Compass & Codex

In the workshop shed, the last of the oilskin folders goes into the steel box with the sound of waterproofed cloth against steel, and Gunnar presses the lid to its seal: six months of manifest discrepancies, freight-ledger cross-references, telegraph intercepts bundled with wire because wire is harder to cut, and Marshal Calloway's sworn testimony sealed with a Rail Marshal stamp — all bolted under the Widow-Maker's engineer seat, going where they were going or nowhere. 

The boiler is holding pressure; the coal is loaded; Dutch closes the tender. Then Vesper looks up from her cipher pad at the workbench and speaks in the flat voice that means the training is at maximum effort: "Hayden sold the plan. The Syndicate has the route. The timing. The engine." Gunnar checks the clock. Eleven hours until the Legislature's special session opens at dawn. 

Every Syndicate-controlled freight line is a trap; Hayden knew all four. Only the High Pass branch runs outside their junction controls — the one route they can intercept with men, not switches. Vesper argues, and she's not wrong: "We're walking into a route they know we're taking. That's not a plan. That's an invitation." Gunnar doesn't argue back. He picks up his engineer's coat, settles it onto his shoulders the way his father did in the one photograph he has, and climbs into the cab.

Iron Rails & Ruin is a steampunk Wild West adventure for boys 8-18 — a fourteen-year-old engineer in 1882 Montana finds out his father is alive, and the Syndicate has fourteen days to seize every locomotive in the territory.

Perfect for kids, tweens, and teens who love trains, invention, and frontier adventure. For fans of Mortal Engines, steampunk machines and mysteries, and Wild West stories with a clever hero at the controls.

📚 Grab your copy of Iron Rails & Ruin: Smoke & Suspicion (Book 1) — available now on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

New chapters every Friday. Follow us now!

00:00:00 — The last folder into the steel box — six months of evidence sealed
00:02:30 — Bolted under the Widow-Maker's engineer seat — going or nowhere
00:05:00 — The shed — coal dust, machine oil, a boiler waiting
00:07:00 — Vesper at the cipher pad, back to the shed
00:09:00 — The decoded message — stillness that isn't reading
00:11:00 — "Hayden sold the plan. The Syndicate has the route."
00:13:30 — Every Syndicate freight line is a trap — all four
00:15:30 — The Legislature's special session opens in eleven hours
00:17:30 — The High Pass — the one route they can only intercept with men
00:20:00 — Vesper: "That's not a plan. That's an invitation."
00:22:00 — Gunnar doesn't argue — he picks up his engineer's coat
00:24:00 — His father's collar in the one photograph he has
00:25:30 — The pressure gauge in the green — waiting where he set it
00:27:00 — CH 13 — What Comes Next

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I am the author of serialized fiction books for kids, teens, tweens and young adults, including:

- Brickhaven: A Bricks Fan Fiction Adventure

- Colony In Danger: A Fire Ant Adventure

- Eagle's Edge: A Story of Rome, Gaul and the Making of a Soldier

- Treasure Island: A Classic Adaptation

- Iron Rails & Ruin: A Novel of Steam, Sorcery and the Lawless Montana Territory

📚 All five books -- are now available on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

📖 Wanna check out all five series for yourself?  Get all five Chapter 1s free: https://compass-codex.kit.com/middle-school-reader-group

Thank you for listening!  This is Reed Sterling.  Remember: Never stop exploring unknown worlds.

The track widens before them, muddy with recent legionary passage, and Marcus forces one foot in front of the other, scutum hanging from a wrist gone numb hours before. Behind him, six survivors and their Nervii captive shuffle in the ghost of formation, faces hollow, bodies past the point of complaint. On the hilltop ahead: a Roman castra — wooden stakes, the sharpened vallum, the legion's eagle above the praetorium. 

Home. Safety. 

