Nubeo Elysium Review: This NASA Watch Has a Hidden Message

I wanted the white one. It looked like it belonged on the sleeve of a spacesuit. But the white Nubeo Elysium was sold out when I looked, which left me comparing the black and blue versions and asking a perfectly reasonable grown-man question. Which one feels more like NASA?

Blue Galaxy won me over. The white NASA lettering sits low on a wide-open blue dial, just below a little round date window at six o’clock. Then there’s the bright red crown sticking out of the brushed steel case. It looks enough like a button that some part of me wants a little plastic cover over it and a second person to authorize turning it.

Give it a little ultraviolet light

In daylight, there’s enough empty space on that dial to make you wonder why Nubeo left it all there. Shine a UV flashlight on it and up pops “Failure is not an option.” That’s a pretty stern briefing for a guy checking whether he has time to microwave a burrito. Nubeo Watches

There’s a fun bit of space history tucked into those five words. The screenwriters of Apollo 13 came up with the line after interviewing people who worked the mission. Ed Harris delivered it on screen as flight director Gene Kranz, and the real Kranz later used it as the title of his autobiography. So if you read the dial and immediately hear it in Ed Harris’s voice, you’ve got the right guy. nasa.gov

Turn it over and watch the rotor

My favorite reason to pick up an automatic watch is that there’s something to look at even when I already know what time it is. Inside the Elysium is a Japanese Miyota automatic movement. Give the case a slow tilt and you can see the weighted rotor swing through the clear back. That motion winds the mainspring, which stores the energy that keeps the hands moving after I sit back down. Finally, all that talking with my hands is funding the space program. Nubeo Watches

Nubeo drew gauges and switches across the rotor and put the same Failure is not an option inscription along its edge. I like that detail even more than the glow. On the front, you get the clean NASA lettering. On the back, you get a tiny control panel that actually moves.

Would I still pick blue?

At $300, the practical question for me is size. The steel case measures 45 mm across, 48 mm lug to lug, and 13.5 mm thick. If you’re considering one, that 48 mm measurement is the one I’d compare with a watch you already wear. You also get a blue rubber strap, an anti-reflective mineral crystal, and 5 ATM water resistance. Nubeo lists 150 pieces in this color. Nubeo Watches

I’d still happily wear the white one. But if all three were sitting in front of me today, I’d reach for Blue Galaxy. That red crown against the blue is what I’d notice every time I looked down. The hidden message is what would have me handing the watch and a UV flashlight to somebody else and saying, “Here, you’ve got to see this.”

See the Nubeo Elysium Automatic NASA Limited Edition in Blue Galaxy

Why the a.b.art Freiburg 265 Has 31 Holes in Its Dial

I usually go for automatic watches. The a.b.art Freiburg 265 got my attention for a much smaller reason. There’s a single red dot on its black dial, and I wanted to know what it did. Turns out, it’s the date. Finally, a red dot on my wrist that I can leave alone without feeling like I owe somebody an email.

A whole month, one dot at a time

Look closely and you’ll see a ring of 31 tiny openings, each paired with a number. If the red dot is beside 10, it’s the 10th. At midnight, it moves one spot clockwise to 11. What I like about that arrangement is that it gives the month a shape. Even before I read the number, the position of the dot gives me a rough idea of how much month I have left.

There is one trade-off. A conventional date window gives your eye the same place to land every morning. On the Freiburg, you find the red dot and then read the little number beside it. If I’m standing at the front office trying to date a form, a big numeral wins. As a design I’d enjoy looking at every day, though? I’d take the dot.

The number I like almost as much is 6 mm

The black stainless-steel case is 41 mm across and just 6 mm thick. That gives those 31 dates room to spread out while keeping the watch slim enough for a shirt cuff. The flat black leather strap carries that slim profile through, and the white hands stand out clearly against the dial.

Under the sapphire crystal is a battery-powered Ronda 715 quartz movement with Swiss parts. I can leave it on the dresser for a few days, pick it up on a school morning, and head out the door without winding it or resetting the time. The practical limit is the 3 ATM water-resistance rating. I’d wear it to work or dinner and leave it on the dresser for a swim.

