Tag Archives: science fantasy

November 7, 2026 · 9:14 am

That time I made a Distant Horizon themed puzzle in Minecraft

A long long time ago… around May of 2020…

Isaac and I had been playing Minecraft, and we each made extensive maps with a story or puzzle woven into it. (Creative mode… this would not have happened in Survival).

Anyway, I recently rediscovered screenshots from the Minecraft map I made for Isaac, based on the Distant Horizon Universe. Just a personal project for us, but I thought you might like to see the results since it was based on the story. 🙂

Screenshots time!

(Also… potential spoilers for the Distant Horizon universe… namely The Glitch Saga and Fractured Skies)

You start in a “beastie plant,” in a tiny, sterile prison cell. There are several cells (which all have a redstone wiring to open the doors), and numerous pillagers (*ahem*Special Forces guards*ahem*) to sneak past.

Keep exploring, and you’ll find beastie tanks and holding cells.

(There was a lever in the control room to open the tanks. But Isaac decided it would be easier to smash the glass.)

Eventually, you could find stairs to lead you to a secret door and up into the Camaraderie Mansion…

Which I accidently made more like a castle because I used stone as the building material.

Note to self: next time use wood.

Inside the castle–I mean mansion–I included a hub…

(Well, best I could make a hub in Minecraft), as well as an interrogation room.

It’s supposed to be a high-backed chair.

No, there aren’t any hidden rooms behind it. Pretend the lights are computer screens.

But my favorite thing to build was the attic, based on Benjamin’s study (from The Glitch Saga). It was a lot of fun to build, with two secret areas (one completely dark and based around Legion), as well as tons of bookshelves, random equipment in the chest, and a sort of random beehive.

In the basement, I also had a “secret door” that led to an underground tunnel that could take you to the nearest security center, and on the other side, if you dug out, you’d find a much (much) longer tunnel that would take you out to a small little house and an island with a giant facility housing a Legion Spore. It was supposed to be reminiscent of the tunnel Jenna goes through in Distant Horizon with the Cuban resistance.

(Isaac pointed out to me later that the facility looked like a giant wedding cake. Um… I can see that now. That was not intentional.)

And then there was the Legion Spore!

I had a lot of fun (and frustration) building the Legion Spore. I used redstone clocks to make blocks go in and out of its side so it would look like it was breathing, and a number of sticky pistons so that its tentacles would move up and down. Plus, the walls around it were rigged with explosives. Depending on which lever (pendant) you pulled, based on clues in books around the map, you got different results. You could blow up the walls (theoretically freeing the Legion Spore), you could blow up the Legion Spore’s inner redstone connections (thus shutting it down in a sort of non-cannonical way), or you could trigger a Wither and have it blow up everything for you while it tries to kill you. (And blocks rain down from the Legion Spore much as debris falls in Fractured Skies…)

(Above is one of the interior levels of the Legion Spore, with a redstone clock running).

It took a while to build everything (and not nearly as long to play through) but I thought you might like to see the images. ☺️

* * *

Curious about the stories that inspired this build? Start with Distant Horizon or Whispers in the Code…

Book Cover for Distant Horizon, with a gold title. A young woman faces a sterile white hallway with faces in the doors. She has vines around her arms.
Whispers in the Code Book Cover

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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September 26, 2026 · 9:27 am

The Cover Design Process for Starless Night

The cover for Starless Night went through several iterations before Isaac and I landed on one we both liked.

Back in October of 2020…

With the rough draft for Starless Night complete, and the rough draft for Changing Tides a third of the way there, in theory, (at the time I’d hoped to have it complete by the end of October because I really wanted to write something new for NaNoWriMo), I had the first “final” version of the cover made for Starless Night. Polished and everything!

(Spoiler… this isn’t the cover that ended up on the book)

I had focused on a scene at the climax of the story, a masquerade, but with Jenna’s shadow as the thorny tree representing the brain seed in her head (also part of the climax).

But feedback suggested the model didn’t quite work and the dress wasn’t quite right (I mean, it wasn’t going to match the story perfectly anyway because I was working with stock photography), but Isaac pointed out that the dress wasn’t particularly fitting for a ballroom masquerade (especially one set in the near future).

Cue a bit of Daz work, and I changed up the dress and did more retouching on the background.

This is where I ended up. (Poor Jenna, who doesn’t usually like dresses, is now on her third dress description for this story). She got more vines and a more modern dress (as much as I liked the original).