A movement atop the palisade catches Marcus's eye — a bronze flash, a centurion's transverse crest, an arm shooting up to point. The camp erupts like a disturbed anthill. A cornu blast — three short notes, stand ready — ripples through the ordered rows of tents. The drilling contubernia freeze. Officers stride from the praetorium, hands on hilts. Marcus keeps his back straight, his pace measured; the others match him as best they can. When the tesserarius finally steps forward with the formal challenge, Marcus's voice is steadier than he expected: "Contubernium seven, third century, second cohort, Legio X Equestris. 

Returning from detached duty." The watch commander's face goes through wariness, shock, and then something approaching awe. "Jupiter's mercy," he breathes. "We thought —" He catches himself. The gate swings open. Legionaries stop mid-task to stare at the ragged survivors as they pass down the via praetoria — seven men, walking home from the dead.

Eagle's Edge is a Roman adventure story for boys 8-18 — a sixteen-year-old recruit takes the oath, marches into Gaul under Caesar, and learns what war actually is.

Perfect for kids, tweens, and teens who love history, battles, and adventure. For fans of Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth, the action of Percy Jackson, and classic stories of ancient Rome.

📚 Grab your copy of Eagle's Edge: The Making of a Soldier (Book 1) — available now on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

New chapters every Thursday. Follow us now!

00:00:00 — The track widens — muddy signs of legionary passage
00:02:30 — Marcus's scutum, hanging from a wrist gone numb
00:05:00 — Petronius limping, gray beneath the dirt and dried blood
00:07:30 — The palisade rises on the hill — the eagle standard
00:10:00 — A bronze flash on the wall — a centurion sees them
00:12:00 — The camp erupts — like a disturbed anthill
00:14:30 — Cornu blast: three short notes — stand ready
00:17:00 — A single long note — the tension eases
00:19:00 — The final stretch — the gate is straight ahead
00:22:00 — The tesserarius calls the challenge: "Identify!"
00:24:00 — "Contubernium seven, third century, second cohort, Legio X Equestris"
00:26:00 — "Jupiter's mercy — we thought —"
00:28:30 — Down the via praetoria — legionaries stop to stare
00:30:00 — CH 13 — What Comes Next

Send us Fan Mail

I am the author of serialized fiction books for kids, teens, tweens and young adults, including:

- Brickhaven: A Bricks Fan Fiction Adventure

- Colony In Danger: A Fire Ant Adventure

- Eagle's Edge: A Story of Rome, Gaul and the Making of a Soldier

- Treasure Island: A Classic Adaptation

- Iron Rails & Ruin: A Novel of Steam, Sorcery and the Lawless Montana Territory

📚 All five books -- are now available on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

📖 Wanna check out all five series for yourself?  Get all five Chapter 1s free: https://compass-codex.kit.com/middle-school-reader-group

Thank you for listening!  This is Reed Sterling.  Remember: Never stop exploring unknown worlds.

Under the star-flecked sky, Jim braces the coracle against the Hispaniola's hull and saws at the anchor cable with his small knife. The rope is as thick as his wrist, wet with sea spray, and woven from countless smaller strands that fight the blade fiber by fiber. 

His hands go raw, his knuckles split, sweat runs into his eyes. He thinks of Captain Smollett's fever, Dr. Livesey, the squire — all of them counting on him even though they don't yet know it. The blade dulls; the sawing turns to friction; the coracle rocks under him. Then a weak point in the rope gives at once, and the last strands part with a sharp CRACK across the whole bay. 

The Hispaniola shifts, feeling her freedom, and begins to drift. The coracle bobs wildly — the gap between boat and ship widens — and Jim spots one line dangling from the rail. He abandons Ben Gunn's coracle, lunges for the rope, swings briefly over open water, crashes against the hull, and hauls himself up hand over hand with his bleeding palms. When his hand finally closes on the solid wood of the rail, he pulls himself over and tumbles onto the deck. He has done it. The ship is his — if he can hold her.