The Freiburg 265 makes sense to me because the part you’d show a friend is also the part you’d use. Ask me about most of my watches and you might get a longer answer than you wanted. With this one, I can point to the dial and say, “See that little red dot?”

See the a.b.art Freiburg 265 on the manufacturer’s website · More watch reviews on Ryan’s Wrist Check

Bertucci DX3 Edge Sahara Review: My Favorite Detail Is at Four O’Clock

If a watch crown has ever poked you in the back of the hand, take a look at the Bertucci DX3 Edge Sahara. The little knob you use to set the time sits at four o’clock, a little farther from where your wrist bends. It’s my favorite detail on this $125 field watch, and you don’t need to climb a mountain to appreciate it. Leaning on a desk will do.

I teach special education, and one of the better arguments for wearing my smartwatch is that I use timers throughout the school day. But sometimes I just want to glance down, see how much of a 20-minute reading session is left, and get back to what I’m doing. That’s where an analog watch earns its spot on my wrist.

The Sahara is mostly about the strap

Bertucci calls this version the Sahara, which, given that I live in the Utah desert, means I can probably count it as camouflage.

What I like about the color scheme is how well the pieces work together. The tan numerals pick up the color of the woven nylon strap, while the black dashes down the middle of the strap match the matte black case. The light-colored hands are easy to pick out against the charcoal dial. There’s also a smaller 24-hour scale tucked inside the main numerals, if your day occasionally requires translating 1400 into “I have a meeting in five minutes.”

The strap has a practical detail of its own: you can fold the extra length back through the keepers. I appreciate that more than another inch of nylon sticking out from the side of my wrist.

What does $125 get you?

The DX3 Edge has a 40 mm fiber-reinforced polycarbonate case, a Japanese quartz movement, and a battery Bertucci rates for about three years. I usually gravitate toward automatic watches, but quartz makes sense for someone who rotates through a collection. Leave this one on the dresser for a week, and you can pick it up Monday morning without having to set the time.

Bertucci also rates it for 100 meters of water resistance, and the luminous hands and markers charge from light. The specification that gives me pause is the mineral crystal. I don’t mind a nylon strap looking worn. A scratch right across the spot where I’m trying to read the minute hand would bother me considerably more. If sapphire is on your must-have list, I’d keep looking.

Would I put the DX3 Edge Sahara on a $125 shortlist? Yes, especially for someone who wants a light watch and likes this strap enough to leave it on. The strap, the dial, and that little four o’clock crown are what make this particular Bertucci worth a look. And if the most demanding expedition on your calendar is getting through the school day, I think that counts.

View the Bertucci DX3 Edge Sahara, model 11162, on Bertucci’s website.

VARIO 1945 D12 Bronze Review: A Field Watch I’d Let Age

If you handed me a polishing cloth with the VARIO 1945 D12 Bronze, I’d probably misplace it on purpose. I’m wearing the Fumé Grey version on the army green strap, and what I’d really like to see is this same watch five years from now. I think that green canvas will look even better once the bronze loses some of its shine.

There’s a detail that makes me especially curious: the case is bronze, but the hands are raw brass. The hands can slowly develop their own patina, too. If I take a picture of this watch today and another one a few years from now, the first thing I’m going to compare is the minute hand against that grey dial.

Take a look at six o’clock

Where you’d normally find a big numeral six, there’s a little dial with a seconds hand making its own lap. I like that arrangement on a field watch. When I glance down to see how many minutes are left before the school bell, the two big hands tell me what I need. When I have time to look closer, there’s something worth watching.

That little seconds dial and the railroad-style minute track around the edge are both nods to the “Dirty Dozen” watches made for the British military during World War II. VARIO’s design notes are worth a look if you enjoy that history. My favorite departure from the originals is also the most obvious one: the warm bronze rim against the smoky grey face. The army green strap reminds me of an old canvas field bag. I’d keep it on this one.

How big is 37 mm, really?

