MarsX - Chapter 3

Image: ID 218650378 | Mars © 3000ad | Dreamstime.com

At first all the news that Robert heard after the disaster was sympathetic, praising the brave crew that had been lost. But as time passed, he noticed that the sympathy turned into a hunt for someone to blame. Obviously, the company was the focus of that blame. And when it released its report on the accident, that a fuel line leak had ignited a fire and explosion, the recriminations were unrelenting.

By this time the government had gotten involved, resulting in hearings and investigations. Robert had given up on following the news of the incident but wasn’t surprised when he read, a few months later, that the company was being sold. Soon, Mars was forgotten and the new owners focused on space tourism which was unfortunate since no one wanted to ride a rocket built by the company involved in what became known as the Mars disaster. Eventually, MarsX quietly went out of business, selling its remaining rockets and infrastructure to a competitor in the space tourist business. What infrastructure was already on Mars was left unsold.

EPIC Indie Summer 2026 Sale

 

Starting now the EPIC Indie sale is live. See the website EPIC Indie Summer 2026.

At last count over 150 books are on sale for 99 cents each, including three of my own, the novels Zero Point, MarsX, and the novella The Einstein Nexus Book 1.

Find something for your library today.

MarsX - Chapter 2

Image: ID 218650378 | Mars © 3000ad | Dreamstime.com

CHAPTER 2

The day arrived and Harold was up earlier than anyone. He quickly made some sandwiches and put some soda in his thermos before his mom even walked into the kitchen.

“Looks like you’re ready,” she said.

“I can’t wait mom.”

“Okay, I’ll get you some breakfast,” she said.

Harold was eating his breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausage when his dad showed up.

“Good morning son, you ready to go?”

“Yeah, dad,” said Harold.

“Alright, let me get a little breakfast and I’ll drop you off at the bus station on my way to work,” he said.

“Thanks dad.”

The Einstein Nexus Book 1

 

My new novella, The Einstein Nexus, will be released Monday, July 20.

It is Book 1 in a novella trilogy, the second book of which is ready for preorder and the eBook will be released August 20. The third book is almost finished and will be released in eBook format September 20.

I've never written a time travel story because I hadn't found any possible physical support for such a story. Then I found some hints of such support in a popular science article about Einstein-Rosen Bridges. See my posts about extrapolating this science here and here.

The novella (along with my novels Zero Point and MarsX) will be available in the upcoming EPIC Indie Summer Sale for 99 cents which also starts on July 20. (However, I've already lowered the price on these if you want to purchase early, see the EPIC Indie site, here. You'll have to scroll the carousel to find them).

Here is the description:

What began as a teen boy's curiosity, became a physics research project into the time effects of the Einstein-Rosen bridge.

At first, the excitement of the project hid the dangers, even from the experts.

But in time they will become very aware of the dangers.

MarsX - Chapter 1

 Image: ID 218650378 | Mars © 3000ad | Dreamstime.com

This story was finished a year ago last June. It seems long ago now. I had just finished my Cislunar Series collection (June of 2023), Lunar Series collection (October of 2024), and the novel L4 Station (February of 2025). All are part of my Remembered Earth Universe, which was intended to chronicle the near-future expansion of humanity into the Solar System. After the Moon, Mars was the next obvious step, and the story began as just another settling of Mars story. But because of rapidly advancing AI, which was on my mind at the time, super-intelligence became a big part of the story. Surprisingly, such super-intelligent AI provided the impetus for rapid settlement.

Another contributor to the story was my reading of the book The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps by Marshall T. Savage. In the book he develops several technologies for the support of Space Habitats and the space habitat of the book, Solaria, is named from the book and uses some of those technologies. Once the settlement of Mars was well along, this seemed to be an ample project for my three protagonists to pivot to.

The antimatter starship that the AIs are credited with developing was going to be another point of focus in the book, I bought the book Mirror Matter by Dr. Robert Forward, for the research to build it credibly. But in the end, I only used a bit of the technology in that book. I hope to revisit the creation of such a starship in the future.

So, here is my story of the settlement of Mars, not as I originally intended, but told as a tall tale.

“The future of humanity is going to bifurcate in two directions: Either it’s going to become multiplanetary, or it’s going to remain confined to one planet and eventually there’s going to be an extinction event.”

― Elon Musk

Science of The Einstein Nexus - Part 2

Image: Bruce Rolff

My stories usually begin when I've read about some physics news that piques my interest. So, the narrative is generated from an explication and extrapolation of a science article. However, once I start, sometimes I have to go out and search for a possible physical effect to provide a solution to a problem that the narrative creates.