Treasure Island is Robert Louis Stevenson's classic pirate adventure retold for boys 8-18 — a twelve-year-old cabin boy finds Captain Flint's treasure map, and the one-legged sailor a dying pirate warned him about is already aboard his ship.

Perfect for kids, tweens, and teens who love pirates, treasure, and high-seas adventure. For families who want the original Stevenson classic told in clear, modern language — a natural fit for homeschool reading alongside Peter Pan and other timeless adventure tales.

📚 Grab your copy of Treasure Island: The Map (Book 1) — available now on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

New chapters every Wednesday. Follow us now!

00:00:00 — The knife bites into the wet hemp of the anchor cable
00:02:30 — Rope as thick as his wrist — progress by fibers
00:05:30 — Hands raw, knuckles split, sweat in his eyes
00:08:00 — The blade dulls — sawing turns to friction
00:11:00 — The coracle rocks against the hull
00:13:30 — A weak point gives — several strands at once
00:15:30 — The final strands, and the CRACK across the bay
00:17:00 — The Hispaniola shifts — the drift begins
00:19:30 — One trailing rope from the rail — the only way aboard
00:21:30 — The lunge over open water
00:23:30 — Hand over hand up the hull, palms bleeding
00:26:00 — Over the rail — onto the deck
00:27:00 — CH 13 — What Comes Next

Send us Fan Mail

I am the author of serialized fiction books for kids, teens, tweens and young adults, including:

- Brickhaven: A Bricks Fan Fiction Adventure

- Colony In Danger: A Fire Ant Adventure

- Eagle's Edge: A Story of Rome, Gaul and the Making of a Soldier

- Treasure Island: A Classic Adaptation

- Iron Rails & Ruin: A Novel of Steam, Sorcery and the Lawless Montana Territory

📚 All five books -- are now available on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

📖 Wanna check out all five series for yourself?  Get all five Chapter 1s free: https://compass-codex.kit.com/middle-school-reader-group

Thank you for listening!  This is Reed Sterling.  Remember: Never stop exploring unknown worlds.

Fog pours over the grass and swallows the world. Thirty fire ant scouts follow Captain Bram Selwick in a line tight as wire, twenty of Rook Calder's beetles march behind them in a slow, deliberate hammer-formation, and Thistle runs point — navigating not by sight but by memory and the way the wind curves around clumps of weed. 

Cinder tries to memorize how she does it and knows he'll always be a step behind. Queen Aureline, exoskeleton buffed to a wet shine, marches one pace behind Cinder and Thistle — not on a dais, not hidden in the center, out front where anything can reach her. When Cinder says she should be back at the colony, she cuts him off: "If it fails, there will be nothing left to rule. 

A Queen who won't risk herself for her subjects doesn't deserve to lead them." At the first marker, an old ant grave, she kneels and presses her palm to the moss-slick stone: three hundred died the last time a Queen left her Kingdom, and it bought a hundred years of peace. In the gully beyond, Thistle spots a pill bug trip-line — chemical-blue mist shimmers in the air, ten feet ahead. Rook Calder spits, walks straight through it, and the army follows. 

They reach the hollow log for a two-minute rest. Aureline walks the line, memorizing every face. "How many will we lose today?" she asks. Bram answers, loud enough for everyone: "Enough. But if the plan holds, we have a chance."

Colony in Danger is a nature adventure story for boys 8-18 — a young fire ant scout, Cinder Marlowe, has just days to figure out why the colony's food is disappearing before everyone starves.

Perfect for kids, tweens, and teens who love animals, survival, and adventure. For fans of Watership Down, the Warriors series, and the world of Empires of the Undergrowth — with real fire-ant science woven through every chapter.

📚 Grab your copy of Colony in Danger: The Fire Ant Kingdom (Book 1) — available now on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

New chapters every Tuesday. Follow us now!