The D12 is 37 mm across, 10.5 mm thick, and 45 mm from lug tip to lug tip. If you’re considering one, that last number is the one I’d check. Take a watch you already like wearing and measure from the tip of its top lug to the tip of its bottom lug. Comparing that measurement with 45 mm will tell you more about the fit than a close-up photo ever could.

VARIO tucked the screw-down crown down at four o’clock, a little farther from the back of your hand when you bend your wrist. You also get a sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating on the inside and a 100-meter water-resistance rating. Those are practical choices for a watch that takes its styling cues from 1945.

What happens if you take it off on Friday?

Inside is a Miyota 82S5 automatic movement. It winds as you wear it, you can wind it by hand, and the seconds hand stops when you pull the crown out to set the time. Miyota rates the power reserve at about 42 hours. In practical terms, if you take it off Friday evening and leave it on the dresser, you’ll probably be setting it again Monday morning. Personally, I enjoy lining up that little seconds hand. Your Monday morning may be busier than mine.

Would I choose the bronze? At VARIO’s listed price of $428 USD, I’d choose this version if you like two things: a compact watch and a case that shows its age. If you want the watch to look much the same five years from now, I’d give the steel D12 a look. For me, the whole appeal of this one is getting to find out what those five years look like.

Would you keep the bronze polished or let it age? Let me know in the comments, and check out Ryan’s Wrist Check on YouTube for more of my watch reviews.

I Built a Dashboard for My Enventor Pixel Mini Fridge

If I press 3 on my keyboard, my fridge gives me a suspicious look. If I press Z, it starts drawing those colorful pipes you might remember from old Windows screensavers. The drinks inside are unaffected by either decision.

I was supposed to be reviewing the Enventor Pixel Mini Fridge. Then I saw the 32 × 32 pixel display on the door and wanted to know what I could make it do. The result is Pixel Demo Board, a dashboard I built that runs in a browser and sends animations to the fridge over Bluetooth. In the video, I walk through the fridge itself and then show the dashboard in action.

The fridge part of the fridge review

The Enventor is a four-liter desktop cooler with a removable shelf and room for up to six cans, depending on their size. It uses thermoelectric cooling, so how cold it gets depends on the temperature of the room. I’d put it beside an editing desk for a few drinks. If you’re shopping for somewhere to keep a week’s worth of lunches, four liters will get small in a hurry.

The reason I’d give this one a spot on the desk instead of underneath it is the door. Out of the box, the iDotMatrix app lets you put artwork, animations, and scrolling messages on the display. You can stop there and have a perfectly good time. I wanted keyboard shortcuts for my refrigerator, which is how we got here.

See the Enventor Pixel Mini Fridge on Amazon (affiliate link). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

What I put on 1,024 pixels

Pixel Demo Board has 30 demos across five categories. An aquarium is a surprisingly good use of that little square. Press H and fish swim across the door. Press G and it displays my name, in case the custom software left any doubt about whose fridge this is.

There’s also a little campfire, a bouncing logo, a collection of expressive faces, and several arcade-inspired scenes. And because somebody is going to ask: no, the fridge doesn’t run Doom. I made a Doom-inspired corridor animation. The distinction matters, especially to the person who would otherwise spend their afternoon looking for the controls.

The interesting part of the build was getting an animation that looked right on my computer to play reliably on the fridge. Uploading a GIF to the fridge didn’t work consistently on my unit. Sending the changed pixels directly over Bluetooth did, so that’s how the dashboard plays demos by default. The browser does the work, the door lights up, and the controller tab needs to stay open.

Try the dashboard yourself

You can try the on-screen preview without owning the fridge. Download Pixel Demo Board.html from GitHub and open the file in Chrome or Edge. It’s one self-contained HTML file. There’s no account to create, package to install, or server to set up.

If you have a compatible 32 × 32 iDotMatrix display, disconnect the phone app first, click Connect display, and choose your device from the Bluetooth picker. Browser and platform support varies, but the Enventor fridge is the hardware I built and tested this on. The full GitHub project includes the source, keyboard shortcuts, and troubleshooting tips.

