About the Author
Collin Vaness
A novelist writing thrillers and speculative fiction across history, the near future, and the deep past.
Collin Vaness is a novelist writing across historical, near-future thriller, military thriller, science fiction, and prehistoric epic. His novels share a single concern: the moment a civilization — a kingdom, a fleet, an empire, a city, a tribe — is forced to bend or break, and what that moment does to the small number of named people inside it.
Two books are available now. Blood and Faith: The Last Christian King of Jerusalem is a historical novel about Guy de Lusignan, the Battle of Hattin, the fall of the Crusader Kingdom, and the long aftermath in which the surrendered king refused to die. The Sentinel 01: Monarch Bridge opens The Meridian Saga, a sixteen-book near-future thriller season about one city learning that disaster, memory, and infrastructure do not always obey the records built to contain them.
Six further series are in active development. The Silent Threshold is a four-book prehistoric epic about the last shared world of Sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans. The Ruined Sky Cycle is a three-volume military thriller about the first decade after a 2035 Eurasian Coalition nuclear strike collapses the United States. The Vanguard Protocol is a twelve-volume mosaic techno-thriller built around an off-books private military contractor in the gray zones of modern conflict. The Orbital Mandate is a four-book generation-ship sequence about a colony that outlives its founders. The Iron Revenants Saga is a twenty-book space opera in four quartets — grimdark with earned hope. Nothing to Declare is a standalone historical novel about Oscar Wilde’s 1882 American lecture tour.
Collin is a licensed professional engineer, a Certified Energy Manager, and a LEED-accredited professional. He spent his first career designing the mechanical systems behind hospitals, schools, and civic buildings — a discipline that shows up in the operational, technical, and structural fidelity of his fiction.
The work, in four pillars
Civilization under pressure
Every book begins at a moment when a system — a kingdom, a military, a tribe, a fleet — is forced to bend or break.
The human cost
Geopolitics, technology, and history are the stage; the work lives in what they do to a small number of named people.
Earned realism
Technical, operational, and historical detail held up by an engineer’s research discipline.
Range as a feature
One author, many worlds. Follow him from 12th-century Outremer to a Neanderthal valley to a colony ship and trust the craft will hold.
A novel that respects your time and your intelligence. If you buy the next one, you will not feel taken for granted.
Where to start
If you read historical fiction, start with Blood and Faith. If you read near-future thriller, start with The Sentinel 01: Monarch Bridge. Either entry point leads back into the whole.