00:00:00 — Fog thick enough to swallow sound — the army marches out
00:02:30 — Bram's scouts, Rook's beetles — formation in the mist
00:05:00 — Thistle runs point — navigating by memory, not sight
00:07:00 — The Queen marches one pace behind, refusing the safe center
00:10:00 — "A Queen who won't risk herself doesn't deserve to lead"
00:13:00 — The old ant grave — three hundred, the last time a Queen marched
00:16:00 — One hundred years of peace, bought at that cost
00:19:00 — The gully — Thistle spots the pill bug trip-line
00:22:00 — Chemical-blue mist — Rook Calder walks straight through it
00:25:30 — The hollow log — two minutes, then they go
00:28:00 — "How many will we lose today?"
00:30:00 — "Enough. But if the plan holds, we have a chance."
00:31:00 — CH 21 — What Comes Next

Send us Fan Mail

I am the author of serialized fiction books for kids, teens, tweens and young adults, including:

- Brickhaven: A Bricks Fan Fiction Adventure

- Colony In Danger: A Fire Ant Adventure

- Eagle's Edge: A Story of Rome, Gaul and the Making of a Soldier

- Treasure Island: A Classic Adaptation

- Iron Rails & Ruin: A Novel of Steam, Sorcery and the Lawless Montana Territory

📚 All five books -- are now available on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

📖 Wanna check out all five series for yourself?  Get all five Chapter 1s free: https://compass-codex.kit.com/middle-school-reader-group

Thank you for listening!  This is Reed Sterling.  Remember: Never stop exploring unknown worlds.

The iron ring turns in Max's palm, the latch clicks free, the dark-brown plate hinges upward, and Max comes up out of the drainage tunnel into the alley alone. Morning air — wider than dungeon air, less certain of itself, carrying the cold of the eastern hills and the first pale light of a sun that hasn't yet crested. 

He crosses the field toward the exile camp thirty feet out from the wall's base: the teacher with chalk-stained sleeve, the baker's apprentice with arms pulled around herself, the merchant standing on both feet in the way of a man who has been standing a long time. They see him from thirty feet. Nobody asks. Nobody calls out. 

The loose cluster stills, and the silence they make is not empty — it has material, the warmth of people who know what has happened and will not make him say it. Old Bracket crosses to him, deliberate and unhurried, and puts a weathered yellow hand on Max's shoulder. 

And Max, for the first time since he woke on his bedroom floor a scale too small, lets his body admit it is done being useful for a moment. The exiles turn away — the only privacy available in an open field. Bracket's hand stays. The wind moves off the eastern hills. Somewhere the clocktower marks time with the one-stud jump Max always meant to fix.

Brickhaven is a serialized LEGO adventure story for boys 8-18 — a ten-year-old wakes up shrunk to minifig size inside the LEGO town he built, where the champion he designed now rules as a tyrant.

Perfect for kids, tweens, and teens who love building, puzzles, and adventure. For fans of The LEGO Movie, a kids' edition of Ready Player One, and classic portal-fantasy stories where an ordinary kid is the only one who can save the world.

📚 Grab your copy of Brickhaven: The Fall (Book 1) — available now on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

New chapters every Monday. Follow us now!

00:00:00 — The hatch opens — Max comes up out of the tunnel alone
00:01:30 — The east gate at the alley's end — Max does not look at it
00:02:30 — Across the open field toward the exile camp
00:04:00 — They see him from thirty feet and nobody asks
00:06:00 — Bracket crosses to him, deliberate and unhurried
00:07:30 — A weathered yellow hand on Max's shoulder
00:09:00 — Something inside Max's chest, giving way
00:10:30 — The exiles turn away — the only privacy available in a field
00:12:00 — Wind off the eastern hills — the clocktower marks time
00:13:00 — Bracket's hand stays
00:13:30 — CH 13 — What Comes Next

Send us Fan Mail

I am the author of serialized fiction books for kids, teens, tweens and young adults, including:

- Brickhaven: A Bricks Fan Fiction Adventure

- Colony In Danger: A Fire Ant Adventure

- Eagle's Edge: A Story of Rome, Gaul and the Making of a Soldier

- Treasure Island: A Classic Adaptation

- Iron Rails & Ruin: A Novel of Steam, Sorcery and the Lawless Montana Territory

📚 All five books -- are now available on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

📖 Wanna check out all five series for yourself?  Get all five Chapter 1s free: https://compass-codex.kit.com/middle-school-reader-group

Thank you for listening!  This is Reed Sterling.  Remember: Never stop exploring unknown worlds.