My vote for the first demo: try 3D Pipes. There’s something funny about having enough computing power on my desk to do actual work and still finding myself watching a screensaver on the appliance that holds my soda.

The Barrow Scale: What if the Future Is Smaller, Not Bigger?

When I picture an advanced civilization, it is easy to imagine enormous spaceships, cities spread across planets, and machines that make everything we have built look like a school science project. Bigger ships. Bigger power supplies. Bigger ambitions.

But what if that picture misses an equally important direction?

What if a civilization’s most impressive achievement is not the size of the things it builds, but how precisely it can control the things those structures are made of?

That is what makes the Barrow scale such an interesting idea.

What Is the Barrow Scale?

John D. Barrow proposed the scale in his 1998 book Impossibility: The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits. It classifies technological capability according to the smallest structures a civilization can manipulate, moving from ordinary objects toward matter’s smallest components and, ultimately, spacetime itself.

Think of it as a change in the question we ask about progress. Instead of only asking how much power a civilization has, we also ask how much precision it has.

There is a difference between having a bigger hammer and understanding how to rearrange the material you are hitting.

Barrow Scale vs. Kardashev Scale

The Kardashev scale focuses on energy use, commonly discussed at planetary, stellar, and galactic scales. Barrow’s scale focuses on increasingly fine control. They describe different dimensions of technological capability, so they can complement each other rather than compete.

I find that distinction useful. Imagine two societies with similar energy supplies. One mostly uses its energy to run larger versions of familiar machines. The other has learned to manufacture objects with extraordinary precision.

Their power bills might look similar. Their capabilities might not.

The Seven Levels of the Barrow Scale

The following progression uses the BI through BVI and BΩ notation summarized in researcher Clément Vidal’s discussion of the scale.

LevelWhat the civilization can manipulateBIObjects at its own physical scale, including ordinary structures and materials.BIIGenes and the biological information they carry.BIIIMolecules and molecular bonds.BIVIndividual atoms.BVAtomic nuclei.BVIElementary particles.BΩ, or OmegaThe fundamental structure of space and time.

The categories are not perfectly separate. Genes consist of DNA, so working with genetic information also involves working with molecules. That overlap is a good reason to treat the scale as a broad framework rather than a perfectly organized technology checklist.

Still, the overall question is compelling: How much control can intelligence gain over the physical world?

We Have Already Started Moving Inward

The atomic level is not entirely science fiction.

In 1989, IBM researchers Donald Eigler and Erhard Schweizer used a scanning tunneling microscope to position individual xenon atoms into the letters “IBM.” The work required carefully controlled conditions, including an extremely cold environment and an ultrahigh vacuum.

I love that example because it makes the idea concrete. They were not simply making smaller letters with a smaller pen. They were placing the atoms themselves.

IBM’s later research included carbon nanotube transistors and a single-molecule computer circuit. These developments illustrate how technological progress can involve gaining finer control over matter, not merely building larger equipment.

But there is an important distinction here: demonstrating control is not the same as making that control practical everywhere.

A research paper exploring the possibility of an “atom printer” identifies major obstacles, including processing time, resolution, and increasingly significant fluctuations at tiny scales. Positioning atoms in a carefully managed experiment is a very different challenge from manufacturing an everyday object with complete control over its atomic structure.

That gap is where the scale becomes more interesting than a simple list of achievements.

Where Does Humanity Fit?

I would be cautious about giving humanity a single neat label. Our capabilities overlap, and being able to do something under specific conditions does not mean we have complete mastery of it.

For example, nuclear power already depends on changes inside atomic nuclei. In a fission reactor, splitting nuclei releases energy that can be used to produce electricity. That is an established technology, not a prediction about a distant civilization.

Likewise, particle accelerators use electromagnetic fields to accelerate charged particles, and CERN’s facilities work with protons and atomic nuclei. We can investigate matter at scales far below what we can see directly.

Neither fact automatically means we can engineer anything we please at those scales.

My preferred way to think about the question is to ask what we can do reliably, repeatedly, and at useful scale. Can we observe something? Can we change it? Can we control the result? Can we turn that control into a practical technology?

