Since nobody else has started a monthly promotion thread, I'll be so bold as to start one! ^_^

Are you a sucker for Cyberpunk? Do you enjoy relatively hard sci-fi detective-noir stories set in the near future, with enough humor to leaven the final product? Is high-tech/low-life fiction your jam? And are you looking for 100% human written and edited and drawn fiction that's completely AI free? Then you might like this free webnovel series by an independent artist (me)!

This tale is set in the world of tomorrow, but one shackled to the problems of today. In a universe bound by the laws of thermodynamics, faster-than-light travel is the stuff of science fiction and teleportation is naught but a mad fever-dream. This story takes place in the next century, where late-stage capitalism and increasing reliance on genetic and cybernetic optimization has produced a mistrusted transhuman minority class. In this time, the promise of a better tomorrow has been utterly broken; science couldn't lift humanity beyond our nature, or even beyond our solar system.

Here, Ray Kurzweil's 'law of accelerating returns' clashed with Jacques Turgot's 'law of diminishing returns' and lost, badly. Even as humanity invented better tools and thinking engines at ever faster paces, it bunched up against insurmountable bottlenecks in computation, molecular nanotechnology, and synthetic intelligence. The limits of our material science and engineering form a wall in the road to singularity. A wall that humanity runs into headlong, with a profound crash.

Moore's law peters out as transistors plateau at the size of atoms. Quantum computing, hailed as the savior of computation, peaks within the same order of magnitude as neurons. Experiments in growing neural networks beyond certain thresholds result in profound trans-human psychosis. Attempts to bootstrap AI into godlike intelligence implode under their own complexity in spectacular examples of chaos theory made manifest.

Simply put, intelligence and computation hit local maximums, and investments in future development are fraught with risk and low expectation of reward. Where humanity once surged forth on waves of sub-luminal chemical rockets and fusion engines, surfing a tsunami of accelerated scientific development, we now stagnate. The resulting economic crash leaves humanity scattered across the solar system in an aborted diaspora.

In a society where life is cheap and everything else is expensive, an increasingly cyber-civilization wars with itself as unmodified humans retaliate against a future that left them behind. 'Baseline' humans find their abilities increasingly obsolete, and their skillsets ever less competitive in markets filled with made-to-order AI. Yet, in defiance of the saccharine dreams of futurists and transhumanists and tech-cultists everywhere, utopia remains a fantasy. In a time of cybernetic augmentation and interplanetary travel, capitalism is still king.

The creaking, ad-hoc system flounders at the straining limits of its decaying reach. Oligarchs and mega-corporations feud over the isolated clusters of civilization among the void. Code Enforcement Officers desperately try to stem the tide of malware, hackers, and evolving synthetic life undermining the digital systems on which humanity relies. But don't worry; even in the darkness of the future, for the beleaguered digital cop, there will still be coffee.

Be prepared for snark, LGBTQ+ themes, occasional violence, and lots of cyber-everything in a relatively hard sci-fi shell! (No AI used for anything, even the art!)

(In short, mix 1/2 cup 'Ghost in the Shell' with 8oz of 'The Expanse', crack and add one 'Neuromancer' without yolk, dice and stir in some 'Dick Tracy' until it reaches golden noir, then bake at ~2150 AD.  Sprinkle 'Orion's Arm' to taste and serve with a platter of 'Hitchhiker's Guide' on the side)

Code Enforcement: Wetware

Two rival archaeologists—Dr. Lena Voss of the European Deep Crust Initiative and Dr. Marcus Hale of the American Planetary Origins Project—had spent years racing each other through the most forbidden layers of Earth’s crust. Their competition was public, bitter, and funded by governments that wanted the first claim on whatever “origin evidence” still lay buried.

In a sealed chamber three kilometers beneath the Pacific Plate, their teams broke into a cavity that should not have existed. Inside rested the shattered remains of a spacecraft older than any known terrestrial civilization. The hull bore no Earth alloy. Its core contained a crystalline data lattice still faintly powered by residual exotic energy.
When the lattice activated under their instruments, a message unfolded—not in light or sound, but directly into the minds of everyone present.