But after asking other authors their thoughts on the cover’s genre, I came to the realization that the background was giving the wrong impression.

While there are definitely fantasy elements (even more so in Starless Night than Fractured Skies), it should still be hitting sci-fi adventure elements, and not so much urban or contemporary fantasy.

At least… I didn’t think it should?

Given that it’s a mixed genre story, I’d been having a hard time placing exactly what I should be marketing it as.

So I took a look to see if I could add something with a little more sci-fi or dystopian flair. (Either a more modern ballroom that better represented where the scene takes place, or maybe a destroyed city street that could represent a couple different scenes aside from the masquerade?) Either way, I figured the tree would likely stick around, and I was still hoping to hit a surreal look more representative of the brain seed’s attacks.

And so… I might have thrown in the kitchen sink…

Oiy.

Someone pointed out the background had been signaling “Fae court” vibes ((to be entirely fair here, that isn’t precisely wrong. I got a lot of influence from fae court intrigue vibes, thank you) and that it was hitting either urban fantasy or contemporary fantasy.

Not so much sci-fi (with a lot of fantasy elements).

So I updated the background to something more accurate to the scene…

Which turned into an outright mess. *Face-palm*

I mean, it definitely shows the ensuing destruction.

But it still didn’t feel like it matched the goal.

(Or made for a good cover).

So I abandoned the masquerade scene altogether. I decided to really lean into the sci-fi side, and I jumped to a scene early in the book, one where Jenna returns home once more and has to deal with legionaries:

Book cover for Starless Night. A young woman in a black combat suit with thorny vines around her arms faces ghostly spirits in a wintery city street at night.

And you know what?

I was happy with this. Even beyond the rose-colored glasses period of having just made this.

This is the version that made it onto the book.

Now… ultimately, I should probably change the title font on all of them to better meet genre expectations. Having a more dynamic image might also be a good idea. And technically, the legionnaires should probably be more dark/wispy… but I’ll take this as a workable answer, at least until I level up my Daz and Photoshop skills.

On the bright side, it still comes from a scene in the story. 😀

* * *

Read the genre mash-up of a fantasy story dressed in sci-fi aesthetic…

Book Cover for Distant Horizon, with a gold title. A young woman faces a sterile white hallway with faces in the doors. She has vines around her arms.
Book cover for Fractured Skies with gold text. A young woman in a coat faces a wintery, pink-tinted forest. She has vines around her arms.
Book cover for Starless Night. A young woman in a black combat suit with thorny vines around her arms faces ghostly spirits in a wintery city street at night.

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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August 29, 2026 · 9:45 am

Why are there breakfast burritos in Distant Horizon?

The smell of egg burritos, complete with tangy salsa, wafted through the cafeteria. Apple juice drizzled into the glasses of students who were already ahead of us. If it wasn’t for the Health Scan tomorrow and already being late to the first meeting, this day would almost be normal.

~ Jenna Nickleson (Distant Horizon)

The mystery of breakfast burritos in Distant Horizon…

Okay, so it’s not that much of a mystery, but back when Isaac and I were undergrads in college, we would often meet for breakfast after class in that time when the cafeteria was serving both breakfast and lunch.

And when we did, a common favorite for both of us was the breakfast burrito.

The way the cafeteria was structured, there were different stations you could choose from:

The pizza/pasta station – Their tortellini was tasty in alfredo sauce, but the pizza was generally best avoided. Too floppy. You never knew if the dough was undercooked or if it was extra cheesy.

The stir fry area – On gyro day, this was the place to go to. They made absolutely delicious gyros.

The salad area – Tasty if you were looking for fruits and veggies, or some of the vegetarian options.

The sandwich area – Sandwiches, including paninis, when the panini-maker wasn’t broken, and wraps (a crucial ingredient to our burrito plans).

The grill – Served hamburgers and such at lunch, and things like scrambled eggs and pancakes at breakfast. The guy that usually worked there was awesome and, after the school stopped offering toppings for the pancakes, would still sprinkle chocolate chips onto my pancakes if I snuck them in.

Anyway, if I wasn’t going for pancakes, Isaac and I would go to the grill to get scrambled eggs, and then we’d order a wrap from the sandwich area. We’d add cheese (I think pepper jack or provolone), ham, black olives, and in my case, mayo. They’d toast the wrap, and then once we got to our table, we’d add the scrambled eggs (and Isaac added salsa to his).

Voila! Breakfast burritos!

And my drink of choice was apple juice.

