The Malyon Gambit

About

Genre: Sci-Fi, Space Opera
Themes: Duty and Sacrifice
Pages: 275
Words: 72,822

“The Malyon Gambit” was one of the first things I ever started writing, starting way back in the Summer of 2001. Not knowing anything about writing, and being something of a pantser back then (to be fair, I had a beginning and an ending, but no middle), the first 40K words turned out to be a very meandering Act 1. In order to flesh out the characters and, hopefully, become a better writer, I started writing the Halferne Anthology of backstories for some of the characters. During that time, I learned to outline, to finish drafts, and developed my, some would say awful, habit of not writing linearly, and instead fleshing out whichever scene in whichever book strikes me at the time.

At present, it’s six books, possibly five if I can’t find a way to bolster one thematically and make it individually interesting. It’s 90% outlined, and, including the Anthology, is about 465,000 words and growing. The problem is, now that I’ve cut my teeth in other subgenres and introduced some more hard sci-fi and grounded elements in the Anthology, this series is now completely wrong in tone and style compared to the completed backstory drafts. So, while I plow forward with zeroth drafts, the revisions are probably going to kill me.

Back Cover Blurb

The island megalopolis of Auria is located on the furthest edge of settled space. Crime, hunger, and poverty have been eliminated — for those who believe the propaganda anyway. Transport mechanic and part-time tech pirate, Rik Baddon, isn’t one of those, but after one misplaced good deed, he gets a look beneath the hood of society and the machinery that makes it work.

On the colony world of Malyon, garrison commander and “war hero” Bryn Kirch’s investigation of a terrorist threat to the settlers he is sworn to protect reveals an intricate plot by enemies of Auria, and his attempts to figure out who he can still trust may have already put him on the wrong side of the fight.

Meanwhile, Earth journalist Serah Wyles is sent to Auria to record a sensory vacation and becomes caught in a game of corporate espionage and political intrigue that could bring down an entire world.

All three are unknowing pawns in a complex game of destinies controlled by a mysterious man known only as “Halferne” — a strategy that has been playing out for nearly three decades and is finally approaching a crucial breaking point.