Those are different achievements. A single civilization score can hide the differences.

The Top of the Scale Is Not a Promise

The Omega level is where I think we need the most restraint.

It is tempting to hear “control over spacetime” and immediately imagine time machines, shortcuts across the universe, or the ability to rewrite reality. Those make entertaining thought experiments. Naming a level, however, does not provide an engineering method for reaching it.

Our understanding of fundamental physics also remains incomplete. CERN explains that the Standard Model describes elementary particles and three fundamental interactions, but does not incorporate gravity into that framework.

For me, that makes the upper end of the Barrow scale a question worth exploring, not a list of technologies we should assume are inevitable.

There is also a basic distinction between manipulating something according to physical laws and changing those laws. The first does not automatically imply the second.

Why I Like the Barrow Scale

What appeals to me most is that it challenges my instinct to equate technological achievement with size.

A huge machine is easy to admire. Precision can be harder to appreciate, especially when the work happens at a scale we cannot directly see. Yet I would rather judge a technology by what it enables than by how impressive its building looks.

Imagine a future civilization that invests heavily in making its tools more precise, its manufacturing more capable, and its use of materials more deliberate. It might still build enormous structures. It might still explore other worlds. But those would not necessarily be its most remarkable accomplishments.

The Barrow scale also leaves room for a question no technology ranking can answer: What does a civilization choose to do with its abilities?

Greater control would not automatically produce greater wisdom. Being able to manipulate matter would tell us something about a society’s tools, but much less about its judgment.

I still like the idea of giant spaceships. I am not giving those up.

But I also like a framework that reminds me to look beyond them. The future might involve reaching farther into space while learning to work more carefully with what is already in front of us.

The biggest technological leap might come from learning to control something smaller.

The Wreck of the Valiant Is Here

The most infamous warship in history was destroyed eight years ago. Elara Voss has just found it, and someone is still alive inside.

I am excited to announce the release of my new science-fiction novel, The Wreck of the Valiant, Book One of The Iron Finch Voyages.

This full-length space opera combines a mysterious derelict warship, a powerful interstellar conspiracy, a capable female captain, found family, artificial intelligence, military action, and a slow-burn, closed-door romance.

A Warship That Should Not Exist

Elara Voss was once a promising Union Fleet engineer. After refusing an order that would have sacrificed civilians, she lost her commission and rebuilt her life as captain of the Iron Finch, a battered salvage tug held together by determination, ingenuity, and a crew that has become her family.

Now the Iron Finch is one failed salvage claim away from being repossessed.

While searching the Nadir debris field for anything valuable enough to save her ship, Elara’s crew detects an object hidden in the gravitic shadow of a dormant transit gate. It is enormous, silent, and missing from every modern navigation record.

Then an ancient identification signal begins repeating a single word:

Valiant.

The Valiant was a legendary League dreadnought supposedly destroyed eight years earlier. It was blamed for the Lysander massacre, the atrocity that ignited the Meridian War and killed Elara’s older brother, Jalen.

Every history book says the ship was destroyed.

Every military record says its crew died with it.

Every memorial says its commander was a monster.

The records are wrong.

Thousands of Empty Beds

Inside the Valiant, Elara discovers a ship that is damaged but strangely intact. Its corridors remain pressurized. Personal belongings have been left behind. Internal systems begin awakening as she moves deeper into the wreck.

Then she finds the stasis decks.

Thousands of pods stand open and empty. There are no bodies, no signs of panic, and no explanation for what happened to the people who once occupied them.

A hidden passenger manifest reveals that the Valiant rescued 3,118 civilians from Lysander before it disappeared. Someone later transferred those survivors to unmarked ships and erased them from the historical record.

Only one stasis pod remains occupied.

Inside is Commander Cassian Rook, the Ghost of Nadir, the man blamed for ordering the massacre and the man Elara has hated for eight years.

Cassian awakens believing only hours have passed since a mutiny aboard his ship. He insists he never ordered the attack. He claims the Valiant rescued the survivors and was carrying them toward safety when his own officers turned against him.

