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To The Stars is my second collection in the Future Chron Universe. I began writing the five novellas in 2018 after I had finished the novels Mach's Metric and Mach's Mission but before the novel Mach's Legacy. They were originally meant to be a continuance of my From The Earth novellas but they drifted away from that series.
The novellas, First One Hundred, Second One Hundred, and The Path continue to investigate the workings of the wormhole drive which was developed in the Mach novels. They also hint at the origin of the toy wormhole model which played a part in Mach's Metric and the home planet of the AIs that opposed Elias Mach in Mach's Mission.
The other two novellas, First Dark Ages and Second Dark Ages, are set on the future Earth as it exists during the three novellas above which are set in space or on extra-solar planets. Second Dark Ages is one of my favorite novellas, I think it expresses my frustration at what I see as an overemphasis on politics in our lives, but it's not really political in the sense that it pushes an agenda.
My favorite (most interesting) part of First One Hundred is the AI finding itself trapped during the particle storm and trying to protect itself by slowly shutting down pieces of itself.
In Second One Hundred the eerie circumstances to which the protagonist wakes, gave me a chance to try to create some atmospherics.
The Path as originally written focused solely on the Trilon's story. I added the scientist's storyline which placed the Trilon's planet in context with the rest of the novellas.
A favorite scene from First Dark Ages is the very last where the protagonist Patrice finally finds comfort and contentment after all the tribulation she endured.
As I said before Second Dark Ages is one of my favorite stories that I've written. It's almost allegorical in its presentation and actually there is a good bit of understated humor in Ray's story.