Curious About My Books?
- crystallinemythos
- Apr 12
- 6 min read
Updated: Apr 12
Hey everyone!
To any friends or potential readers, thanks for taking the time to see what the fuss is about with these DREAM OPERATIONS books. I wanted to spend some time telling you about my process and some of my thoughts about science fiction in general. That way, if you do decide to buy the books and read them, you’ll have a bit more context and you’ll know what you’re getting into.
Well, I’ll start with this: growing up, I was a big Tolkien nerd. I loved maps, and I loved lore, and I loved family lineages, and wizards and magic and the rest of it. But, I also loved science fiction movies like the Terminator and the Matrix. As I got older I discovered sci-fi writers like Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert and started to gravitate further towards the science fiction side of things.
I drew a lot of pictures, and sometimes even comic strips, so I was coming at things from the perspective of an art geek more than as a writer. But eventually, I started writing a lot. Bringing cohesion to your writing is a difficult thing though, and for me, it took a long time before I was comfortable enough as a writer to share everything.
But, eventually, I had a good manuscript. I had various friends read over things and their feedback was very appreciated. For instance, my sister was a big help, and my friend Valor gave me a lot of detailed thoughts and notes on the text. This was all pretty helpful as I tightened up the text and began to release it as short stories on KDP.
I managed to self publish DREAM OPERATIONS VOL. 1 in 2023 as an ebook collection of episodic short stories. While I still found myself making fixes from time to time, I was happy that the book was out there, even if it was just digitally at that time.
From there, I still had to figure out the process of formatting and releasing a paperback book. I ended up getting help from my friend Jon on this question, and together we formatted the first paperback edition in 2024. Jon’s help on the formatting moved the process along to the next step, and suddenly I had a paperback book in my hands.
But, that was just the first nine stories, and I knew I would need to release a second batch if I wanted to complete the first major story arc, which concerned the evolution of the dream advertisement industry at the Artaro Corporation in the city-state of Machina. So, I sat down and prepared nine more episodic short stories, some from previous manuscripts, with a few new tales thrown in for added depth.
I’m glad to say that things came together with DREAM OPERATIONS VOL. 2 in a much more streamlined way. The writing and editing went relatively quickly, and the paperback book formatting was no sweat at all this time around.
So, now I have the task of getting these books into the hands of a few more readers!
ABOUT THE WORLD OF THE CRYSTALLINE MYTHOS:
Let’s start by saying a few things about the world of Machina. Machina is a technological city-state set on a landmass known as Enon. Enon exists on a mostly oceanic depiction of a future Earth or Earth-like planet. It’s a bit of a dystopian place with mutated sea life, and hostile alien arachnids and insects scattered throughout the world. It’s a post-apocalyptic world, which had been broken by an event known as the Auros Boros Doomsday Event. In that event, the Earth moon was shattered, and human society was mostly wiped. For almost two centuries, humans struggled to survive underground, but eventually, as alien threats on the surface subsided, humanity regained a foothold.
(You can read about this early part of the timeline in prequel short stories like THE STAR CLOCK, FANTASMI-COLOR, and THE CRYSTALLINE COMETS)
The landmasses were heavily changed by the cataclysm, as the Green Earth became unrecognizable in many ways. From there, new civilizations were forged and lost knowledge was slowly rediscovered.
The DREAM OPERATIONS storylines take place long after that rebuilding, during the HIGH TECH ERA, when cites and modern-style economies once again took hold. As robots flooded the market place and big companies ruled the day, the practice of corporate DREAM OPERATIONS took root.
That’s what these stories are about. They are about that world, and the Artaro Corporation which exists within it. Artaro is probably the single largest company in the Green World, and though it isn’t the only major player, it is definitely a monopoly. Artaro makes robots, and flying cars, and everything from household appliances, to cigarettes, to clothing, high technology, electronics, and adventure supplies. It has a big online store and its own theme parks and entertainment division. There’s a lot going on there.
POKING FUN AT ADVERTISING CULTURE:
We all know there are too many damn commercials in our faces each day. We see them when we watch television and every time we go outside. More and more, we see new advertisement delivery methods in places we wouldn't have expected. It's the American way, I guess. Well... I guess I just wanted to have fun with that idea.
In Machina, advertisements are absolutely all over the damn place. Holographic billboards, and neon signage, and light-up blimp adverts are all commonplace. The way I imagine it, even the commercials have commercials. Advertisements run rampant across cyberspace (the Circuit-interspace as it's called in this world.) It’s a lot of ads and it's all very saturated. So, the only place left to advertise is within the human psyche, and that’s where our crew of main characters come in.
In the first story, “Sublimina”, an engineer by the name of Dr. Ariton Webweaver is given the deed to his own building complex for the purpose of creating a new dream advertisement operation. From there, the story begins.
If you’d really understand what it’s like to work within the DREAM OPERATIONS division at the Artaro Corporation, you’re going to have to read these stories for yourself! I made sure to include maps, illustrations, and supplemental information sections in both volumes to help readers keep track of complexities in this world.
To me, the two books sort of feel like two seasons of a television show, where things ramp up as you go along. If I get the chance to write a Vol. 3 book, I’d really want it to include even more action and intrigue, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Anyway, I encourage everyone to pick up the books, and I really hope people like them!
Before I end this post, I figure I should I say a few quick things about sci-fi in general.
A FEW QUICK THOUGHTS ON SCI-FI:
Nowadays, there is so much genre entertainment out there, and I enjoy a lot of it (though not all of it.) I could spend all day listing cool books and streaming shows I've consumed over the years. I like space sci-fi stuff like Star Trek and I like animated stuff and prestige tv adaptations of books. It's probably a golden age for the genre right now if I'm really thinking about it.
Meanwhile, in the real world, we're living in the future, and all the tropes are being hit. The world right now is frankly pretty crazy, and when I see all the new humanoid robot developments that are happening, I can't help but feel like the visions sci-fi writers have had for decades are now coming quickly true. Philip K. Dick definitely got a few things right.
Plus, they're bringing back dire wolves from extinction now so Jurassic Park is real too, haha. What can I say about it? Progress just moves so fast, and it's probably going to change things in some really profound ways in the next decade.
As for me, I just try to create sci-fi that is fun. I'm not claiming to predict the future of space colonization or anything magnificant like that. I love to read cerebral sci-fi (I recommend the Three Body Problem and the rest of Cixin Liu's series) but I don't have that level of scientific insight that some writers who are literal engineers or scientists might have. But it is cool to think about all of the implications of alien life, or the multi-verse, or quantum computers, or sentient androids.
Look, I'm just rambling, but I love this kind of stuff.
Thanks for taking the time to check out my blog, and I'm SUPER APPRECIATIVE of anyone who takes the time to read my books!
-Teej
2025
If you want to support the project, check out my Patreon page: www.patreon.com/crystallinemythos
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