Sharrukin's Palace

This year was . . . an experience. Almost nothing went as I was expecting a year ago.

Personal Life

I began the year still employed by the United States federal government as a researcher in cybersecurity, an instructional designer, and an instructor. I knew the incoming administration was likely to disrupt my professional life, but I was in a wait-and-see mode.

Then the new administration came in and immediately demonstrated that it planned to be far worse than in the President’s first term. Federal departments, including mine, were being handed over to right-wing influencers who had absolutely no competence in the fields they were being asked to lead. Federal policy was immediately being oriented toward far-right-wing ideology, without regard to any facts on the ground. Critical elements of our national security were being tossed on the trash-heap. Personally, I was already being directed to do things that I considered ill-advised at best, abominably stupid at worst. I fully expected to be fired at some point for non-compliance with idiotic or outright illegal orders.

As it happened, I reached a critical age milestone about a week after Inauguration Day. My wife and I reviewed our finances, and concluded that although it wasn’t ideal for me to retire at that point, it was quite a bit more feasible than I had realized. So I started the paperwork to retire from federal service, and that evolution was completed in mid-May. I’ve been retired on my own pension, my wife’s Social Security, and 40+ years of savings ever since.

(The three months between “deciding to retire” and “walking out the door” were among the most productive in my federal career, ironically. I wrote two full-length graduate-level courses in cyber leadership in that time – not from scratch, as I had helped build earlier versions of the same curriculum in 2023-2024, but there was a lot of new material. God alone knows whether either of those courses will ever actually be delivered to students. I’m honestly not sure whether the department I worked in even exists today as more than a skeleton crew.)

Retirement has been fairly pleasant, actually. I’m eating more healthfully, I’m getting more exercise, and while my stress level is not zero it’s certainly much lower than it was before. I’m having no trouble at all filling my days, including spending a lot more time with my wife and my adult children. So that’s all to the good.

University Studies

I’m currently in my third year of working toward a second bachelor’s degree in Natural Sciences (Astronomy) and a master’s degree in Space Science and Technology, all from the Open University in the UK. That program is likely to take until the spring of 2031 to complete, unless I pick up the pace at some point. So far I’ve passed all my courses with distinction, so I’m on track for my original plan. Don’t know if I’ll ever do anything with this education professionally – I’ll be pushing 66 by the time I complete my graduate work – but if I’m still capable, I might find myself an undergraduate teaching position somewhere. At the very least, it will be nice to actually have the formal training to back up all the astronomy I’ve picked up and used over the years.

To be honest, I’ve been glad I retired this spring, because my coursework in 2025 has been a bit more challenging. Had I stayed employed, something would have had to go on the back burner, and that might have been the bulk of my creative work.

Speaking of . . .

Creative Work

At the beginning of 2025, my tentative plan for creative projects involved re-releasing some of the original fiction I wrote in previous years, writing some new original fiction, and working hard on RPG material for the Human Destiny and Fourth Millennium settings.

Basically none of that happened.

In part that was due to a new book-length project: Composer of Cultures, which is likely to become the third book in the Ad Astra Games “insanely detailed worldbuilding series.” Architect of Worlds took me the better part of eight years to write, and we’re trying to produce the new book in less than a year, so it’s soaking up a lot of my development and writing time. Fortunately this time it’s a team of three writing the book: Ken Burnside, a paleontologist named Jess Miller-Camp, and me.

It’s been interesting work so far. I’m in the process of designing a “Cultural Evolution Game” which will likely be the last 40% or so of the book (Dr. Miller-Camp is writing a “Biological Evolution Game” which will come first). We’re hoping to have the book ready for the summer convention season, but we’ll see how things go.

Meanwhile, I may not have been writing much original fiction in 2025, but I did write just under 200,000 words of new fan-fiction.

Okay, when I wrapped up my first fan-fiction phase in 2017 or so, I swore I would focus on original work from that point on. My Muse isn’t always that easy to keep disciplined, though. Over the past few years I fell in love with the new Star Trek series Lower Decks, and when that had its finale in early 2025 I found myself wanting more. So I started writing not just fan-fiction, but Star Trek fan-fiction.

(Talk about getting back to one’s literary roots! I was reading – and writing, although none of that work ever saw the light of day – Star Trek fan-fiction back in the 1970s, and that era has had a significant impact on my literary life ever since.)

So far I’ve written ten complete stories, most of them novelette or novella length, and I’m currently at work on the eleventh. It’s been fun, I’m not nearly out of ideas yet, and I’ve acquired a fairly consistent audience. So this is probably going to be part of my creative output for a while.

Looking Forward

It’s difficult to make plans for the coming year, because let’s face it – my country and much of the rest of the world are currently in the hands of malicious incompetents, and I don’t think we’ve even begun to see how much destruction they can inflict on us. Just surviving with our integrity and sanity intact is likely to be a victory.

Still. Day by day I’ll have my household to keep together, my university coursework to stay ahead of, and many more creative projects on the stove than I’ll have time to bring to fruition. Most likely creative goals for 2026 will involve completing Composer of Cultures, and writing more Star Trek fiction. Pushing my own original creative projects forward will be on the agenda too. I’m improvising from one day to the next, but I haven’t fallen off the piano bench yet . . .

So for all of you who keep track of my work, many thanks and here’s hoping you’ll find some value in my output in the coming year.