Then he says the one thing Elara cannot ignore.

Her brother survived the initial attack.

Jalen was aboard the Valiant.

The War Ended, but the Lie Survived

Before Cassian can prove his story, the Gatewright Consortium arrives with orders to destroy the dreadnought, erase its records, and kill everyone aboard.

Gatewright controls the transit gates connecting humanity’s settled systems. It controls the routes ships travel, the information moving between worlds, and the records people accept as historical truth.

The Valiant contains evidence that could destroy that control.

Forced to flee aboard a dreadnought that is barely holding together, Elara and her crew must restore the ship’s damaged systems, awaken its fragmented artificial intelligence, and follow a trail of missing witnesses across the stars.

Every answer pulls them deeper into a conspiracy spanning both sides of the former war.

Someone manufactured the Lysander massacre.

Someone forged Cassian’s orders.

Someone erased thousands of survivors.

Now the architects of the first atrocity are preparing to create another.

“The Valiant isn’t just salvage, Elara. It’s evidence.”

A Romance Built on Earned Trust

At the beginning of the story, Elara sees Cassian as the living face of her grief. Cassian sees Elara as the sister of a man he tried and failed to save.

Their relationship does not begin with instant trust or easy forgiveness.

It develops through shared danger, professional respect, difficult honesty, and the experience of keeping a dying ship and its small crew alive. Elara must decide whether believing Cassian would betray her brother’s memory. Cassian must stop treating himself as expendable and learn that partnership means allowing other people to share the choices as well as the risks.

Their relationship progresses from adversaries, to reluctant allies, to equal partners.

The romance is slow-burn and closed-door, with no explicit sexual content. It remains closely connected to the central mystery and the choices Elara and Cassian must make.

What You Will Find in The Wreck of the Valiant

The Wreck of the Valiant includes:

• A capable adult female captain and engineer

• A colossal derelict dreadnought hiding a wartime secret

• A loyal found-family salvage crew

• A damaged military artificial intelligence

• Fleet battles, boarding actions, and dangerous transit gates

• A conspiracy controlling interstellar travel and information

• An enemies-to-allies-to-lovers relationship

• A slow-burn, closed-door romance

• Dry humor, practical problem-solving, and high-stakes action

• A complete central story with the beginning of a larger series

Welcome Aboard the Iron Finch

I wrote The Wreck of the Valiant for readers who enjoy character-driven space opera, battered ships, competent crews, artificial intelligence, military mysteries, corporate conspiracies, and romances built on trust rather than instant attraction.

The novel tells a complete story while beginning The Iron Finch Voyages, a series following Elara, Cassian, and the Iron Finch crew as they search for missing survivors, forgotten ships, unauthorized transit routes, and the secrets still buried in the wreckage of the Meridian War.

The first voyage begins with a ship that should be dead.

It begins with thousands of people erased from history.

It begins with a salvage captain discovering that the monster she has hated for eight years may be the only person who can help her uncover the truth.

Thank you for supporting my work. After reading, please consider leaving an honest review on Amazon. Reviews help independent books reach new readers, particularly readers searching for science fiction with strong characters, found family, and a meaningful romantic storyline.

The Valiant has awakened.

The truth is still aboard.

And the war is not as over as everyone believes.

Introducing The Republic of Exiles, Book One of The Concord Series

Some people escape history. Others build what comes next.

I am excited to introduce The Republic of Exiles, the first novel in The Concord Series, a sweeping alternate-history and hard science fiction saga spanning World War II, the Cold War, the Space Race, and humanity’s first permanent steps beyond Earth.

The story begins in 1943, when American industrialist Thomas Lyle becomes convinced that the end of World War II will not bring lasting peace. Germany may be defeated, but its scientists, engineers, factories, and research programs are already becoming prizes in a new struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Thomas believes that another war is coming, one armed with rockets, nuclear weapons, surveillance systems, and technologies capable of placing the entire world at risk.

His answer is Project Lantern.

A civilization built from the people history overlooks

Project Lantern is a clandestine recruitment and rescue network operating across wartime Europe. Its mission is not limited to collecting famous scientists.

