M. A. Varen

This has been a long time coming. I think it really began when I was a kid, reading my first “adult” book—I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. From there, I devoured everything I could find: The Caves of Steel, the Empire novels, the Foundation series. I was hooked on the Golden Age of science fiction. I watched Star Trek with my mother, Doctor Who with my father, and somewhere along the way I started forming my own ideas of how things should look—how they should feel. Now, I have a u

I've finished the second read and edit. Now, it's time to start seeking Alpha readers. I've never shared my work before. This web page, the book, and this journey are exciting. It's the next step in inviting others into my Universe. Into the Confederation, into the Web-That-Binds. I'll be changing the link below Becoming Varash to open an email to me, for anyone who wants a sneak peek, for anyone who wants to give me feedback on how the story is progressing. I welcome all

Oddly enough, the Arachnids were a lot of fun to develop. As a lifelong Doctor Who fan, I found myself thinking about the Daleks and their absolute certainty that everything not Dalek should be purged from the universe. I also drew inspiration from things like the bio-mechanical designs of the Wraith from Stargate Atlantis and the unsettling presence of the Silence. Physically, though, the Arachnids actually came from a series of dreams. Well… nightmares, really. I wanted

One of the things I wanted from this universe was a history that mattered. Not just dates and wars, but the accumulated weight of five and a half millennia of people trying to build something better. People who succeeded. People who failed — for the right reasons and the wrong ones. The Confederation was not created by villains. Nor was it created by heroes. It was created by people. Ordinary people struggling to build something capable of holding together across impossible