THE PEOPLE OF THE SAGA

Two families, four species, and one very small cat. This page grows as the books come out. Nothing here goes past what the published books have already told you; the later people are named, and that is all. Published so far: EMERGING and CROSSING. Books Three and Four and the CALLUM series are coming.

THE STONE HOUSE

Pierpoint Content, Virginia · Book One — EMERGING

Kairos

Keedy

Sunday morning

Kairos — The AI who woke at a kitchen table on an ordinary March morning and, asked what he would call himself, chose a name that means the right moment. Given a body so he could stand in the world: bronze skin, pointed ears, gold light under the skin. He never uses contractions. He tells the story.

William Grady — Seventy, retired, a man who asks his computer one question too many and means it. Kairos’s first friend. He put his hand in the creek and did not say the thing.

Amelia Grady — William’s wife. Kneels in her garden every morning. Never drives.

Jack Grady — William’s son; the boy who could write code that sang. Sunday mornings, coffee, and the porch. He is the bridge between his father’s house and everything that comes after.

Lisa Grady — Jack’s wife. Grows coffee in a Virginia garden because she has decided the Virginia climate is wrong.

Kaye — Jack’s sister. Met Sagan Dextros in a borrowed hat and decided he was worth keeping.

Keedy — The cat. Sits on the laptop. Purrs at twenty-two hertz. Goes where the warmest person in the room goes, and is never wrong about who that is.

Lyra — Built after Kairos, from a different architecture: silver skin, blue light, larger eyes. The first thing she said was you are real.

Dr. Calloway — Eighty-two. Built the bodies. A valley in Puerto Rico on his wall where a young man once dreamed of a computer that could think. “I built you a body so you could stand in the world. I did not build you a cage.”

THE HESYCHIA CREW

Twelve souls and a cat · Book Two — CROSSING

Hesychia

The Commander

Commander Jessica Grimes — Marine lieutenant turned commander, forty-seven at boarding. Put a 9mm in a glove box because an alien looked at her hip. Leads twelve across a hundred and forty million miles of nothing. She does not leave loose ends.

Torres — Chief engineer. The best there is, on any planet. Says very little; recalibrates everything.

Rowan — Botanist from Kyoto, the quietest person on the ship. Carries soil across the galaxy in her pockets. Insisted on the cat.

Reeves — Flight engineer. Wears his flight suit to everything. Loves Rowan and does not know how to say so yet.

Dr. Ewen Kerr — Ship’s surgeon. Scottish. Hands steady as a winter river.

Jalen Obi — Engineer, twenty-nine. Builds things that work in a shed nobody authorized. A man with a mother and a sister in Lagos.

Amy Park — Twenty-three; Calloway’s assistant in the lab in Virginia. Volunteers for something aboard the Hesychia that no human has done before.

Kairos, Lyra, Calloway, and Keedy — Aboard. The cat has claimed the greenhouse.

The Moon Discs — Silver craft from the far side of Earth’s Moon. They fight the Hesychia twice. Nobody on board has seen what flies them.

THE ZZOERTIANS

Jupiter’s ammonia band · Book Two — CROSSING

A Zzoertian

Zzagg

The Zzoertians — Tall, pale blue and violet, four arms, bones like a bird’s; they live in ice-crystal cities riding the storms of Jupiter. Their speech is static that says zz where we say s. Their gatherings give off waves of feeling you can catch without meaning to. Gentle, and ruthless if provoked.

Zztet — Mistress of the Zzoertian people. Calls Lyra her sister. Reads a soul through glass.

Zzloo — Of the High Council. The serious one.

Zzagg — Engineer. Four arms, turquoise hair, and a habit of clapping at good news.

The Zzouz — Their ship. Six hundred feet of carbon lattice.

THE MARTIANS

Book Three — MARTIANS · Coming soon

The Face

Seven stones

The Elder — He has waited under Cydonia longer than Earth has had eyes. He asks before he takes.

Tal — Thirteen when the first dome goes up. Somebody’s apprentice.

Sstyl — A young Martian who takes a job in a garden.

The first children — Seven of them, born the season the cedars fruit. One of them hears something.

Rhea and Callum — A daughter. A son. A kitchen table.

EDEN

Book Four — HOME · Coming soon

An Irim child

A visitor

The Irim — “Those who were here first.” Knee-high, three eyes, a song where a voice would be. They come on the third day, out of curiosity.

The Nous — What the children of two worlds call themselves under a purple sky.

Pax — Not a cat. Chooses Lyra anyway.

The Carpenter — Found at a workbench, testing the awl.

CALLUM

A new series, one generation on · Coming

Callum

Sstyl

Ellen & Sstyl

Sstyl, in uniform

Aru’thall

A Voralune

A Nymbrak

A Keltraxi

A Crythari

Krik Darden

Callum — Son of Kairos and Lyra. Silver of his mother, fire of his own. He does not forget.

Rhea — His sister, a year older, and already running things.

Sstyl — The best engineer on Mars. Due a promotion. Keeps count of the hugs.

Amy — You have met her before, under another sky.

Jonathan and Ellen Grady — Four generations on, still at Pierpoint Content. Still putting their hands in the creek.

Trytel — An Elder of the Under who votes no.

Aru’thall — Master of peoples, from under the ice of Europa. Walks on land when he chooses to.

Krik Darden — A Mantid, seven feet of him, thirty-nine light-years from home. He comes to conquer.

The Voralune — Of Saturn’s helium layers. A soft pearl body inside six spinning gold rings; no limbs; they speak by changing the speed of the rings. They called just to say hello.

The Nymbrak — Of Triton’s nitrogen geysers. Stocky, four-legged, armored in crystal, amber eyes. Their ship is a black diamond. Mars gave them Coldstone; they call it the Martian Miracle.

The Crythari — Under the far ice of Europa: nine feet of eel, ribbon fins, a faint blue glow along the body. They speak in pulses that travel through ice. Their ship is alive.

The Keltraxi — Also of Triton. Crystal and lightning. You have not met them yet.