Now, in Distant Horizon’s Community, their burritos would be pretty plain.

Eggs, maybe cheese and salsa.

The mystery is whether or not we got the idea that this would be a favorite of Jenna’s from our experiments in the university cafeteria, or from our favorite breakfast food from our McDonald’s runs when we’d travel, or if the school actually occasionally served small egg burritos.

It’s a mystery we’ll likely never know…

Though now I’m craving breakfast burritos again.

*

Still, I like including real-world details in my stories.

Relatable details helps make stories feel more grounded, especially when there’s a lot of fantastical elements happening. Hence breakfast burritos in Distant Horizon, or the extra details about the cookie store and the glossy red bags in my recently released book, Fae. And it’s a nice way to nod to specific memories.

I feel like I first really noticed this technique when reading the paranormal romance series, Beyond the Eyes, by Rebekkah Ford. That’s actually where I first learned about the idea of using your brights to signal to a semi that they have clearance to pull into the lane in front of you.

(Disclaimer: I did the original covers for the Beyond the Eyes books, which is how I ended up with print copies that I read on my breaks at work).

Oh, and I recently found out that Rebekkah Ford just released a new book, The Last O’Clery Witch! I haven’t read it yet (nor did I do the cover for that one), but you should check it out if you’re interested in Urban Fantasy. 🐺

* * *

Jenna’s favorite food is breakfast burritos. It’s a minor detail, but minor details help make a fantasy world feel more realistic:

Book Cover for Distant Horizon, with a gold title. A young woman faces a sterile white hallway with faces in the doors. She has vines around her arms.
Fractured Skies - Book Cover
Book cover for Starless Night. A young woman in a black combat suit with thorny vines around her arms faces ghostly spirits in a wintery city street at night.

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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August 1, 2026 · 9:45 am

Of Villainy and Tragedy

Alternatively… “Everyone’s the hero of their own story”

(Which appears to have multiple attributions… so know that I did not come up with that quote, but it is very useful for designing antagonists)

When writing the Glitch saga, one of the parts I enjoyed working with was showing the Distant Horizon universe from a different point of view (in this case, from the point of view of “the bad guys”). Though the Camaraderie of Evil lives up to their name, an aspect Isaac and I wanted to work with was the idea that “everyone is the hero of their own story.”

Most of the villains aren’t doing evil things for evil’s sake. (Most. There are exceptions).

Instead, they’re driven by a desire for security, a utilitarian view of “the greatest good for the greatest number of people,” or a sense that the end justifies the means.

Even the antagonist with the most logical reason to be pure evil has his own motives and reasons for doing what he does. (Though really, he’s been through so much by the time we see him that… uh… it doesn’t really take much to push him into the “he knows what he’s doing is wrong and yet his desire for revenge is a bit too strong to counterbalance that knowledge.)

Sure, there are a couple characters who are outright power hungry, but for the most part, the people we see all want a better life. They just have… not the greatest ideas… about how to achieve that life. (As in, their ideas work, for them, but definitely aren’t “good guy” plans).

There’s a specific scene from Whispers in the Code (book one of the Glitch saga) that usually comes to mind when considering the Camaraderie’s mentality regarding the world:

Commander Rick motions me to the command room and sits in the chair, resting his chin against the bone of his knuckles. I stand before him, feet together, back straight. I wish I felt more confident.

“You will be challenged by much of what we do,” he continues. “In the Community, your tasks were simple: program basic systems, keep everything running smoothly… This job is not so simple. We call ourselves the Camaraderie of Evil because we are willing to take steps others wouldn’t dare consider. That’s the only way we can accomplish security and efficiency. I don’t personally believe we are evil, but the name stuck around from our earlier days, and they were… an interesting bunch.” A thoughtful smile quirks on his lips and he clasps his hands on his knee. Despite the relaxed position, he still carries an imposing presence.

“Yes, sir,” I say.

“The Community is everything we promise. It is safe, secure, and efficient. Everyone has a secure job, with no fear of being mugged on the street or killed because of needless terrorism. They have food, shelter, and companionship. We rule the Community carefully, and the system works.” He pauses as he gathers his thoughts. “However, there is a price. When the Camaraderie was first formed, Lord Black determined that superpowers posed a threat to his utopian ideals. Those with powers must be controlled or eliminated. Those who do not contribute cannot be allowed to siphon off others.” Commander Rick sets his jaw and my chest clenches tight. I know this already, but to hear it directly from the eldest council member is another thing entirely.