As I was writing the second novella in The Einstein Nexus, I found myself creating an area (I usually call them bubbles of time, since their effect is sphere shaped) of shifting time which became a danger, because unlike the former bubbles, this one didn't dissipate but grew. It turns out that if two time singularities are created at the same time in close proximity they will warp spacetime just like masses and orbit each other and continue to ever shift time. Who knew? Okay, got a problem to work through.

One obvious solution to stopping this disaster is to separate the time singularities. Separate, they will dissipate. Now the problem as I

Based Book Summer 2026 Sale

The summer Based Book Sale is in its fourth day. These are simply books (334 examples) that have no agenda except to tell a good story (of course, humans being humans, there are deeply held world views that influence that story).

My book MarsX is currently tied for twentieth place in sales. Your support is appreciated, if not for me, then for one of the other writers in the sale, almost all of us are independents.

Buy a book for 99 cents or free here: Based Book Summer 2026.

MarsX: The Novel - Part 2

Image – ID 218650378 | Mars © 3000ad | Dreamstime.com

As I was working on the novelettes that became the novel MarsX, I happened across the AI 2027 forecast (you can read it here AI 2027) about the forthcoming development of super-AI. All the forecasting in AI 2027 is fascinating to read but I want to cover the part that particularly influenced my novel. It is towards the end of the forecast when you can choose between the “race” or “slow” ending. The “race” ending was particularly science fictional to me (not in the sense that I question its verity, it may come true, but in the audaciousness of its prediction).

MarsX the Novel

Image – ID 218650378 | Mars © 3000ad | Dreamstime.com

I will soon be releasing the eBook version of MarsX, which is a novel combining the three novelettes MarsX1, MarsX2, and MarsX3. The epigraph of the book is a quote from Elon Musk:

“The future of humanity is going to bifurcate in two directions: Either it's going to become multiplanetary, or it's going to remain confined to one planet, and eventually there's going to be an extinction event.”

Future Chron Universe Chronology

Image: Standard Model of Particle Physics in the Future Chron Universe. Note The Chron, Chron+ and Chron- additions that make their appearance in the Time Series of that universe.

Before I began the stories in the Future Chron Universe I prepared a chronology. This is not to be taken as a prediction of the future, but as a history of Future Chron, though of course, it is a future history which uses a lot of Earth history.

Anyway, it was written sometime in 2014, the year before I started writing. The first two stories were finished at the end of 2016.

Looking at 2026, the year this was written, I see that I had men on the Moon and robots causing unemployment. Of course, men are not on the Moon, though they just went around it, and humanoid robots are just beginning to move into industry, but if we include all AI, the job losses have begun. Never mind, as I said, it's not about this world but the Future Chron world. You can find the chronology here: Future Chron Chronology.

Art & Science of the Future Chron Universe

Image: Bruce Rolff

For me, one of the more fun things about writing science fiction stories is the opportunity to develop the future science and technology that supports the narrative. This usually starts with reading a new science paper online or a popular explanation of new science in a magazine or scientific paper. Often, I will start a story to explicate that science. I will extrapolate in the story with the goal of making the science and technology fascinating and plausible.

No matter how far I extrapolate I always try to keep it consistent. I try not to just invent a technology from nothing but try to develop it and extend it in a natural, logical manner.

Across the whole of the Future Chron Universe, I postulated quite a bit of future science and technology. I kept notes and presented many of these notes, polished for publication, in the stories. But sometimes the development of the science was in the narrative and not in a separate file. I eventually wanted to assemble all these notes into one book or file and the link below is the result, so far.

Art & Science of Future Chron

Spotlight On Indie Science Fiction & Fantasy

Thanks to Spotlight on Indie for putting my novel Zero Point in the carousel.

Science of The Einstein Nexus

Image: Bruce Rolff

My current work in progress, The Einstein Nexus, is my first to deal with time travel. The supporting extrapolated science is described below.

The Science

In 1935 Einstein and Rosen wrote a paper in which the Einstein-Rosen Bridge was introduced. This appeared to be a “bridge” between widely separated regions of the universe. At the middle of the bridge was a singularity. 50 years later, the results were used by Throne and Morris to construct traversable wormholes. But there is another interpretation of the bridge, that is, at the singularity, the arrow of time reverses.

Trillion Year Spree

In 1986, Brian Aldiss, in his book Trillion Year Spree, had this to say about science fiction coming out of the 60s:

In 1969, Donald Wollheim, then guiding light of Ace Books, published an anthology called Men on the Moon. He persuaded twenty-seven writers to give their views on the first lunar landing, which took place in July of that year. Isaac Asimov, John Brunner, E. C. Tubb, Alan Nourse, and others had their say.

Only Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, and Poul Anderson were full of unqualified praise and excitement. Most of the authors
took a very sceptical view of the proceedings. The phrase on the plaque, “We Come in Peace for All Mankind”, stuck in their gullets; they started remembering the Indians.

