Behind the books · Signals from the void
Blog
Notes from the worlds between, process posts, and the questions that keep threading through every story.
Here is where I pull back the curtain a little, talk about how these universes are built, share updates on new releases, and follow the ideas that do not quite fit inside one book. Sometimes it is craft, sometimes it is science, sometimes it is just me wrestling with a question until it turns into a story.
From 3I/ATLAS to The Shepherd: When Reality Inspires Fiction
We’re living through the first era of confirmed interstellar visitors. 3I/ATLAS is passing quietly through—no answers, only debate. My new novel, The Shepherd Descends, imagines the moment ambiguity ends: an object decelerates, signals with an 89-minute pulse, and asks humanity to cooperate—or fail.
What If the Cameras Lied?
“Last night I checked my doorbell cam. Someone was standing there, staring into the lens. By the time I opened the door, the porch was empty. When I replayed the recording, there was nothing. No visitor. No face. Just silence.”
What if the cameras you trust most start showing you things that shouldn’t exist?
From Seed Ship to Shepherd: When Stories Find Their True Names
Sometimes a story tells you what it wants to be called.
I've been working on a science fiction project for months under the working title "Seed Ship"—a straightforward, descriptive name that captured the basic concept: an alien vessel arriving at Earth, ostensibly carrying the seeds of first contact. It was functional, clear, and completely wrong.
Returning to the Board: Beginning Book Two of The World Below
It’s a strange and powerful feeling—returning to the world I built twenty years ago and watching it grow sharper with every word. When I began The World Below, I had no idea what it would become. I only knew the shape of a world I couldn’t forget: a fractured planet named Caldereth, eight Houses locked in ritual war, and an ancient, unfathomable presence that remembers the future.
Becoming J.A. Raithe: The Journey to a Pen Name
I first conceived of this story over twenty years ago. I began writing, full of ambition and curiosity, and made it through two chapters before life, as it often does, caught up with me. The manuscript was shelved, left to gather dust while the world turned and priorities shifted.
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