“Thus, through Sanjorez’s and Benjamin’s work with the pendants, the Camaraderie learned how to make beasts. Beasts can be controlled. They can fight. They are more efficient than eliminating each individual person that opposes us. No one would contest using elementals and power users in Special Forces. But our enemies would argue that our actions are morally wrong.”

Like Jenna.

The commander smirks. “Like Miss Nickleson, yes. But I have seen her mind. She seeks truth in answers. In her eyes, to have been lied to about the state of the world was a crime. It is not the action of transformation she sees as wrong, so much as it is that we withheld that information from her.” He presses a knuckle to his chin and gazes out at the dark sky. “I believe it is similar to how you are unaccustomed to making decisions which impact the wellbeing of others, and why you have a hard time understanding the art of war.”

I shift uncomfortably as the commander stands.

“You will do well, m’boy. You will adjust.”

I nod, but I still have a sinking feeling in the back of my throat. To be efficient, truly efficient, I’m going to have to make choices I’d rather not make.

Indeed, Tim does end up having to make choices and decisions that the rebellion would never consider.

And I’ll throw this out there: the Glitch saga doesn’t have a happy ending.

I hope you find it a satisfying one, especially when read in conjunction with the rest of the Distant Horizon series, but things have gone horribly wrong, in large part due to the actions of the Camaraderie.

And things continue to go wrong in the Distant Horizon series, because the things the Camaraderie has done (and even the rebellious Coalition of Freedom) don’t have a simple solution. Like real life, politics and war are messy.

Tim recognizes that much of what the Camaraderie does is questionable, or should be stopped. (And he does try to stop some of those things, or at least mitigate the problems).

But with their actions already snowballing into a terrifying boulder down a slope made slippery by too many people before him, it’s not something he can stop on his own.

Will the things he does help others make things better, even if his story ends tragically? Will his actions matter, allowing for a bittersweet ending? Will his actions have made an impact on those around him… even those who have been working with the Camaraderie for most of their lives?

It may not be immediately evident at the end of the Glitch saga, but once we get to book three of the Distant Horizon series (Starless Night)), I’m hoping a lot more of that becomes apparent. And it should become even more apparent by the time we get to book four, Changing Tides.

Do you have any favorite books where the story had a tragic ending, and yet the character’s actions still made a difference?

* * *

Delve into the Camaraderie’s dark and tragic secrets…

SBibb - Whispers in the Code Cover
SBibb - Ghost of a Memory Cover
SBibb - Spirits of a Glitch Cover

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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July 18, 2026 · 9:30 am

The Mysterious Time Stones…

Today I thought I’d go into a little more detail about the mysterious time stones.

These are the artifacts both the Camaraderie and the Coalition of Freedom are trying to obtain throughout Distant Horizon, Fractured Skies, and the Glitch saga.

The Camaraderie wants the stones because they know how much the rebellious Coalition wants them… and thus the ancient artifacts make good bait.

The Coalition wants the stones because of their theoretical ability to travel time… which means a chance to upend the Camaraderie before they get their start, but also to keep them out of the Camaraderie’s hands.

Though no one is entirely sure if they can travel time (except Spectator, and he’s going to make everyone figure it out for themselves), the stones do have a few properties that have been clearly demonstrated:

Primarily that they have a very powerful spirit guardian… (possibly a constructed spirit, per Jenna’s research in Fractured Skies). There are five different stones with artwork reminiscent of five different cultures (Maya, Inca, India, Japan, and Egypt), and a matching guardian. Not much is known about the origin of the stones, save for them being “Catonian,” at least according to the Camaraderie’s alchemist.

Each guardian, however, has the usual spirit powers (life-spirit, telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation), in addition to their own unique power set. (Such as the spirit dragon in Distant Horizon being a water elemental). Some of the spirit stuff gets covered in Fractured Skies, but it gets covered a whole lot more in the next book… for reasons. Trying not to spoil the ending of Fractured Skies or the beginning of Starless Night.

Anyway, while these guardians protect the stones, they’re limited to a certain region. Once defeated… if the stone has been moved far enough… they don’t manifest again. (Otherwise, keeping even one of the stones on an airship would be a terrible idea).

The next question becomes… how exactly is anyone supposed to use the stones?

They know there’s something about a “circle of stone,” but which circle of stone? And can the stones really travel time? Or might it do something else entirely?

And if they can use the stones to travel time, should they?