Gunnar walks two blocks north to Marshal Morrow's office with folded pages in his coat, the cold air a correction after Silas Vane's cedar-oil dining car. Inside, Morrow sits with a half-empty whiskey bottle, his three-fingered hand around a tin cup, seventeen years of held silence bending his shoulders inward. 

Gunnar sits down without being invited, sets the pages at his own edge of the desk, and reads out the facts in the same flat voice he uses for gauge results: the Harwich Mining Company claim dispute, the falsified shift records, the burned evidence lockbox, the four-year Blackrock sentence, the Syndicate's monthly payments to Morrow's sister's family beginning eight weeks after the trial. Morrow raises his head, meets Gunnar's eyes, and finally speaks: his brother-in-law's name was Caleb Marsh. 

The company set Caleb up because he was organizing the night crew. The judge was on the Syndicate's payroll. Morrow found out too late — and later, holding new evidence at Caleb's appeal in Copper City, he sat in the back row and didn't stand up. Gunnar tucks the chair back under the desk and leaves Morrow one line before he goes: "What a man does now is the only thing that matters. Because it's the only thing you can still control."

Iron Rails & Ruin is a steampunk Wild West adventure for boys 8-18 — a fourteen-year-old engineer in 1882 Montana finds out his father is alive, and the Syndicate has fourteen days to seize every locomotive in the territory.

Perfect for kids, tweens, and teens who love trains, invention, and frontier adventure. For fans of Mortal Engines, steampunk machines and mysteries, and Wild West stories with a clever hero at the controls.

📚 Grab your copy of Iron Rails & Ruin: Smoke & Suspicion (Book 1) — available now on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

New chapters every Friday. Follow us now!

00:00:00 — Two blocks north to the marshal's office — the cold, a correction
00:02:30 — Morrow at his desk — whiskey, the three-fingered hand, the badge
00:05:00 — Gunnar sits down uninvited and lays the pages at his edge
00:07:00 — "Seventeen years ago"
00:09:30 — The Harwich Mining Company claim dispute, and the fire
00:12:30 — The monthly payments that started eight weeks after sentencing
00:15:30 — Fourteen months of freight-account cross-references, and six routes
00:17:30 — Morrow raises his head — the silence lasts four seconds
00:19:00 — "His name was Caleb. Caleb Marsh."
00:22:00 — The judge was on the Syndicate's payroll before the trial
00:24:30 — The Copper City appeal — "I sat in that courtroom and I didn't stand up"
00:27:00 — "What a man does now is the only thing that matters"
00:28:30 — CH 12 — What Comes Next

Send us Fan Mail

I am the author of serialized fiction books for kids, teens, tweens and young adults, including:

- Brickhaven: A Bricks Fan Fiction Adventure

- Colony In Danger: A Fire Ant Adventure

- Eagle's Edge: A Story of Rome, Gaul and the Making of a Soldier

- Treasure Island: A Classic Adaptation

- Iron Rails & Ruin: A Novel of Steam, Sorcery and the Lawless Montana Territory

📚 All five books -- are now available on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

📖 Wanna check out all five series for yourself?  Get all five Chapter 1s free: https://compass-codex.kit.com/middle-school-reader-group

Thank you for listening!  This is Reed Sterling.  Remember: Never stop exploring unknown worlds.

