The wait is over and the campaign has begun! Now is your chance to nab the Wayward Galaxy Maximum Action Collector’s Edition hardcover.

There is a 48-hour Early Bird special that knocks $10 off the price, so act quickly!

Go to Kickstarter

But when they emerge from cryosleep, the enemy is already waiting. The same ruthless force that brought Earth to its knees has followed them across the stars. There is no backup. No extraction. No way home.

The only way out is through.

Wayward Galaxy is military science fiction the way it was meant to hit: fast, hard, and without mercy. Defective AIs with more guts than their programming should allow. Soldiers who refuse to die. A brilliant scientist racing against overwhelming odds. And combat so gritty you can taste the dirt.

This is the series that doesn’t ask permission… it kicks the door down.

Now it’s getting the edition it deserves!

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Variant Publications is bringing the Maximum Action Collector’s Edition to Kickstarter — and it was built to look and feel like the experience that inspired the series itself. The book is dressed like a classic VHS tape, because Wayward Galaxy was written to feel like an old-school action movie. The kind you watched with the volume cranked and the lights killed and still quote to your friends today.

But this isn’t just a book. It’s an experience. And it doesn’t flinch.

There’s more. Launching with the campaign is a brand-new short story, written exclusively for this Kickstarter and available only with book tiers. You asked for more Wayward Galaxy, now you’ll get it!

But the mission needs you before launch day.

Right now the pre-launch page has 122 followers. The minimum target is 200. Every follow drives the Kickstarter algorithm, pushes visibility, and puts this project in front of more readers when the campaign goes live. More followers means more backers. More backers means stretch goals. Stretch goals mean everyone walks away with more than they came for.

Following is free. It takes seconds and commits you to nothing except being the kind of person who shows up when it counts. Like Reach.

Even if you don’t like physical books (which is kind of weird), your follow can still help. It costs you nothing and it gives this project the momentum it needs to hit the ground running. Share it with someone who loves sci-fi. Share it with someone who needs to.

Follow the Wayward Galaxy: Maximum Action Collector’s Edition and lock in for launch alerts, early-bird access to limited collector tiers & more!

Do it for the R-Rangers, Citizen!

Wayward Galaxy on Kickstarter

This is not the case for two of my friends and co-writers, Nick Cole and J.N. Chaney. Both of them have standalone novels releasing on the same day. I’m telling you about them because if I ever wrote a standalone, I know they’d tell their readers about mine.

So let’s take a sales pitch, er… I mean look at these titles. Featuring my one-sentence recommendation.

1-800-Starship

“Take The Last Starfighter, but turn it up to 11.” - Jason Anspach

Click the cover to go to amazon.

Strange Company 3: Voodoo Warfare

“Gonzo Space Marines take a trip through colorful ultra violence.” - Jason Anspach

Click the cover to go to amazon.

And that’s it for me. I hear that Doomsday Recon Book 3 should be up for pre-order on audible soon, but otherwise… nothing releasing until Big Trouble, Little Earth 2!

In the meantime, we’re finishing up Big Trouble, Little Earth 3, SGT. THOR the Slayer, and the next book in Galaxy’s Edge, Season 3.

My golf game does that thing that golf games do (really good, really bad, bad, good, really bad, really good and then decent until… suddenly bad again).

I sent my two oldest boys off to college in Newberg, OR. That means that longtime WarGate Shipping Manager Caleb is going to be replaced by his younger sister Hannah.

Oh, an…

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GET READY… Able-Bodied Soldier is back!

Our protagonist Titus Briggs returns, sporting emotional baggage that would require additional fees on most airlines. He's older! He's wiser! He's absolutely horrified by the MOCOM program's increasing reliance on technology that's approximately one firmware update away from gaining sentience and demanding employee benefits!

But wait—there's more! We've introduced Erik Canyon, an Orbital Ranger who represents Briggs' road-not-taken after his book one injuries. Picture the physical embodiment of “what could have been” strutting around in front of Briggs like a peacock with impeccable posture. J.N. Chaney and I thought, “What's more fun than crushing a man's spirit with a living reminder of his shattered dreams?” Spoiler: Briggs develops feelings about this that fall somewhere between “homicidal rage” and “complicated man-crush.”