Thomas Lyle and physician Miriam Rosenfeld understand that a new civilization cannot be built by a handful of celebrated geniuses. It also needs machinists, technicians, draftsmen, nurses, teachers, farmers, accountants, translators, toolmakers, production supervisors, and families.

Project Lantern begins extracting entire technical communities before they can be captured, imprisoned, prosecuted, or absorbed into the programs of the victorious powers.

Some of the recruits are refugees.

Some are resistance members.

Some worked for governments they hated because refusing would have meant imprisonment or death.

Others carry histories that are far more difficult to excuse.

Every rescue forces Project Lantern to confront the same question: Who deserves a second chance, and who has done too much harm to be welcomed into a new society?

The rise of the Concord

The refugees are transported to the remote San Telmo Archipelago, where they establish a hidden settlement under the cover of a mining and shipping development project.

What begins as a temporary refuge gradually becomes a country.

The residents call their new society the Concord, an independent civilization that claims no connection to the governments, borders, and rivalries of the world they left behind.

Its secret leadership, the Long Horizon Committee, promises that strict control is only temporary. Elections, open records, freedom of movement, and full self-government can come later, once the settlement is safe.

But temporary powers have a way of becoming permanent.

The first generation remembers war, occupation, genocide, and displacement. Many are willing to accept secrecy in exchange for survival.

The generation born inside the Concord remembers none of those things. They do not see themselves as refugees waiting for the danger to pass. They see themselves as citizens of a country that refuses to let them govern it.

Financing a hidden nation

The Concord does not possess a magical source of wealth, alien technology, or limitless resources.

It finances itself through the Meridian Development Trust, a global network of corporations, foundations, shipping companies, research institutes, and patent-holding firms.

Meridian commercializes technologies that genuinely existed, or were close to existing, during the middle of the twentieth century. These include:

• Magnetic tape recording

• Industrial microwave systems

• Refrigeration and freeze-drying

• Transistorized hearing aids

• Numerical-control machine tools

• Solar cells

• Standardized shipping containers

• Office copying systems

• Business computers

• Semiconductor manufacturing

• Desalination and water-recycling systems

• Automated mining equipment

The public versions of these inventions remain only slightly ahead of real history. Meridian earns money by introducing products at the right moment, improving manufacturing quality, and building long-term service and licensing networks.

The Concord keeps its best designs for itself.

Its true advantage is not a single revolutionary invention. It is the ability to bring scientists, engineers, machinists, physicians, and manufacturers together decades earlier than they would have worked together in the outside world.

That advantage eventually gives birth to Hesperus, the Concord’s secret space program.

A different kind of space race

The American and Soviet space programs compete for public victories.

Hesperus has a different goal.

It does not want to plant a flag, take photographs, and return home. It wants to create a permanent human settlement beyond the reach of any Earth government.

Through offshore launch platforms, hidden tracking stations, automated cargo missions, compact computers, and closed-loop environmental systems, Hesperus begins building Somnium Station near the lunar south pole.

By the time Apollo 11 approaches the Moon in July 1969, twelve people are already living beneath the lunar surface.

They watch the public landing from a concealed station that the rest of humanity does not know exists.

But reaching the Moon does not solve the Concord’s problems.

It only gives those problems somewhere new to spread.

The lie beneath Hesperus

The Concord’s greatest technological achievement rests partly on the work of Dr. Konrad Weiss, a German propulsion specialist with expertise essential to the development of Hesperus.

Weiss was originally rejected by Project Lantern because of evidence connecting him to the exploitation and deaths of forced laborers.

Thomas Lyle rescued him anyway.

He gave Weiss a false identity, concealed his history, and allowed him to become one of the hidden architects of the Concord’s space program.

Thomas tells himself that saving Weiss allowed him to save thousands of others. Without Weiss, Hesperus might never have reached the Moon.

When the truth finally emerges, the Concord must decide whether its survival justifies the crimes committed in its name.

