Signed paperback copies of my books can be obtained directly through Mostly Books, an independent bookseller in Tucson, AZ. They ship books out of town, so if you live outside of Tucson and want a signed copy of something, it can be arranged. Just give them a call or send an email.
This is my first book, written originally for the amateur astronomy niche market. It’s a short memoir of how I came to be an amateur astronomer.
Mr. Olcott’s Skies: An Old Book and a Youthful Obsession
We were all young once upon a time, and in our youth found something special
that captured our hearts and minds.
A passion for star-gazing often starts in a modest way, with a small telescope. For some, that modest beginning becomes a theme that resonates through a lifetime. Mr. Olcott’s Skies is the story of one such beginning, and of how a small telescope and an old book set the author on a long and often indirect road to the stars. It’s the tale of a journey that has only just begun, and of the discovery that you really do need to look back the way you’ve come, to understand where you are.
Available from Amazon and other Ebook Sources
Paperback edition available through most booksellers.
A sequel, of sorts, to Mr. Olcott’s Skies.
Tales of a Three-legged Newt: Essays and Anecdotes for Amateur Astronomers
In Mr. Olcott’s Skies: An Old Book and a Youthful Obsession, I explored the origins of my love for the night sky, and how after a nearly thirty year hiatus I returned to the pursuit of amateur astronomy. Tales of a Three-legged Newt is in part the rest of that story, recounting the acquisition of the telescope of my boyhood dreams and sharing some of the experiences it brought in the years that followed. It’s also a collection of ideas and opinions written for the entertainment of those who share a love for the night sky. This is not a book about how to observe the stars and planets. It’s a book about why people do so, from the perspective one amateur star gazer.
Available from Amazon and other Ebook Sources
Paperback edition available through most booksellers.
The Chimera Multiverse
The Gryphon Stone
Of all the worlds in the multiverse, Adrathea is the last David Render would willingly revisit. What happened there broke his heart and drove him to retire from the UN Multiverse Survey. To hang up his sword forever.
Then Treyvar of the Alvehn brings disturbing news. Adrathea is in peril, and David’s old comrade needs his help to stop a rogue Alvehn from usurping the throne and ruling the planet forever as an immortal tyrant. To set things right, David must return to the one place he never wants to see again.
But Adrathea is a world to which David’s fate is bound by the most intimate of ties. He has no choice. Adrathea calls, and he must answer.
Available from Amazon and other Ebook Sources
Paperback edition available through most booksellers.
The Lesson of Almiraya Bay
Sequel to The Gryphon Stone.
David Render’s travels through the multiverse have come to an end. Married to Sidraytha of the Isles, he is now the father of two children. The Isles of Wulde are his home, and the Islanders have adopted him as one of their own. His life in the service of the Alvehn, in their endless war against the barbaric Moj, is a thing of the past. That Edren the Rogue Alvehn remains at large on Adrathea is a problem for the Alvehn to solve – without him.
On a night of celebration, that past proves closer to him than he ever dared imagine. A light appears in the sky; a lost starship in a universe where space travel is impossible. When the survivors of this impossible ship find themselves in the care of the Islanders, they stir up David’s worst nightmares, and draw the attention of the Rogue Alvehn to the Isles.
To protect those he loves most, David must face his greatest enemy yet again, and he must conquer a darkness that dwells deep in his own heart. But he will not fight alone. For the gryphons have come to the Isles of Wulde.
Available from Amazon and other Ebook Sources
Paperback edition available through most booksellers.
THE WAR OF THE SECOND ITERATION
The Commonwealth of Humanity has quietly explored their region of the galaxy for almost four hundred years. They have built a vast, prosperous, and peaceful civilization. Star systems have been colonized, worlds terraformed, and life in a variety of forms undreamt of by their ancestors has been found, studied, and cherished. But in all this time they have found no other people, no sign of another intelligent life form among the stars.
When at last they meet the Leyra’an, everything changes; for these alien beings are so much like Humanity it defies both science and belief. It cannot be a coincidence. In seeking answers to this riddle, Robert and Alicia MacGregor will ultimately confront a universe more complicated and perilous than they could ever have imagined. A universe that will soon threaten everything that matters and everyone they love.
Book One – The Luck of Han’anga
An age of peaceful exploration has ended.
The centuries old dream of meeting an intelligent, nonhuman species has finally come true, in the form of the people known as the Leyra’an. But the dream soon becomes something darker when the Leyra’an prove to be more than just humanoid. They are like us to a degree that cannot be explained by chance alone. The search for the answer to this mystery will reveal a universe stranger and more dangerous than the crew of the probeship William Bartram could have imagined, and expose both Humanity and the Leyra’an to the threat of extinction.
For better or worse, that search has begun.
Available from Amazon and other Ebook Sources
Paperback edition available through most booksellers.
Book Two – Founders’ Effect
While Robert and Alicia MacGregor, survivors of the ill-fated probeship William Bartram, work to rebuild their lives, the Commonwealth seeks a way to end the long, bitter conflict between the Republic and the Leyra’an. But the leaders of the Republic, suspicious of the motives that drive their long-sundered kin and faced with unrest among their own people, resist the changes that must come for peace to exist. And all the while, forces unseen by either side are at work, determined to force Humanity and the Leyra’an to walk the path of war.
