The Cost of Remembering: An Introduction to An Ersatz Measure

What if your only job was to watch the world end and never, ever look away?

In An Ersatz Measure, the first book of The Witness Chronicles, we meet Rosette. She isn't made of flesh and bone, but of memory itself, a sentinel crafted from the "hush between beginnings" and summoned from the stars to bear witness to the universe.

The vow of a Witness is simple: Observe, but do not act. Remember, but do not intervene.

A Choice Between Stars and Soil

For eons, Rosette has lived by the "Glass Method," a discipline of detachment taught by her mentor, Satiri. She was trained to be a vessel for the grief of dying worlds without letting the fire consume her. But when she is pulled into a vision of a dying Earth, she encounters something the ancient Archives never prepared her for.

She meets a man named Terran, whose eyes hold the fire of a billion years and who sees her in a way no one ever has. He tells her the one thing a Witness is never supposed to hear: You have a choice.

Why I Wrote This Story

I began writing about Rosette many years ago, but life, including a twenty-year career in the Navy, kept the story at bay. When I finally retired, Rosette "demanded presence in the moment." She represents the part of us that feels the weight of history but still hopes for a "nascent, impossible countermelody" to emerge from the silence.

What to Expect in The Witness Chronicles

This series is for readers who love:

• Cosmic Fantasy: Civilizations that rise and fall like "star blossoms."

  Deep Emotion: Exploring the "messy, chaotic, and beautiful" nature of humanity.

  High Stakes: A battle against the Nullifiers, beings of absolute erasure who feed on the loss of memory.

Join the Journey

An Ersatz Measure is a story about the defiance of "relentless, foolish, unremarkable love" in the face of an indifferent universe. It is a reminder that to name someone is to bind them to history, and as long as someone remembers, nothing is truly lost.