New to The Inbetween Archives?
Start with Hard Parole.
A woman too dangerous to kill.
A man too principled to leave her behind.
Wraith has spent almost five years buried in a black-site prison.
Then Major Kael Veyne walks into her cell and tells her she’s a patriot again.
Apparently, humanity needs the one thing she can still do better than almost anyone alive: navigate the deadly space between reality known as the Inbetween.
There’s just one small problem.
Kael has also been made her Tether.
If he dies, she dies.
And now they have to find the scattered remnants of Wraith’s old team before somebody starts another war.
So, what exactly have you stumbled into?
The Inbetween Archives is character-driven space opera about dangerous people trying very badly to be human.
There are battles, conspiracies, black sites, interdimensional horrors and things lurking in the dark between stars.
But really?
It’s about the people.
The ones you choose.
The ones who choose you back.
The ones you would cross a galaxy for.
Even when all of you are objectively terrible at making sensible decisions.
If you like:
- morally gray characters
- found family with knives
- government conspiracies and institutional betrayal
- trauma, recovery and deeply questionable coping mechanisms
- dark humour at extremely inappropriate moments
- complicated relationships
- loyalty that frequently becomes a tactical problem
- cosmic weirdness
- people making terrible decisions for very understandable reasons
…you’re probably in the right place.
Welcome.
SID accepts no responsibility for what happens next.
What kind of science fiction is this?
Space opera, not hard science fiction.
There are starships, wars, spies, mercenaries, strange technologies and very large things that should probably have stayed on the other side of reality.
The science matters.
The people matter more.
Expect action and galaxy-level stakes, but the emotional core of the series is the characters and the relationships between them.
Tone: Dark, funny, emotional and occasionally feral.
Structure: The main novels tell one larger story, with each book moving the central arc forward.
Romance: Yes. Relationships and sex are part of the story, but this is not primarily a romance series.
Morality: Complicated. Very complicated. Geist has a spreadsheet.
Where should I start?
Start with Hard Parole.
You do not need a glossary.
You do not need to study the timeline.
You do not need to understand the Void.
Frankly, neither do most of the characters.
1. Hard Parole
Wraith gets out of prison.
This turns out to be everyone’s first mistake.
2. Conditional Release
The mission is over.
Unfortunately, the consequences are not.
Continue here once you’ve survived Hard Parole.
3. Flight Risk
Six months later.
Something is waking.
And this time the problem is considerably bigger than Ghost Command.
But what about Ghost Formation?
Ghost Formation is the prequel.
It tells the story of how six young, damaged soldiers became Ghost Command, and how Ghost Command became a family.
You do not need to read it before Hard Parole.
In fact, I recommend that you don’t.
Meet Wraith, Shade, Geist, Phantom, Spirit and Spook as they are first.
Then, if you want to know who they were before the War carved pieces out of them, go back.
Trust me.
It hurts better that way.
Ready to make questionable choices?
Hard Parole is free.
You can start reading the series without spending anything.
Join the Archives and I’ll send you the downloadable edition, along with occasional classified material, character chaos, book news and other things Strategic Intelligence would almost certainly prefer remained buried.
No daily spam.
No endless sales emails.
Just books, weirdness and increasingly questionable levels of clearance.
Unsubscribe whenever you like. Leaving the Cult is permitted.*
*Shade would like it noted that leaving the Cult is emotionally disappointing, but technically permitted.
Already one of us?
If you’ve already entered the Archives, you probably don’t need the orientation briefing.
Possibly you need help.
We don’t provide that.
But we can provide:
Find the main series, prequels, novellas and bonus stories… and work out what you’ve missed.
SID dossiers. Cult transmissions. Classified fragments. Character nonsense. Spoilers of varying severity.
Proceed according to your clearance level.
Or don’t.
You’re an adult.
Probably.
Before you enter
The Inbetween Archives deals with some darker material, including war and its aftermath, imprisonment, violence, trauma, psychological manipulation, suicidal ideation, body horror and other themes that may be difficult for some readers.
Individual books have more detailed content information where appropriate.
[VIEW CONTENT INFORMATION]
About the person responsible
AJ Pryor
AJ Pryor writes character-driven science fiction about damaged people, dangerous loyalties, found family and the sort of decisions that look perfectly reasonable right up until somebody opens a dimensional rift.
She lives in South Africa and accepts no responsibility for Shade.
This is mostly because Shade refuses to accept responsibility for himself.
One last thing
If you’re still deciding whether to start:
A woman who has spent five years alone in a cell.
A Major who knows exactly how dangerous she is and opens the door anyway.
A dead team that might not be dead.
A government lying about a war.
And something waiting in the space between reality.
Welcome to The Inbetween Archives.
Proceed at your own risk.