Available from Amazon and other Ebook Sources
Paperback edition available through most booksellers.
Book Three – The Plight of the Eli’ahtna
On a mission to bring aid to a beleaguered star system, John Knowles and Eb’shra Wirolen have been hurled by a freak accident across countless light years, and are marooned in uncharted space. As they work to repair their damaged ship, the Eli’ahtna, and the friends they’ve left behind launch a desperate rescue mission to bring them home, the castaways discover that although they are truly lost, they are not alone.
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Paperback edition available through most booksellers.
Book Four – The Courage to Accept
Four years of research, using the combined resources of five species of sentient beings, have brought Alicia MacGregor no closer to understanding how Humanity’s sibling species came into existence. Who was responsible for redirecting the natural course of evolution on four living worlds? Why did they do it? And can she find the answer before the Faceless render all such questions moot? For the Faceless are back with a vengeance, and as implacable as ever.
The Commonwealth has known nothing but peace for almost four hundred years. Now, war is upon them. How do you prepare for something no one alive has ever seen?
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Paperback edition available through most booksellers.
Book Five – Setha’im Prosh
The conclusion of the War of the Second Iteration.
The Faceless have come, waging total war against the Republic and the Confederation of Clans. As star systems fall and a desperate effort is made to find out who and what the Faceless really are, foes must become allies against the common threat. If their defenses do not hold, nothing will prevent the Faceless from invading the Commonwealth. And with the resources of the Commonwealth under their control, no power in the galaxy, not even the strange and alien T’lack, will be able to stop the Faceless from exterminating Humanity and its allies.
Robert MacGregor and his family prepare for the worst, both hoping and fearing that this will be the end of the madness. Hoping and fearing, for all wars eventually end – one way or another.
Available from Amazon and other Ebook Sources
Paperback edition available through most booksellers.
Where A Demon Hides
War of the Second Iteration: Coda
The war is over and Humanity has prevailed, but victory came at a terrible price. The weapon used to bring down the enemy killed or injured as many people as it saved. One of the unintended casualties, Alicia MacGregor, has existed in a medically induced coma for two years while her neurological injuries were repaired.
At last, to the relief of family and friends, the time has come for her to awaken and rejoin the world. She is healed physically, but the trauma she endured in that final battle left deep scars in her heart and mind. As she copes with the burden of horror and grief left by the war, Alicia discovers that she is haunted by something far worse than bad memories. Something that first threatens her sanity, and then her life.
Available from Amazon and Other eBook Sources
Also available in paperback.
All That Bedevils Us
A Tale of the Second Iteration
If not for the intervention of the insectoid beings called the T’lack, the Faceless War would have ended with the extinction of Humanity and its Sibling Species. That intervention came at a great cost for the T’lack. No one knows or understands Humanity’s debt to the T’lack better than Jan Costa, who paid his own terrible price at the end of that war.
Now the T’lack are themselves in grave danger, facing a devastating civil war between rival factions and threatened by a mysterious race of beings on the far side of T’lack space.
Jan Costa leads a multi-species expeditionary force into the unknown, seeking to save his alien friends both from themselves and the new threat they have aroused. What he discovers out beyond the frontier will change everything, with the very existence of the T’lack hanging in the balance.
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Paperback edition available through most booksellers.
Something different. A novella about a boy and his dog. Except, he’s too old to be a boy, and it isn’t really his dog.
Paul Ford is a man on the road, seeking to put distance and time between himself and events that turned his life inside out – and not for the better. Toby is a big dog, lost and far from home. A chance encounter brings them together and sends them on a journey to reunite the dog with his family, a trip that just might help Paul find his own way home as well. But this will be no ordinary road trip, and when it’s done, Paul’s life will never be the same.
Available from Amazon and Kindle Unlimited.
Paperback edition available through most booksellers.
On a bitterly cold night under the stars, an old man willingly embraces the end of his life. Illness and a revelation of betrayal have convinced him that the time has come. But in dying, Gregory Williamson discovers that time is not what he believes it to be, and neither are life and death. Granted a new awareness of the true complexity of existence, he is offered the chance to live another life. A life that will show him the powerful truth of love. A life that could make the world a better place.
Better, that is, from a certain point of view.
Available from Amazon and other Ebook Sources
Paperback edition available through most booksellers.
Under Desert Stars 
I hope you are the Thomas Watson who wrote “With My Own Eyes” in the May 2012 issue of Sky & Telescope. Thank you for such a wonderful article that also expressed my feelings. From the time I first saw Saturn’s rings almost 40 years ago until now, I still want to see the rings myself. Those have been amply documented, yet still find themselves talked about and seen in various publications. And no matter how many times I view them, it’s still wondrous.
BTW, this post is a bit late, having found the May 2012 issue mis-filed in my son’s stack of S&T 2013 issues. Good for me that I found it and your article.
Yes, I’m the author of that essay, one of three I’ve managed to publish on S&T’s Focal Point page. Very glad you enjoyed it. Seems a great many amateur astronomers feel the same way, from the feedback I received for that essay. Seeing things with your own eyes is what visual observing is all about. Thanks for the comment!
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