At the forest's edge before dawn, Marcus measures the ground: two hundred paces of open farmland to a drainage ditch, then three hundred more to a tree line by a country track. 

The mist is his ally now, but an hour of sun will burn it off and leave his men visible as ants on white cloth. In the forest, Nervii hunting parties know every trail and are closing in. Petronius fades against an oak with the wound beginning to turn. Crassus paces in tight, jerky circles. Flavus stands apart, checking the trees behind them. Marcus makes his decision: they cross now, before full light, using the mist. 

When Flavus openly refuses — "It's suicide! They'll see us from every hilltop!" — Marcus signals for quiet, but Petronius steps in, voice steady despite the pain: no patrols will come this far into enemy territory for seven men presumed dead. Flavus deflates. Crassus starts muttering "no place to hide" until Broken Nose clamps a hand over his mouth. Marcus repeats the plan for every man in turn and prepares them to move.

Eagle's Edge is a Roman adventure story for boys 8-18 — a sixteen-year-old recruit takes the oath, marches into Gaul under Caesar, and learns what war actually is.

Perfect for kids, tweens, and teens who love history, battles, and adventure. For fans of Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth, the action of Percy Jackson, and classic stories of ancient Rome.

📚 Grab your copy of Eagle's Edge: The Making of a Soldier (Book 1) — available now on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

New chapters every Thursday. Follow us now!

00:00:00 — The forest's edge before dawn — Marcus reads the ground
00:03:00 — Two hundred paces of open field, then a drainage ditch
00:06:00 — The mist will burn off with the sun — the clock starts now
00:09:00 — Petronius fading, Crassus pacing, Flavus watching the trees
00:12:00 — The decision: they cross before full light
00:14:00 — Flavus: "It's suicide! We're targets — walking targets!"
00:17:00 — Petronius shuts him down: no patrols are coming for us
00:20:00 — Crassus muttering "no place to hide" — Broken Nose silences him
00:23:30 — Marcus repeats the plan, man by man
00:26:00 — Ambrix, still with them — the unlikely companion
00:27:30 — CH 12 — What Comes Next

Send us Fan Mail

I am the author of serialized fiction books for kids, teens, tweens and young adults, including:

- Brickhaven: A Bricks Fan Fiction Adventure

- Colony In Danger: A Fire Ant Adventure

- Eagle's Edge: A Story of Rome, Gaul and the Making of a Soldier

- Treasure Island: A Classic Adaptation

- Iron Rails & Ruin: A Novel of Steam, Sorcery and the Lawless Montana Territory

📚 All five books -- are now available on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

📖 Wanna check out all five series for yourself?  Get all five Chapter 1s free: https://compass-codex.kit.com/middle-school-reader-group

Thank you for listening!  This is Reed Sterling.  Remember: Never stop exploring unknown worlds.

Night in the stockade after the pirate attack, and the heat won't lift. Captain Smollett fights infection in his bullet wound, still giving orders in a voice grown hoarse. Jim counts what's left — two small barrels of water, powder for maybe fifty shots, hardtack for four days if strictly rationed — and understands that Silver doesn't need another attack. He just has to wait. 

Pacing the blockhouse, Jim remembers Ben Gunn's goatskin coracle hidden in a cove: not sturdy enough for open sea, but strong enough for a short journey. The Hispaniola sits anchored in the bay, nearly unguarded — what if her anchor no longer held? 

Captain Smollett sees the idea working in him and tells him to rest, but the plan won't die. When Gray finally sleeps and Hunter's back is turned to the tree line, Jim tucks a pistol into his belt, takes a piece of hardtack, and lifts the wooden gate-bar in silence — slow enough that the wood barely whispers against its brackets. Then he slips out into the dark.

Treasure Island is Robert Louis Stevenson's classic pirate adventure retold for boys 8-18 — a twelve-year-old cabin boy finds Captain Flint's treasure map, and the one-legged sailor a dying pirate warned him about is already aboard his ship.

