Collapse and Delusion

Supreme Commander Jack Commer and his wife Amav journey to a backward agricultural world for a painful reunion with their son Jonathan James, survivor of a childhood abduction by Alpha Centaurian security forces. Choosing to remain secluded in the shattered Centaurian empire in the aftermath of its lost war with Sol, Jonathan James has authored a bestselling novel about the collapse of Alpha Centaurian culture. Jack and Amav are furious that their arrogant son refuses to attend his own literary award celebration party, or to even see his parents. Instead he sends his pet robot to summarize the novel, which is devoted to ridiculing a dimwitted caricature of his father. But the robot, modeled after Jack's dead brother John, gloats that the book is actually malware designed to resurrect the fascist Grid of the ancient Alpha Centaurian Empire. Michael D. Smith was raised in the Northeast and the Chicago area, then moved to Texas to attend Rice University, where he began developing as a writer and visual artist. His Jack Commer, Supreme Commander and Supreme Commander Laurie science fiction series are published by Sortmind Press. In addition, Sortmind Press has published Smith's literary novels Sortmind, The Soul Institute, CommWealth, Akard Drearstone, Jump Grenade, Asylum and Mirage, The University of Mars, and Zarreich. Smith's web site, sortmind.com, contains further examples of his novels and visual art, and he muses about writing and art processes at blog.sortmind.com. With the shocking suicide of the Typhoon I, the most powerful military spaceship ever built, the four Commer brothers are reduced to two. After the horrors of the Final War, the evacuation of Earth, and an unexpected conflict with native Martian terrorists, is eldest brother Jack really fit to lead the United System Space Force? Yet despite stress bordering on hysteria he always seems to come up with the proper solution. Shy with women but easy with command as opposed to his passionate, guilt-ridden brother Joe, when promoted to Supreme Commander Jack passes over numerous ambitious admirals and holds onto power for decades with the newest rejuvenation technology. But has he ever really recovered from the responsibility of overseeing forty years of futile time war with the Alpha Centaurians?