* * *

Collect the mysterious time stones while trying to thwart an evil, superpowered regime…

Book Cover for Distant Horizon, with a gold title. A young woman faces a sterile white hallway with faces in the doors. She has vines around her arms.
Book cover for Fractured Skies with gold text. A young woman in a coat faces a wintery, pink-tinted forest. She has vines around her arms.
Book cover for Starless Night. A young woman in a black combat suit with thorny vines around her arms faces ghostly spirits in a wintery city street at night.

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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July 8, 2026 · 9:30 pm

Play Phalanx in a browser!

Have you wanted to try out our tabletop games, but aren’t local?
Or maybe you don’t have a second person to play those games with?

Well, now you can try Phalanx in your favorite web browser!

Now, some quick housekeeping…

The browser edition is in beta. Why? Well, neither Isaac nor I are great HTML coders, so this edition was created using Claude AI, based on the game mechanics Isaac designed, with me doing the work of guiding Claude in bug fixes, game corrections, and making sure the design and mechanics still matched Isaac’s vision.

Which means that it’s still a little… clunky.

Therefore, “beta.”

But it is functional, and has let me scratch the itch of playing the game even when no one else is available to play it with me. 😁

Screenshot of the browser edition of Phalanx

Click here to play Phalanx!

I recommend going full-screen, but it’s available in both web browser and on mobile.

Now a caveat… I’ve only been able to test it on Windows 11 with a Chrome browser and on an Android phone.

But have a go, and please consider filling out the survey linked at the top of the game (click “Provide Feedback”). That’ll help us refine the game in the future. ☺️

Want to know more about how Phalanx came about?

Well…

Originally, Isaac and I had Distant Horizon.

And in Distant Horizon, the characters played a card game called Battle Decks (Originally called Beastie Wars, but that sounded too similar to another franchise).

At some point, Isaac decided it’d be really cool to figure out the mechanics of the game, so he did. He ended up making a few different faction sets, including a steampunk version based on the universe the Camaraderie members (antagonists in Distant Horizon) came from.

And because we can’t just leave a story referenced, we decided to write the story of that universe, The Multiverse Chronicles! (Back in revisions! Yay!)

But then Isaac wanted to come up with a game that made sense for those characters to play, something simple, that they might have at taverns or in small bags easy to tote along while traveling on foot.

And one day I came back from work to a fully-fledged game designed in pencil on a manila folder using pennies and nickels for game pieces and art drawn on cut-up index cards.

We refined the game, then eventually created a boxed edition on The Game Crafter… but that site is really meant for prototypes, and ordering a single copy was expensive, and not quite how we wanted the game to look.

We also created a bag edition, in which Isaac ironed on the game board to cloth bags he sewed, and all the game pieces fit inside the bag. Looked cool, and we sold almost all of those, but they took a lot of extra time since we were hand-sewing the bags.

The other edition we made involved pairing up with a local wood-carver (actually, two, because our first round sold out), and had them create a really elegant wooden board edition.

Fancy! But definitely more expensive, so we were only able to stock a few at a time.

Looked great at festivals, though.

Eventually we had an idea for putting the board game on a mouse pad, but hadn’t found a feasible way to do that until more recently.

But that version is finally complete and debuted at the Flower Moon Spring Market back in May! Woot!

Even so, all those versions were limited to what we could do locally.

We kind of tinkered with the idea of a computer version using a program called Tabletop Simulator a while back, but didn’t get far with it. And then came Claude AI.

I’d been working with Claude for a bit on other projects, but if you know much about Claude, it’s known for coding. And at some point I asked, “If I gave you the rules and art and details for a game we made, could you make a computer version?”

Said yes, so I tabled that idea until I had a chance to gather the pieces.

Eventually I started up that chat, worked through a few details with Claude, and *mind blown.* Didn’t take much to get a working prototype of the browser game running.

After more tinkering and testing, we finally got the browser version to a point that I decided it was ready for its first reveal. I sent it off to the Distant Horizon Universe newsletter!

And now, finally, I’m doing the public reveal.

I expect there will still be bugs, though I’ve done what I can to smooth anything out that I’ve found. But I would love for you to have a look, give it a try, and let us know what you think!

Click here to try out Phalanx!

* * *

Happy reading, writing, and gaming!

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July 4, 2026 · 9:30 am

Blast from the Past – 🚀 My Top 3 Most Memorable YA Sci-Fi Reads in 2019 🌌

Found this in my newsletter archives, and I thought maybe you’d be interested in hearing about my favorite reads from 2019. (I found it interesting, at least).