Here's what the back cover says, which I'm legally obligated to include despite my overwhelming urge to replace it with knock-knock jokes:

Suit up and move out.

Ten years after saving humanity from the Thephari threat, legendary MOCOM instructor Titus Briggs discovers his elite pilots are failing against an enemy that's learned their weaknesses.

When a grizzled Ranger Staff Sergeant with uncanny tactical brilliance reminds Briggs of his own infantry roots, they forge an unlikely alliance that challenges the technological superiority the MOCOMs have come to rely on.

With time running out to stop a devastating anti-MOCOM weapon from deployment, Briggs must remember who he was before the machines—a soldier who succeeded not because of technology... but despite its absence.

Step back into the critically acclaimed Able Bodied Soldier series from USA Today Bestselling authors J.N. Chaney and Jason Anspach in this exciting fourth entry.

Ready to read it?

You can grab your copy exclusively at amazon, Variant Publication’s preferred eBook retailer. Disclosure: I get a commission when you use this link. Thank you in advance.

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In related news, my subscribers received beta copies approximately seventeen minutes ago and are now experiencing temporal whiplash from how quickly we've gone from “Are you sure colonels call corporals, ‘Babe?’” to “Please exchange currency for this product!”

Able-Bodied Soldier 5 is already slouching toward publication. Subscribe now, unless you enjoy waiting for things like some kind of patient, well-adjusted person!

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This time, J.N. Chaney was the lead writer, working from an outline we cobbled together like mismatched socks. I then swooped in with my limited military knowledge to ensure characters aren't saluting while naked or calling sergeants "my good sir."

Usually, I have more time to work on these manuscripts, but this series came in hot, which afforded me about as much time as a snowman has in Death Valley. So, if you've ever worn a uniform that wasn't for Halloween or fast food, your feedback would be especially helpful!

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HURRY! Don't miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience my raw, unfiltered creative output before professionals sanitize it for public consumption! It's like watching a home renovation show, except instead of a beautiful reveal, you get to see the moment the contractor accidentally puts a sledgehammer through a load-bearing wall.

For those who finished Dalton Thorne’s adventure and are hungry for more, a second course is coming soon: Able-Bodied Soldier 4 is lurching toward you like a wounded space-bear with a grudge. Different publisher, same tendency to use the same phrases over and over until the editor points it out!

A Tale of Two Proofing Processes

The educational portion of today's announcement involves the thrilling world of book proofing—a process about as exciting as watching paint dry, but with more comma splices:

WarGate's Method: Book gets written, edited, and then passed through a gauntlet of increasingly desperate proofreaders who begin to question if the money is worth it somewhere around page 37. These are the people who pick up a menu, lean near their spouse and point out that “omelet” should only have one L—only now it’s a legitimate side-hustle.

Variant's Method is a wisdom of the crowd kind of thing. After editing, the manuscript is uploaded to a Google Doc where beta readers can comment directly on the text. You really get a sense of how easy it is for typos to slip through a 120,000 word novel when “You shoulder not have done that” slips past the first ten people.

When ABS4 is ready, I'll send a link so you can participate in this Variant festival of red marks and suggested corrections.

A Confession from the Depths of Author Despair

I've written at least ten books—which is as high as I can count because math, like proper semicolon usage, remains an elusive part of my skill set. Despite the armies of editors, proofreaders, and concerned citizens who have examined my work, not a single book has emerged typo-free. It's almost impressive, really—like a superpower, if disappointing those with better attention to detail were considered heroic.

Writing books, it turns out, is similar to golf or bowling: no matter how much you practice, you inevitably end up saying, “I meant to do that,” just prior to speed-walking off the premises before the police arrive.

In other news, I hope to get that first podcast episode out this month. I have a special guest in mind, but if they aren’t available, I’ll just have to call upon you.

And remember…

Deadline for Secret Project 01 beta access: Sooner than you think, later than I promised.

