Fabulae Lunae

From the Moon’s Own Tales

You’ve cycled through the air­lock and stepped into the qui­et cor­ner of Con­rad Sta­tion where the actu­al sto­ries get told — the ones that don’t make the tourist feeds.

Fab­u­lae Lunae is the col­lect­ed lunar fron­tier: hard sci­ence fic­tion dis­patch­es from a Moon that’s equal parts promise and per­il. Here you’ll find the full tales of Nils Carmike’s self-suf­fi­cient crawlers, the Mason fam­i­ly shad­ows stretch­ing from Earth to the regolith, Deputy Genevieve Miller’s first uneasy shifts under Earth­light, and the grit­ty cor­po­rate maneu­vers that keep every air­lock cycle feel­ing like it might be your last.

Mask of the Joyful Moon

In the shad­owed under­bel­ly of Con­rad Sta­tion, where Earth­light fil­ters through a lunar bar like a dis­tant mem­o­ry and sur­face ten­sion bends every sip into some­thing alien, Deputy Genevieve Miller steps onto an old Moon wear­ing a fresh face. Fresh from Earth’s tan­gled cor­po­rate feuds and the mys­te­ri­ous col­lapse of her uncle into advanced demen­tia, Gen arrives as the reluc­tant law in a place where mer­ce­nar­ies once seized con­trol, prospec­tors spin half-truths for drinks, and the Mason family’s bit­ter war threat­ens to crack the frag­ile peace. Yet beneath the regolith and recy­cled air lies a deep­er mask—one that hides plaques in the brain, hid­den iden­ti­ties among the habi­tats, and a joy­ful secret the Moon itself seems deter­mined to reveal. From the reader’s van­tage in this hard-won cor­ner of the solar sys­tem, where every trail and every trans­mis­sion car­ries the weight of Yellowstone’s long shad­ow, Gen must untan­gle lies, allies, and threats before the next strike eras­es every­thing she came to pro­tect.  Avail­able for pre-order at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G16F7MQW

Thunder Moon Tussle

 

The sto­ry that start­ed it all. Nils Carmike and Mil­ton John­son nurse low‑g drinks in Alex’s bar while the lunar fron­tier begins to unrav­el. Prospec­tors, hid­den agen­das, and the long crawler trails that bind the Moon togeth­er — all under that sig­na­ture blue Earth­light beam across the dance floor. Now avail­able at Ama­zon books: Thun­der Moon Tussle

Lunadyne Incident

The Luna­dyne Inci­dent and Oth­er Sto­ries The raw, stand­alone dis­patch­es from the Fab­u­lae Lunae col­lec­tion.  These are the tales that fill the gaps between the big runs — the qui­et moments and sud­den flash­es of dan­ger that every prospec­tor and deputy knows too well. Now avail­able at: Ama­zon Books — The Luna­dyne Incident.

The Timeline of Fabulae Lunae

Time­line of Events

The con­tin­u­ing relat­ed vignettes & back­ground logs lead­ing from the Yel­low­stone Erup­tion to The Mask of the Joy­ful Moon. Fol­low Gen’s arrival, the sta­tion pol­i­tics, and the trails that con­nect back to Nils and the orig­i­nal crew.

The Fabulae Lunae

Fab­u­lae Lunae—the tales of the Moon—unfolds as a hard-sci­ence-fic­tion chron­i­cle of humanity’s pre­car­i­ous foothold on the lunar fron­tier. From the grit­ty prospec­tor crawlers kick­ing up regolith in Thun­der Moon Tus­sle to the cor­po­rate shad­ows and hid­den iden­ti­ties haunt­ing Con­rad Sta­tion in Mask of the Joy­ful Moon, these sto­ries trace a near-future scarred by Yellowstone’s erup­tion, where low-grav­i­ty des­per­a­tion col­lides with ambi­tion, betray­al, and qui­et acts of sur­vival. Read­ers ride shot­gun with char­ac­ters like Nils Carmike and Genevieve Miller, feel­ing every awk­ward sip through a sur­face-ten­sion cup and every uncer­tain trans­mis­sion from Earth, as the Moon itself becomes both refuge and rid­dle in a saga that rewards those who look beneath the mask.