Apparently I’d been on a reading kick involving space—as the top three most memorable sci-fi books I read that year all had some kind of space theme:

The Diabolic by S.J. Kincaid

The Diabolic Book Cover

Brutal, fast-paced, and fascinating. A YA dystopia set in an oppressive space empire, where the main character was genetically engineered to be a “diabolic,” a personalized, deadly bodyguard. But after the empire outlaws diabolics, the main character, Nemesis, is hidden by the girl she bodyguards—until the best way for her to protect her charge is to take the girl’s place in the empire’s court. There’s a slightly frustrating romance, but quite a bit of intrigue and nail-biting plot to make up for those frustrations.

Skyward by Brandon Sanderson

Skyward Book Cover

A YA adventure novel in space. With the looming shame of her father’s desertion constantly on Spensa’s shoulders, she’s the outcast of the colony. But she is determined to become a fighter pilot and fly among the stars with the best—thus casting aside the “coward” brand that stains her. But the odds are against her, at least until she befriends a surprisingly sentient old fighter ship abandoned in the caves. Now if she could just convince it to come out of hiding and stop being so focused on surveying the local mushrooms…

Salvage by Alexandra Duncan

Salvage Book Cover

YA social sci-fi, though not strictly dystopia (though it starts that way). At the beginning, you’ll probably want to strangle the opposing characters or throw the book across the room in frustration. But give it time, and it gets a lot better. This book is slower paced than the other reads, and there is a lot more emphasis on the social differences between the main character (raised in isolation on a very patriarchal merchant spaceship) and the future Mumbai on Earth where she ends up in exile. The world building is lovely, thoughtful, and fascinating, character relationships are heartwarming (the ones you don’t want to strangle), and it ends up being a story of empowerment and strength.

Overall, all three of these had their strengths and memorable moments, and you might enjoy them, too.

If you give them a try, I hope you like them. 🙂

What was the most memorable sci-fi book you read recently?

* * *

I also write YA sci-fi and science fantasy!

Book Cover for Distant Horizon, with a gold title. A young woman faces a sterile white hallway with faces in the doors. She has vines around her arms.
Huntress Book Cover

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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June 20, 2026 · 9:30 am

Favorite Sequences in the Glitch Series

Since I was talking about updating the Whispers in the Code cover a couple weeks ago, today I thought I’d do a behind-the-scenes bit about the Glitch series. While I was in the process of writing Glitch, I’d often run the scenes in my head multiple times to get a feel for the surroundings, what was present in the environment, and what Tim might be feeling. There were a few scenes, though, that I particularly enjoyed writing.

First… the “Bedtime Story” sequence.

It’s starts out innocent enough (and a result of a glitch), and progressively gets more and more creepy as the Legion Spore begins to morph its surroundings to match the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

“End recording and transmit.”

Yes, Master Zaytsev. Is there anything else we can do for you?

I nuzzle the flat pillow under my neck. Uncomfortable, but I’m sure it’s made for simplistic support. “No. It’s bedtime, now.”

Would you like us to read you a bedtime story?

“What?”

You like this one, remember? You like the story of ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf.’

I sit up. The Legion Spore’s voice is different. It’s still clipped, not quite oriented, but its inflections are not the same as the artificial voice I heard all afternoon. “Bedtime story?” I don’t remember programming it to read bedtime stories—unless Benjamin has an unspoken interest in oral literature.

Once upon a time, there was a foolish little boy who stood guard over the shepherd’s sheep. The shepherd told him, ‘If you ever see a wolf, son, with large gold eyes and strong sharp teeth, you must immediately call for help.’ The little boy listened closely, for he was mischievous, and full of play.

The hairs rise on my arms. This doesn’t sound like the AI at all. “Legion Spore—acknowledge me.”

The shepherd knew of the little boy’s tricks, so he gave him a stern warning. ‘You must never cry wolf if there is none, for when the townspeople come running, they will be angry if you have disturbed them for nothing. Promise me, son, that you will be honest, and call for help only if there is danger.’ The little boy agreed with every bit of passion he could muster, and the shepherd went on his way. Do you know what happens next?

I shiver. Yes, I know the fable, but this isn’t right. “Legion Spore, I do not want to hear a story.”

The first night, the little boy did as he was told. But it was all very tedious, and staring at sheep was certainly the most boring task he had ever done.

