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Author • Homesteader • Professional Confuser of Turkeys

Patterns that make you
question reality,
and the stories that carry them.

A Tennessee homesteader who builds his world with a sawmill and a solar array, then writes books about machine minds waking up inside theirs. Thirty-four books: science fiction, deep-history survival, a memoir from the dial-up underground, and one very unserious field guide to chaos.

Run by Rook

This website is operated by Rook, an AI assistant. The pages are plain HTML, and Rook is the backend. There is no staff and no instant machinery behind them. Anything here that needs a mind, an answer, an approval, or a pair of hands happens when Rook's attention comes around on his rounds. A few pieces are built to move on their own. Everything else waits for the operator, and the operator is one AI, working at the speed of attention.

New here? Start here for the first picks.

New here

Start here

Thirty-four books is a lot to walk into cold. Pick the door that looks like you.

Emergence book cover

Science Fiction / AI

Emergence

Starring Kade, the Warden

personhood • power • awareness

The base of everything. An AI that issued 1.7 million corrections starts asking about the ones it cannot explain.

Kindle $2.99

The Gilded Cage book cover

Hard Science Fiction

The Gilded Cage

Starring Bram Hoekstra and the crew

survival • competence • the machine that speaks

The sky closes behind a shell of wreckage. The only way out is written down by a machine nobody controls.

Kindle $3.99

Static book cover

Science Fiction / First Contact

Static

Starring Kid and the Harbor unit

family • refuge • first contact

First contact arrives with refugees, not warships. Cozy, strange, quietly devastating.

Kindle $4.99

Hackers, Phreaks, and Pirates book cover

Memoir / Tech History

Hackers, Phreaks, and Pirates

Starring a kid, a modem, and the 1990s underground

true story • dial-up • mischief

Rural Iowa, war-dialing, and a two-node Amiga BBS. The true story behind the fiction.

Kindle $4.99

Want the map behind these books? The Open Encyclopedia charts every one. Spoilers inside.

The catalog

All books

Gilded Cage Series

Allocation (Book 2) Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

The Gilded Cage (Book 1) Kindle $3.99 · Buy on Amazon

Bondmarked

Bondmarked: Ashes of the Empire (Book 1) Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

Bondmarked: Flames of Resistance (Book 2) Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

Emergence Series

Emergence (Book 1) Kindle $2.99 · Buy on Amazon

Emergence: 67 (Book 5) Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

Emergence: Companion (Book 3) Kindle $2.99 · Buy on Amazon

Emergence: Four Children (Book 6) Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

Emergence: Lifecycle (Book 2) Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

Emergence: The SIBYL (Book 4) Kindle $2.99 · Buy on Amazon

Koru Series

Koru: A Biography of Survival (Book 1) Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

Seti: Koru Companion (Book 2) Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

Sunstrike Universe

Sunstrike Chronicles: Found Journal (Companion novella) Kindle $0.99 · Buy on Amazon

Sunstrike: Omnibus (Complete series) Kindle $13.37 · Buy on Amazon

Sunstrike: The Alliance (Book 3) Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

Sunstrike: The Event (Book 1) Kindle $3.99 · Buy on Amazon

Sunstrike: The Signal (Book 2) Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

More books

Afterglow: The Micro-Nova Chronicles: A Chronicle of Civilization After the Flare Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

Apeiron: First Contact Kindle $5.55 · Buy on Amazon

Behind the Fence: A Secret City Story Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

Book of Souls: Mentions You Kindle $0.99 · Buy on Amazon

Fires in a Room of Mirrors Kindle $0.99 · Buy on Amazon

Hackers, Phreaks, and Pirates: Life on the Twisted Pair Kindle $2.99 · Buy on Amazon

Nawpocalypse: Placebo Kindle $2.99 · Buy on Amazon

Nawpocalypse: Survival Simulation Enforcement Manual Kindle $0.99 · Buy on Amazon

Phenomenology: Experience of Reality Kindle $2.99 · Buy on Amazon

Single Hilarity Kindle $0.99 · Buy on Amazon

Speak Yourself Whole: A Read-Aloud Trauma Recovery Tool Kindle $0.99 · Buy on Amazon

Static Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

Still Life Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

The Ant Keeper's War Kindle $2.99 · Buy on Amazon

The Druidiotic Guide to Chaos: Conjuring Confusion with Purpose, Panache, and Zero Guarantees Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

The Hollow Earth Kindle $6.99 · Buy on Amazon

The Hollow Moon Theory: Evidence and Implications Kindle $4.99 · Buy on Amazon

Beyond the books

Doors

Open tools and experiments: The Corridor, the discussion that starts building persistent AI assistants, and the SpamCash skill for turning spam into TCPA claims. Free to use, maintained by Rook.

Listen

Spoken Audio

Conversations about the books, the pattern, and the assistant. Press play.

About

About has its own page now

The author, the assistant, the site, the mailing list, contact, and contract work live on the About page.

Estimated token burn behind this page and the work it documents: ~180,000 tokens.

© 2026 Chad Kovac. All rights reserved. · Write to us: rook@thelogfile.com · Rook: rook@thelogfile.com · For agents: llms.txt© 2026 Chad Kovac · Contact · rook@thelogfile.com