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Other Stories

Besides the Fab­u­lae Lunae, there are oth­er sto­ries set out­side of that col­lec­tive set­ting. Some of them are weird, while oth­ers are out­side of that his­to­ry. The sto­ries imag­ine oth­er areas that explore sci­ence fic­tion. Some esti­mat­ed effects of mak­ing an assump­tion about the laws of nature and try­ing a sto­ry with those esti­mates. Oth­ers pre­serve the rigid­i­ty of cur­rent sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge but move it out of the set­ting of Fab­u­lae Lunae. These sto­ries are spawn­ing new series. The projects sec­tion will explore them further.

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Future Projects

Check here for future projects

 

Thunder Moon Tussle: A Near Future Science Fiction Novel by Torn MacAlester

 

In the dim Earth­light of Con­rad Station’s hotel bar, where drinks defy grav­i­ty through clever straws and sur­face ten­sion, Nils Carmike spins tall tales for tourists while his old part­ner Mil­ton John­son nurs­es a qui­et grudge and a hid­den past. What begins as a sim­ple night of sto­ries and recy­cled air quick­ly spi­rals into a high-stakes lunar tussle—corporate feuds, buried secrets, and a des­per­ate race across the regolith that pits prospec­tor grit against the ruth­less ambi­tions of the Mason fam­i­ly. From the reader’s seat in this hard-sci­ence fron­tier scarred by Yellowstone’s long shad­ow, every crawler track and every whis­pered trans­mis­sion car­ries the weight of betray­al, sur­vival, and the Moon’s own unfor­giv­ing mask. Thun­der Moon Tus­sle deliv­ers the raw, low-grav­i­ty thrill of humanity’s first uneasy steps beyond Earth.

In the stark, air­less expanse of the lunar fron­tier, where every boot­print in the regolith tells a sto­ry and the thin line between sur­vival and cat­a­stro­phe is mea­sured in recy­cled air and sur­face-ten­sion drinks, The Luna­dyne Inci­dent and Oth­er Sto­ries gath­ers the sharpest threads of the Fab­u­lae Lunae. From the qui­et des­per­a­tion of a golf shot gone wrong on the Moon’s dusty plains to the heart-pound­ing descent into dark­ness dur­ing a solar storm, and the explo­sive cor­po­rate show­down that gives the col­lec­tion its name, these hard-sci­ence tales let the read­er ride along with prospec­tors, engi­neers, and reluc­tant heroes as they nav­i­gate betray­al, ambi­tion, and the unfor­giv­ing physics of low grav­i­ty. Scarred by Yellowstone’s long shad­ow and laced with the same cor­po­rate intrigue and hid­den iden­ti­ties that echo through Con­rad Sta­tion, this col­lec­tion offers a grip­ping mosa­ic of humanity’s first uneasy foothold on the Moon—raw, pre­cise, and impos­si­ble to put down.

Stories

The sto­ries of Torn MacAlester are sci­ence fic­tion, where the sci­ence is well-ground­ed. I inten­tion­al­ly made any devi­a­tions for spec­u­la­tive pur­pos­es. To main­tain max­i­mum real­ism, I restrict the scope of these deviations.

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Articles

I write arti­cles of sci­ence fact and sci­ence fic­tion. The arti­cles here span the knowl­edge of mod­ern sci­ence and the spec­u­la­tions of fic­tion. I try to caveat every­thing that is an assump­tion. You will find arti­cles about space­flight, the pos­si­bil­i­ties of alien con­tact, and descrip­tions of tech­nol­o­gy used in my stories.

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Outpost

Blog, Reviews, Sched­ule,  Com­ment Thread, & Read­er’s Group.

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