yappings.

Rendezvous with Rama, read 2026

At only 214 pages, it felt surprisingly short. Clark set out exactly what he wanted with the book and before you know it, it's over. It sort of lacks any real character substance to the characters and focuses on the Rama mystery instead, but you still get some interesting charactistics out of them. I feel this has helped me improve in my own writing.

Stranger in a Strange Land, uncut, read 2025

A monster of a novel that originally had over 20,000 words cut for economical reasons. As I have not read the cut version, it is hard to say if it was for good reason. This is very much grounded in the 1950s/1960 and it shows. It's awfully preachy at times and nearly as bewildering as Frank Herbert in his twilight years. I seldom ever reread books but I may reread this after I exhaust my library. It was very interesting and though I feel I understood little, it's given me perspectives on life as a 30/yo.

The Odyssey, read 2025

The granddaddy of storytelling. It was very interesting to say the least, and like with SIASL, I feel since reading it back in late 2025 I've grown a bit more as a person as I journey through harsh life as a man trying to find his footing in a crapsack world.

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