Promotional image for the anthology “Ruins.”

Across the vast expanse of space and time lie the remnants of civilizations that reached for the stars—and vanished. Silent cities carved into asteroids. Derelict megastructures drifting between galaxies. Temples buried beneath the red sands of dead worlds.

This book contains 13 bold tales of humanity’s encounters with these cosmic ruins.

That’s how the narrative for the Kickstarter for “Ruins: A Space Opera Anthology” begins.

Just to be clear:

Kickstarter is a popular crowdfunding platform for creative projects, connecting creators with a global community to fund ideas like films, games, tech, and art through small pledges from many people.

Let’s face it. Unless a book, its editors, and its publishers are backed by a big printing house, marketing, production costs, and frankly, paying the people involved can be very difficult. Crowdfunding as a great way to generate interest in a book and to have that interest be expressed in funding.

My own story, weighing in at about 10,000 words, is called “Sunrise.”

Arturo Cuevas and the command crew of the interstellar colony sleeper ship “Minokawa” are prematurely awakened by their ship’s AI Esther due to a startling discovery. An entire solar system is being driven like an enormous spacecraft with its sun providing the thrust, propelling it on a course that will take it outside the galaxy.

The system has already captured the Minokawa in its gravity well, but something worse has happened. Their AI has been in a years long conversation with the intelligence behind the megastructure.

As the prospect of the Minokawa and its thousands of sleeping colonists being able to resume their original course fades, Cuevas must lead a small team to one of the thousands of “shepherd objects” or asteroids on the edge of the megastructure which seem to be guiding it. Can they learn what their ship’s AI is saying to the alien intelligence and find a way to free themselves before their mission ends in failure and death?

Please click the link to the Kickstarter and consider investing in this terrific anthology.