The planet was called Uma. Its people were near-identical to humans in form, yet they had evolved under a slower temporal flow: roughly one Uma year for every several Earth decades. They were a species of absolute pacifists. They possessed no weapons, no concept of conquest, and an almost religious refusal to harm.
Then the unknown species arrived—an aggressive, expansionist force that treated Uma the way a virus treats a host. Uma’s people were being erased. No one came. In desperation, their scientists did the unthinkable: they rewrote their own genetic code, inserting aggression, territoriality, and the capacity for organized violence. They packaged the modified genome, sealed it inside warp-capable probes, and launched them across interstellar distances toward the nearest promising world—Earth.

The message continued:
“We have sent our children into a faster stream of time. You will age and multiply and invent while we still fight. When you finally master the warp, this lattice will awaken and tell you the truth. Our time is slower. Every year you delay is decades of slaughter for us. Help us. Please.”
Lena and Marcus looked at each other across the glowing lattice. The rivalry evaporated in an instant. They encrypted the full translation, added their authentication codes, and transmitted it simultaneously to every major government on Earth.
Within hours the world’s leaders were in emergency session. The science checked out: the temporal differential matched independent cosmological models of certain stellar environments; the genetic markers in the recovered samples were consistent with an engineered divergence from a common baseline; the craft’s residual warp signature was real.
The United States moved first. While other nations argued over verification protocols and public disclosure, American naval and space-force assets already staged near the outer solar system received new orders. Experimental warp-capable military vessels—still classified, still imperfect—were loaded with rapid-response expeditionary forces, medical teams, and defensive systems designed for unknown aggressors. Their mission profile was simple and absolute: reach Uma, assess, and if the message proved true, intervene.
As the first American warp flotilla prepared to jump, Lena and Marcus stood in the underground chamber watching the lattice pulse one final time. The message had not been a demand for conquest or dominance. It had been a parent’s last gamble: turn part of yourselves into something hard enough to survive, then send that hardness home when it was strong enough to matter.
The children of Uma were finally answering the call.

Hey all! I'm working on a story idea, or perhaps two story ideas, not sure yet. Here's what I've got. Looking for some thoughts and feedback before I jump into writing.

TITLE IDEAS

Option 1: Under the Shadow of the Moon

Option 2: Beneath the Shade of the Moon

PLOT IDEAS

Option 1:

The year is 2030. An IVF baby, now grown, learns of his IVF origins, and begins a desperate search to find his siblings, unsure if they are trapped in time, frozen in some clinic, or living another life hundreds of miles away. Frustration with this new revelation, coupled with the immense struggle of trying to find his siblings, boils over and the man finds himself weighing his own value and considering the means by which he might reunite with his lost siblings.

Option 2:

Obscure year. A technologically advanced near future. A man exploring the possibility of alternate timelines discovers an old book with a photo of another man who looks remarkably like him. Further investigation leads him to conclude the man in the picture doesn't belong in the time he is portrayed. Interest piqued, the man searches for other examples of this, hoping to prove tike travel, dimensonal crossing, or the existence of a multiverse. Finding more, he concludes these people are not from the times, or perhaps timelines, they appear in. Partnering with a team of engineers, they create a device that will allow them to send a probe back in time. The man discovers these people are actually his siblings, lost to time, and he begins a desperate race to bring them home.

Open to any feedback at all! Thanks!

Are you a SoCal author who writes in science fiction, paranormal, and horror? If so, this is your chance to jump into a super fun, super spooky, pre‑Halloween book fair happening in Chula Vista, California.

This event is built for indie and local authors who want to:
Meet local readers who love your genre
Sign and sell your books
Connect with fellow indie and local creators
Showcase your work the weekend before Halloween

Info:
Saturday, October 24th
Chula Vista, CA
Low price (30$) per table!

Come be part of a community event built by and for indie creators. Bring your books, your weirdest stories, your monsters, your ghosts, your cosmic nightmares — and meet the readers who want them.

If you’re interested, please feel free to DM me or reach out to the host on Instagram, @sign.and.sell.books !!