Perfect for kids, tweens, and teens who love pirates, treasure, and high-seas adventure. For families who want the original Stevenson classic told in clear, modern language — a natural fit for homeschool reading alongside Peter Pan and other timeless adventure tales.

📚 Grab your copy of Treasure Island: The Map (Book 1) — available now on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

New chapters every Wednesday. Follow us now!

00:00:00 — Night in the stockade — heat, sweat, and no sleep
00:02:30 — Captain Smollett, wounded, still giving orders
00:05:30 — Jim counts the supplies — four days at best
00:08:30 — Silver's real strategy — wait, and let thirst do the work
00:11:00 — Ben Gunn's coracle, hidden in a cove
00:13:00 — "What if that anchor no longer held?"
00:16:00 — The captain sees the idea working in him
00:19:00 — Gray sleeps — Jim's opportunity
00:21:30 — Pistol in the belt, hardtack in the pocket
00:23:30 — The gate-bar — slow, silent, one hand at a time
00:26:00 — Out into the dark alone
00:27:00 — CH 12 — What Comes Next

Send us Fan Mail

I am the author of serialized fiction books for kids, teens, tweens and young adults, including:

- Brickhaven: A Bricks Fan Fiction Adventure

- Colony In Danger: A Fire Ant Adventure

- Eagle's Edge: A Story of Rome, Gaul and the Making of a Soldier

- Treasure Island: A Classic Adaptation

- Iron Rails & Ruin: A Novel of Steam, Sorcery and the Lawless Montana Territory

📚 All five books -- are now available on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

📖 Wanna check out all five series for yourself?  Get all five Chapter 1s free: https://compass-codex.kit.com/middle-school-reader-group

Thank you for listening!  This is Reed Sterling.  Remember: Never stop exploring unknown worlds.

In the war chamber, Cinder lays out the plan. Three teams: Miri Solace's caterpillars set decoys on the eastern perimeter to draw guards out. Moss Wren's spiders cut the patrols and force the pill bugs to split their forces. 

And Cinder's scouts, with Rook Calder's beetles, move through the old tunnels to hit the storage chambers, break the food line, and run for daylight — timing the strike for the seven-minute gap when the pill bug guard changes shifts, three minutes after the moon hits peak. 

Captain Bram Selwick calls it a suicide run and refuses to hand the fate of the colony to children and criminals. Rook demands equity for his kin's shells. Miri demands a share for the caterpillars. Silas, half gray with old wounds, gives them the exact patrol timings from memory. Blaze pitches pill bug mud balls as ammunition. 

Note the historian mutters about the Siege of Season Forty-Two. Queen Aureline weighs it all, and delivers her verdict in one line: "We survive together or starve separately." Bram seethes, but holds his ground.

Colony in Danger is a nature adventure story for boys 8-18 — a young fire ant scout, Cinder Marlowe, has just days to figure out why the colony's food is disappearing before everyone starves.

Perfect for kids, tweens, and teens who love animals, survival, and adventure. For fans of Watership Down, the Warriors series, and the world of Empires of the Undergrowth — with real fire-ant science woven through every chapter.

📚 Grab your copy of Colony in Danger: The Fire Ant Kingdom (Book 1) — available now on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

New chapters every Tuesday. Follow us now!

00:00:00 — The war chamber — Cinder steps up to the stone table
00:02:30 — The three teams: caterpillars, spiders, and scouts
00:06:30 — Rook Calder: "You want us to trust children with the plan?"
00:09:00 — Timing: three minutes after the moon hits peak, seven minutes to strike
00:12:00 — Bram: "It's a suicide run"
00:14:30 — Blaze presents the pill bug mud ball — food AND ammunition
00:17:30 — Rook demands equity — his kin risk their shells, they eat
00:20:00 — Miri demands a share for the caterpillars
00:22:30 — Queen Aureline: "We survive together or starve separately"
00:25:30 — Silas gives the patrol timings from memory
00:28:00 — Rook to Cinder: "You fail, everyone dies"
00:30:00 — Cinder: "We don't fail"
00:31:30 — CH 20 — What Comes Next