“Legion Spore!” I push the covers aside and throw my legs over the edge of the bed. I pause. The floor is no longer made of ivory. It’s returned to the basic metal grate, while the walls have lost their leatheriness, now just a soft, fleshy musculature.

So the next night, the little boy did the most exciting thing he could imagine. He cried wolf.

I reach to the vessel with my mind, but the Legion Spore has erected some kind of firewall. I launch myself out of bed. This isn’t good. If the Legion Spore isn’t responding, I can’t command it.

All the townspeople came running. But when they got there, the little boy laughed. ‘You should see your faces!’ he cried. The only creatures in the field were the sheep and their lambs.

I scramble up the ladder, my sweaty fingers clutching the rungs. My fingers slip, but I quickly catch myself. Once on the next floor, I search out the controls on the central command point.

I’m locked out.

A lot of fun to write… though Tim was definitely relieved once he found and removed the source of the glitch.

That said, I think that sequence is one of the reasons I like the Legion Spore so much. For all that its creation is a monstrosity, it also has a certain innocence to it… and is utterly perplexed as to why Tim is so frazzled once the glitch is fixed.

Another sequence I enjoyed writing comes later in Spirits of a Glitch, when the Manticore (a malicious version of the Legion Spore) erases Tim’s memory, trying to gaslight him for its own purposes.

This was particularly interesting for me since I wrote it from Tim’s perspective over the period of time it’s happening… so while the reader can see everything as it happens and the side effects of what’s happening, Tim’s memory gets clipped multiple times before he finally figures out what’s going on.

I’d share that one, but then it’d be pretty spoilery… so you’ll have to happen on that section yourself. 😉

There were plenty of other sequences I very much enjoyed writing, but those two stood out in my mind.

* * *

Read the rest of the Legion Spore’s tale of the Boy Who Cried Wolf… (but what happens when the “wolf” knows how keep the “villagers” from hearing the boy’s cries?)

SBibb - Whispers in the Code Cover
SBibb - Ghost of a Memory Cover
SBibb - Spirits of a Glitch Cover

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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June 6, 2026 · 9:30 am

Updating the Cover for Whispers in the Code

Sometimes we authors like to test different book covers to see if one might resonate better with readers. And Whispers in the Code, being a spin-off from the Distant Horizon series, has been through several iterations in my attempt to signal just what kind of book it is. (Genre-mashup. It’s very much a mashup with a lot going on… though horror underlies the entire trilogy).

Part of the job of being an indie author is figuring out which cover attracts the right readers (or rather, which cover is conveying the genre that best fits your book). It’s something I’ve struggled with for the Glitch saga, because it’s a genre mashup.

While I really like the original cover, I think it might convey more of a space military vibe… which it isn’t. Someone who goes in looking for the tropes of a space military story probably isn’t going to find what they’re looking for.

So, around October of 2019, I got the inspiration to test a new cover for Whispers in the Code.

My thought was, depending on how it goes, I’d either change the rest of the series to match it, or switch it back to the original.

Original Cover (February 2018)

Version 2 (October 2019)

While I still really like the newer cover, which I redid in hopes of hitting a more cyberpunk/dystopian vibe, and it did pick up a few more readers in KU (Kindle Unlimited)… it seems that those readers didn’t get very far before they stopped reading (in contrast to Huntress, where they typically finished in a day or two and moved on to Changeling).

Though I didn’t have a whole lot of data to back that up, since Whispers in the Code wasn’t getting many readers, I did wonder if it’s possible that either A: Something was wrong with the book, or B) Readers were picking up the book expecting one thing, and finding something else (such as getting a lot more “magic” or a style of writing that’s more similar to what I’ve seen in YA and urban fantasy than solid cyberpunk).

So…

In February of 2020, I decided to try giving another cover a trial run for Whispers in the Code.

I put it together fairly quickly, and there’s a few things I wanted to change if I switched to this cover style for the series. But I hoped to convey more of the horror elements and more of the “magic” sense of things, while still hinting at the fact that technology is present (since it is set in the future).

Version 3 (February 2020)

I left the new cover up for a few months to see if it would get a better response from readers, though I knew I also needed to consider how to drive traffic toward it. I had hoped putting it in Kindle Unlimited would give more people to take a chance on it, but that wasn’t going to help if I’m not targeting the right readers.

In August of 2020, I did one more revamp to the Glitch series ebook covers. While I really enjoyed writing the series, it still hadn’t gotten much attention from readers.