Michael Moorcock quoted J. G. Ballard's wry remark: “If I were a Martian I'd start running now!” Isaac Asimov hoped we

MarsX

My next release is a novel called MarsX. It is the story of how mankind settles the red planet. Except, it's not the usual story. The motivation is the key, and that's tied to the development of AI.

When I wrote the three novelettes that became this novel, development in AI was not entering the knee of the exponential as it appears to be now. The AI in the story naturally developed into a much bigger role than I planned. Looking back almost a year later, what I thought was years away may be directly ahead. The frontier AI companies think super-AI is close, I don't know, but the difference between fiction and fact continues to compress.

The paperback will be available at online stores April 20, the eBook May 20.

The blurb:

We will colonize Mars, just not in the way we think.

The decision will be made for us, and out of desperation, we will meet the challenge.

But Earth politics and grievances will also follow, as will danger.

MarsX is a novel in the Remembered Earth Universe, a collection of short stories, novellas, and novels extrapolating humanity's near future.

Note: Originally published as the novellas MarsX1, MarsX2, and MarsX3.

Hard Science Fiction – Old School.

Anti-Science Visionary

Image: Frank R. Paul, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

H.G. Wells is well known for his early science fiction. While providing exciting stories and thought-provoking scenarios the reader may believe that Wells was a science and technology optimist. But upon further reflection they might note that the stories and novels carried an undercurrent of foreboding. They were essentially a warning siren for scientific apocalypse, though he changed his mind later and found a way to use science and technology to enable his utopias, Wells was at the start of his writing career a science and technology pessimist. Looking at the short story Lord of the Dynamos Wells's early attitude towards technology and science can be examined.

Based Book Sale Last Days

Zero Point: A Quantum Adventure is number four in the Based Book Sale on Substack. All books are 99 cents or free. Here's the update from the organizer:

D.W. Patterson is in fourth with 25 sales for Zero Point: A Quantum Adventure. Jack Carson had a stroke of luck; a great-uncle had left him land in Arizona. But that’s when Jack’s luck began to change, mysterious sights and sounds threatened to make his inheritance worthless as a center for the study of physics. Marta Merritt decided to help, and she didn’t think it a mystery, she thought it was an artifact of a forgotten physics theory called pilot-wave mechanics.

Patterson definitely grabbed me with “pilot-wave mechanics.” Check this one out!

What a Beautiful World This Will Be

(Title from Donald Fagen, IGY Lyrics).

The CEO, Dario Amodei, of Anthropic, one of the leading AI labs believes that strong AI is only 1-2 years away, probably 2027. And once strong AI is available, 100 years of progress in biology, medicine, economics, etc. will happen in 5-10 years, or 2032-2037.

As I [Dario Modei] wrote in Machines of Loving Grace [Essay, October 2024], powerful AI could be as little as 1–2 years away, although it could also be considerably further out.

I think the best way to get a handle on the risks of AI is to ask the following question: suppose a literal “country of geniuses” were to materialize somewhere in the world in ~2027. [From The Adolescence of Technology – Amodei, January 2026]

To summarize the above, my basic prediction is that AI-enabled biology and medicine will allow us to compress the progress that human biologists would have achieved over the next 50-100 years into 5-10 years. I’ll refer to this as the “compressed 21st century”: the idea that after powerful AI is developed, we will in a few years make all the progress in biology and medicine that we would have made in the whole 21st century.

Possibilities (Predictions):

Reliable prevention and treatment of nearly all natural infectious disease. [Fast evolving strains like those that develop in hospitals may be more difficult to eradicate].

Zero Point Available

My new novel Zero Point is now available February 7.

The blurb:

Jack Carson had a stroke of luck; a great-uncle had left him land in Arizona.

But that's when Jack's luck began to change, mysterious sights and sounds threatened to make his inheritance worthless as a center for the study of physics.

Marta Merritt decided to help, and she didn't think it a mystery, she thought it was an artifact of a forgotten physics theory called pilot-wave mechanics.

To build the center they would have to find out, and they would have to stay alive to do so.

AI 2027

 

AI 2027 is a roadmap for developing AI. It was created by the AI Futures Project in 2025. It lists several technologies and predicts when they might occur from now until 2030. I have taken the technologies and grouped them into AI 2027's three groupings, Exists, Emerging, and Science Fiction. Then I note as the years pass which group each technology moves to, the final being existing. Note that this is their original prediction, some things may have changed, see their website and blog for more.

Mid 2025

Exists

Image Recognition

Game Learner

Language interpreter

Creative writer

Robotaxi

Image generator

Code interpreter

Conversational AI

Expert chatbot (PhD levels)