Send us Fan Mail

I am the author of serialized fiction books for kids, teens, tweens and young adults, including:

- Brickhaven: A Bricks Fan Fiction Adventure

- Colony In Danger: A Fire Ant Adventure

- Eagle's Edge: A Story of Rome, Gaul and the Making of a Soldier

- Treasure Island: A Classic Adaptation

- Iron Rails & Ruin: A Novel of Steam, Sorcery and the Lawless Montana Territory

📚 All five books -- are now available on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

📖 Wanna check out all five series for yourself?  Get all five Chapter 1s free: https://compass-codex.kit.com/middle-school-reader-group

Thank you for listening!  This is Reed Sterling.  Remember: Never stop exploring unknown worlds.

The corridor has no alcoves. Max built it that way — straight dressed-stone plate-work, no side passages, no gaps — because at nine years old he was designing a dungeon, not an escape route. Now the Destroyer fills the passage, gear-train filling the air, and Max needs twenty seconds of silence to sing the four-note sequence his mother used to hum on Tuesday evenings in the kitchen — the shutdown code he built into every combat mechanism in the town. He has the notes. He has no way to sing them with the machine's sensor plates locked on him. Then Pip reads the corridor the way he reads everything, sees a passage Max built too tight by accident, and shouts "Hey — over here." The Destroyer recalibrates. Pip runs. Max presses flat against the wall, sets down the lamp, closes his eyes, and begins to count. First note. Second. Third, held. Fourth, falling. Again. Again. Again — while the gear-train sounds change east of him, and change, and change again, and finally stop.

Brickhaven is a serialized LEGO adventure story for boys 8-18 — a ten-year-old wakes up shrunk to minifig size inside the LEGO town he built, where the champion he designed now rules as a tyrant.

Perfect for kids, tweens, and teens who love building, puzzles, and adventure. For fans of The LEGO Movie, a kids' edition of Ready Player One, and classic portal-fantasy stories where an ordinary kid is the only one who can save the world.

📚 Grab your copy of Brickhaven: The Fall (Book 1) — available now on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

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00:00:00 — The Destroyer, five feet away, in a corridor with no alcoves
00:01:24 — The four notes Max's mother hummed — the shutdown code
00:02:48 — "Hey — over here": Pip draws the Destroyer east
00:03:24 — The machine recalibrates and pivots toward Pip
00:03:48 — The Destroyer passes two inches from Max's face
00:04:22 — The lamp on the floor — Max closes his eyes
00:04:50 — First note. Second. Third, held. Fourth, falling.
00:06:41 — The gear-train under load — the ceiling section bites
00:07:17 — The silence, absolute and sudden
00:07:49 — Max opens his eyes
00:08:02 — Down the eastern passage
00:09:48 — Max finds Pip
00:10:43 — He kneels
00:11:53 — He starts talking
00:17:02 — "I did not stop talking"
00:17:20 — CH 12 — What Comes Next

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I am the author of serialized fiction books for kids, teens, tweens and young adults, including:

- Brickhaven: A Bricks Fan Fiction Adventure

- Colony In Danger: A Fire Ant Adventure

- Eagle's Edge: A Story of Rome, Gaul and the Making of a Soldier

- Treasure Island: A Classic Adaptation

- Iron Rails & Ruin: A Novel of Steam, Sorcery and the Lawless Montana Territory

📚 All five books -- are now available on Amazon: https://us.amazon.com/stores/Reed-Sterling/author/B0H2ZM86WQ

📖 Wanna check out all five series for yourself?  Get all five Chapter 1s free: https://compass-codex.kit.com/middle-school-reader-group

Thank you for listening!  This is Reed Sterling.  Remember: Never stop exploring unknown worlds.