Allow me to share the peculiar temporal anomaly that is the writer’s marketing calendar. I am currently called upon to enthusiastically promote a book I co-wrote so long ago that my memories of it have fled to the part of my brain than vaguely remembers the color palettes associated with my toddlerhood. Meanwhile, my conscious mind is entirely consumed by the Beta project that paid subscribers are currently reading—a manuscript so fresh in my mind that I sometimes accidentally call my children by character names at dinner. “Pass the salt, Lieutenant Explosivo.”

The cognitive dissonance is nothing short of spectacular. Imagine throwing a dinner party where half the guests are your current friends and the other half are people you met in junior high. Now imagine having to introduce them all to each other while pretending you definitely remember everyone’s dietary restrictions and relationship status.

When asked to discuss Void Drifter 4, my brain performs an elaborate synchronized swimming routine of panic, desperately paddling through murky waters of half-remembered plot points. “Ah yes, Will! My good friend Will! Who... did... that thing... with the... stuff.” *Frantically skims paperback version under the table*

The publishing industry operates on a timeline that can only be described as “chronologically absurdist.” I have now reached the point where I am simultaneously:

• Promoting a book I wrote during a previous presidential administration

• Editing a book I wrote last season

• Writing a new book that exists primarily as coffee stains and Post-it notes

• Mentally outlining a book that future-me will someday stare at in bewilderment

So yes! Void Drifter 4! A masterpiece of science fiction that I absolutely recall writing and definitely remember the ending of! Pre-order it on Audible immediately, before I forget it exists again!

For those who prefer their entertainment in static image form rather than acoustic waves, please enjoy these meticulously crafted memes, created during what I describe to my wife as “productive avoidance.”

I think we can agree that everyone emerges victorious from this scenario—except perhaps my increasingly concerned literary agent, who recently asked if I could “please, for the love of bookmarks, remember at least the names of my main characters during interviews.”

WHEN I COMPARE MY MEMORY TO A GOLDFISH

I may have stolen the last meme, but all this marketing makes such petty theft almost required.

From the increasingly fragmented side of the page,

A person who is almost certainly… Jason Anspach

Welcome to The Other Side of the Page

So here I am, typing away as I wait for a round of edits to come back. The glow of my monitor is probably destroying what's left of my already waning vision, and I'm wondering, as I often do, who exactly will be reading these words.

You know, it's a peculiar relationship we have, you and me. As an AP Best-selling and Award-winning author of series like Galaxy's Edge, Wayward Galaxy, Able-Bodied Soldier, and Forgotten Ruin, I've spent countless hours daydreaming, which we call “crafting worlds and characters” in order to sound like writing is a real job.

I these daydreams out and somehow, they found you.

For years, I've been fascinated by this one-sided conversation. I write, you read. I imagine, you visualize. I drop breadcrumbs, you follow the trail—sometimes to places I never even intended. But who are you, exactly? What makes you tick? Do you also watch 1980’s action movies and call it “research?”

That curiosity (and the fact that those of you I have met are amazing people) is why this Substack exists. I want to peek over to The Other Side of the Page and get to know the souls whose brains I've been occupying all this time.

And maybe you're a little curious about me too. Beyond the author bio. Beyond the (infrequent) social media posts. The real, allegedly talented writer who somehow convinced people to pay for the strange things that pop into his head.

Here’s what all subscribers can expect from this Substack

• Chapter previews that will make your friends think you're psychic

• Release notices so you know exactly when to call in "sick" to work

• Memes that will make you snort-laugh at inappropriate times

• Occasional articles where I pretend to be smarter than I am

• A forthcoming podcast where I finally get to hear your voices (and secretly compare them to the voice I made up for you in my head)

If that sounds good. Click the green button and subscribe.

Subscribe now

I've been thinking about doing this for a long time—at least 17 cups of coffee and three novels ago.

I'm looking forward to meeting you, whoever you are. Yes, even you, person who's reading this while hiding from your responsibilities. Actually, especially you. We're going to get along just fine.

Welcome to the other side.