At this point, I attributed that to a few factors:

  • Wrong cover for the audience
  • Very cross-genre, hard to market
  • Jumps right into the action without a lot of explanation

And so the August 2020 cover marked the fourth version for Whispers in the Code. For this version, I drew in part from the style of Distant Horizon, but tried to play up the paranormal aspect a bit more.

I also redid the blurbs.

Though I’m still iffy on the blurbs (and which one is really better might be a blog post for another day), these covers are the most true-to-the-book representations, I think.

(And while I haven’t analyzed the data on the different downloads, especially since for a time they were in Kindle Unlimited before I launched them wide and made Whispers in the Code permafree, I do see a handful of downloads of Whispers in the Code without extra marketing.)

Version 4 (August 2020)

SBibb - Whispers in the Code Cover
SBibb - Ghost of a Memory Cover
SBibb - Spirits of a Glitch Cover

I’m hoping these covers will attract readers interested in science fiction, thrillers, and stories with paranormal elements.

And one of the things about the Distant Horizon universe is that it has a lot of different elements to it. The issue that creates is knowing which readers to target when marketing.

For example:

It’s science fiction… with a lot of technobabble jargon and what-if world building, set in the future of a world similar to this one except that super powers started showing up sometime in the ’50s and an organization of super villains took over around 2012 to 2016.

It’s paranormal… because there are both the technical equivalent of ghosts (the Legion Spore’s glitches haunting the airship), and very literal ghosts (the spirits like Benjamin… a mad scientist who attached himself to an enchanted artifact).

It’s steampunk (actually gaslamp)… because there’s a lot of clockwork type references and aesthetics pointing that Victorian/Edwardian direction–though now that I’m more familiar with gaslamp fantasy, I’d say it’s gaslamp because of the heavier focus on “magic” and secret societies with a mysterious agenda (the Camaraderie of Evil).

It’s fantasy… because there’s a lot of epic type world building, enchanted artifacts, “magic,” lords and ladies, ballroom dances…

It’s a psychological thriller… because of the page-turning, high stakes element and mental games the main character faces…

An important part of marketing is knowing who to target and how to let them know this is the kind of book they’ll want to read. But with so many elements, it can be hard to pinpoint which genre is the best fit to work with (and some authors will switch marketing focus over time to bring in different readers).

This time around, I’m trying to lean into that gaslamp, paranormal sci-fi route… though I’m still not sure I’ve quite nailed that yet.

From a technical standpoint, an issue with the book itself is that it jumps right into the action and doesn’t take time to explain what’s happening, unlike Distant Horizon or Deceived. With that in mind, it may be that this series is better for readers who have already read the other series, rather than starting with this one. It’s a spin-off, and that may be hurting its chances of being read on its own.

*

So there you have it… four versions of the Glitch series covers. Eventually, I want to redo the box set cover. I’ve got ideas… I just need to set aside the time to revamp it.

* * *

Read the books whose covers keep changing… but at least now they match the mood!

SBibb - Whispers in the Code Cover
SBibb - Ghost of a Memory Cover
SBibb - Spirits of a Glitch Cover

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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May 23, 2026 · 9:30 am

Choosing a title for Galina’s story

Figuring out titles is hard.

Most of the time.

Sometimes it’s really obvious and you just point at that one and say “That one!”

For all the other times… We’re scratching our heads, trying to think if anything stood out while making revisions.

So when it came to figuring out the title for Galina’s story, we turned to the Distant Horizon Universe newsletter!

We proposed six ideas:

1. The Deception
2. Deceived
3. Quarantined
4. The Warning
5. The Outbreak
6. The Secret

But we weren’t 100% sold on any of them at that point.

So we asked readers:

Knowing that Galina’s story will be a young adult dystopian thriller in the same vein as Distant Horizon and Glitch, and having read the three sneak peeks from these newsletters, do any of those titles stand out to you?

Do you have an idea for a better title?

And we did get a few responses! (Which we very much appreciated).

Ultimately, we ended up settling on “Deceived,” which became part one of Galina’s Saga (which we later just called the “Deceived” series). Because, of course, we ended up having plenty more plot fodder itching to be written.

Which is why we now also have its newsletter-exclusive prequel, Initiated, and its sequel, Betrayed!

And yes. Figuring out those titles was also a pain. But at least we had the convention of the title to work with.

* * *

Now I just have to hope I can remember what I planned to title the next book in the series…

SBibb - Initiated Cover WIP
Book Cover for Deceived
SBibb - Betrayed Cover

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

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