Void Sailors

A steampunk adventure amidst the stars. Set in the year 5827 it focuses on the fortunes of a down and out smuggler known as the “Jack of Hearts” and chronicles his journey from the slums of a ruined earth and back to galactic prominence as he pursues his personal war against the Western Spiral Trading Company.

Conceived in the dark hours of the morning while in the glowing embrace of too much whisky, Void Sailors is an interesting project.

“I do not know how long I wept, perchance it was longer than a man rightfully should. But those who ply the great void sea are not like other men. Those who are not sailors of the void could never conceive of just how different we are, spending so long slaved to a small metal box amidst an infinity that would not hesitate to swallow you whole. A thin skin of metal being all that stands between you and the unending oblivion, whole parsecs between you and the next living soul. That kind of life changes a man. It hardens the skin, tempers it, makes it thick, but leaves the inside softer. To all, we void sailors are colossi striding across the heavens, ancient and immutable, far beyond the ken of man. We are the incorrigible exemplars upon which the wheel of humanity turns. We are like unto steel. This exterior of ours, this face we present to the masses, the very thing that makes gods of us mere men, is naught but a lie. For when our shell fractures, when that visage we have wrought wavers and our step falters… That is when the dyke finally collapses and all that we have buried within spills out and leaves its perverse and putrefied mass bare for all to see. It unmans us. It proves we are naught but the men we so divorced ourselves from. We break hard, for we fall from such mighty heights. When we bare our souls, that softness at our heart is so tender, so beyond compare. It is however, an indulgence. We can ill afford such moments, as our unmanning can spell our doom. For the void is as cruel as she is cold. All that we can do when we fall off the mountain is stand up and start to climb again. I am Sisyphus, and it is the struggle itself towards the heights that fills my heart.”