Security Director Anton Varga believes the answer is clear. The Concord is too important to be placed at risk by elections, public trials, or citizens who do not understand the threats surrounding them.

Miriam Rosenfeld, Hana Novák, Samuel Rosenfeld, and the generation raised inside the Concord believe something different.

A refuge that cannot trust its own people is not free.

A civilization built to escape tyranny cannot survive by reproducing it.

A story about more than reaching the Moon

Although The Republic of Exiles eventually reaches the lunar surface, this is not only a space-race novel.

It is also a story about recruitment, industrial development, family, memory, secrecy, and nation-building.

The book follows people trying to construct the practical foundations of a civilization:

• How do refugees from hostile nations learn to live together?

• Who writes the laws?

• Who controls the factories?

• Can a citizen choose to leave?

• How much technology can be sold without exposing the society that created it?

• Can scientific knowledge be separated from the crimes of the people who produced it?

• What happens when a government created for an emergency refuses to surrender its emergency powers?

• Does escaping the old world make it possible to build a better one?

The Concord is neither a perfect utopia nor a simple dystopia.

It provides safety, education, medical care, housing, and opportunity to people who might otherwise have died or disappeared into the machinery of the Cold War.

It also survives through forged identities, hidden corporations, surveillance, restricted movement, and an unelected leadership convinced that it knows what is best for everyone.

The people of the Concord must decide which parts of their society are worth preserving and which parts must be dismantled before they become permanent.

The beginning of The Concord Series

The Republic of Exiles covers the creation of Project Lantern, the rise of the Meridian Development Trust, the founding of the Concord, the development of Hesperus, and the establishment of Somnium Station.

The novel culminates during the Apollo 11 landing, when the hidden residents of Somnium watch Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin take humanity’s first public steps on another world.

Beyond them, another project is already beginning.

The first experimental component of Barsoom One, the Concord’s proposed Mars expedition, has reached lunar orbit.

Future books in The Concord Series will explore the growth of Somnium Station, the political relationship between Earth and the Moon, the growing risk of discovery, and the attempt to build a spacecraft capable of carrying human beings to Mars.

The Concord escaped the nations of Earth.

Now it must determine what kind of civilization it will carry into space.

Everything We Lost Is Still There

Everything We Lost Is Still There

A New Standalone Science Fiction Thriller by Ryan Mercer

Some things are gone forever.

At least, they are supposed to be.

Nora Vale spends her days restoring damaged objects at Chicago’s Halcyon Museum. She can clean soot from a photograph, stabilize a cracked painting, and preserve what remains after fire, neglect, or time has done its worst.

What she cannot restore is Theo, her husband, who died fourteen months earlier in a suspicious car crash.

While testing an experimental quantum-imaging system, Nora opens a doorway into an empty version of Chicago. The streets, buildings, museums, and homes are almost exactly the same, but no people or other sentient beings exist there.

The empty city contains something even more impossible.

Everything Nora’s world has lost, stolen, burned, deleted, or destroyed still exists there.

When Nora travels to the site of Theo’s crash, she finds his destroyed blue source phone preserved inside the wreckage. The phone may contain the evidence he died trying to protect, including information that could expose one of the country's most powerful men.

Bringing it home comes with a cost.

Every object recovered from the empty world erases the human memories connected to it. A lost wedding ring can be returned, but the proposal it represents may disappear. A destroyed work of art can be restored, but the people who loved it may forget why it mattered.

As Nora searches Theo’s phone, she begins losing pieces of him. His laugh. His face. Their private jokes. Their arguments. The complicated life they shared.

To uncover the truth about Theo’s death, Nora may have to forget the man she is trying to avenge.

About the Book

Everything We Lost Is Still There is a standalone contemporary science fiction thriller about grief, memory, parallel worlds, corporate power, and the dangerous belief that recovering something lost can make a person whole again.

The story combines an eerie alternate Chicago, a mystery surrounding a journalist’s death, and an impossible moral choice. It is written for readers who enjoy accessible speculative fiction with emotional stakes, psychological suspense, and a complete ending.

The novel is currently in development. We'll post additional details and release information here as they become available.