A Roman legionary carries forty-five pounds of armor — and then they make him run.

At dawn, Marcus receives his full kit from the quartermaster: lorica hamata chainmail, scutum shield, two pila, gladius, belt, cloak, cooking pot, and water skin. Forty-five pounds, distributed across every joint. He barely makes it to formation without collapsing. Then comes the training obstacle course — walls to climb, logs to carry, ditches to cross — and Marcus fails publicly in the mud while Decimus Varro, a rival recruit from a wealthy family, watches with amusement. It takes Centurion Nerva stopping the entire course and stepping in personally to teach Marcus the real lesson: in the legion, you move before you think. Marcus scales the wall on his next attempt.

Eagle's Edge is a Roman historical fiction series for boys 8–14 and reluctant readers. Every detail of legion life is historically accurate. 

Narrated by Reed Sterling.

For fans of Total War: Rome, Kings and Generals, and anyone who wants Roman history told as a story.

🎧 All Compass & Codex episodes: https://compassandcodex.buzzsprout.com/
📱 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBW5Z1VJRtjtf23nnptGwRA

In this Eagle's Edge chapter, the famous nickname "Marius's Mules" comes to life — the term Romans used for legionaries who carried their entire kit on a forced march. Every piece of equipment Marcus receives is historically accurate, from the lorica hamata's 45-pound weight to the two-pilum standard issue. The training obstacle course was a real part of Roman military preparation. The character of Centurion Nerva represents the disciplina — the Roman military concept of obedience so ingrained it precedes conscious thought — that turned conscript recruits into one of history's most effective fighting forces. This Roman history audiobook for boys makes every fact feel like a scene.

Could you carry forty-five pounds for a full day, every day, for twenty-five years?

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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 pirates have found Billy Bones — and now everything Jim Hawkins knew about his quiet life at the inn is over.

A thin, knife-like man named Black Dog arrives at the Admiral Benbow asking for Billy. The visit ends in a cutlass fight, a stroke, and Billy collapsed on his bedroom floor. That same evening, a blind man named Pew taps through the fog toward the inn and presses a black spot into Billy's palm — a pirate's death sentence. Billy dies on the spot. Jim and his mother take only what Billy owes them from his sea chest. But at the very bottom of that chest, Jim finds an oilskin packet sealed with black wax — and the pirates ransacking the inn are looking for exactly that.

Treasure Island is Robert Louis Stevenson's classic pirate adventure, adapted for a new generation of boys 8–14. 

Narrated by Reed Sterling.

For fans of pirate stories, sea adventures, and classic literature brought to life.

🎧 All Compass & Codex episodes: https://compassandcodex.buzzsprout.com/
📱 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBW5Z1VJRtjtf23nnptGwRA

In this Treasure Island chapter, the threat Billy Bones spent weeks fearing finally arrives — twice in one day. The confrontation with Black Dog establishes what kind of man Billy was and what kind of world Jim has stumbled into. Blind Pew's arrival through the evening fog is one of the most terrifying scenes in classic adventure literature, rendered here in full detail. Jim escapes into the night with a small oilskin packet pressed against his chest — one that pirates are willing to tear apart an inn to find. This pirate audiobook for boys stays faithful to Stevenson's original while making every scene land at full intensity.

New chapters weekly!

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.

Four fire ant scouts are locked in a jar with no way out. A strange caterpillar arrives with a deal — and the entire wild world hangs on it.

Cinder, Blaze, Thistle, and Silas are prisoners in a cracked clay jar deep inside the beetle camp. Escape comes from the last place they expect: Miri Solace, a brightly colored caterpillar who slides through the glass with a proposition. Help her collect three rare leaves — red-veined, yellow-spotted, purple-curled — from dangerous territory, and she'll buy their freedom. But in the west, where the purple leaves grow, Cinder finds something else: a fresh pill bug shell. The enemy is closer than anyone knew.

Colony in Danger is a serialized fire ant adventure for boys ages 8–14 and homeschool families.  

Biology is accurate. Stakes are real.

For fans of Watership Down, the Warriors series, and Empires of the Undergrowth.

📖 Buy Colony in Danger Part 1 audiobook: https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details?id=AQAAAEDanHPcuM
📱 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBW5Z1VJRtjtf23nnptGwRA
📧 Free Ant Codex field reports: https://compass-codex.kit.com/ant-codex-subscribe
🎧 All episodes: https://compassandcodex.buzzsprout.com/

Cinder Marlowe and his crew thought the beetle camp was as bad as things could get — until Miri Solace appeared on the glass of their jar and offered them a way out. In this Colony in Danger chapter, the scouts scatter across hostile territory to collect three types of rare leaves for Miri's cocoon, each one guarded by a different danger. When Cinder reaches the purple leaf patch, he finds a molted pill bug shell — the enemy has been here recently. This homeschool audiobook episode explores real caterpillar metamorphosis, territorial insect behavior, and how butterfly larvae use chemical mimicry to survive.

Who is Miri Solace, really — and what does a caterpillar want from a fire ant scout? Would you have taken her deal?

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.

Max knows this LEGO town better than anyone alive. He built every brick, designed every guard, placed every lamp and fountain. But when he's escorted through the gates of Brickhaven under armed escort, the citizens look away and Krag — the champion Max designed himself — calls him confused, or dangerous.

Max gets to see his creation alive for the first time at ground level: the bakery with real bread, the fountain with actual flowing water, the clocktower actually ticking. And then he's exiled through the east gate with nothing.

New to Brickhaven? Start at Chapter 1...

Brickhaven is a LEGO adventure story for boys 8–14. 

00:00:00 — Max arrives at the gates of his own town — and the guards don't know him
00:00:30 — Chapter 2: The Gates of Brickhaven
00:08:15 — Escorted through Brickhaven as a prisoner — his own citizens won't look at him
00:18:15 — Face to face with Crag — the champion Max built to protect the town
00:28:45 — Expelled beyond the walls — into the Destroyer's territory
00:29:00 — CH 3 — What Comes Next

New chapters weekly. 

Narrated by Reed Sterling.

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.

Three senior engineers refused to take this route tonight. That left Gunnar Harlan.

He’s fourteen years old, running his late father’s steam engine through a Montana blizzard in 1879. The Widow-Maker knows every inch of this mountain. So does Gunnar. But when they arrive at Harrow Gulch, the Ironclad Syndicate is waiting — and the cargo they promised to deliver has been quietly rerouted.

Gunnar opens his logbook and starts writing it all down. His father taught him that numbers don’t lie. Even when people do.

Iron Rails & Ruin is a steampunk adventure series set in the American West for boys ages 8-14. 

New chapters weekly. Narrated by Reed Sterling.

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.

Marcus Aemilius Corvus is sixteen years old and about to swear twenty-five years of his life to Caesar's army. Once the sacramentum passes his lips, he belongs to Rome.

In this episode, Marcus arrives at the legion camp outside Genava, joins the line of
recruits, and takes the military oath that will define the next quarter-century of his
life. He meets his contubernium — the eight men who will share his tent, his food, and his battles — and learns from the veteran Petronius exactly what kind of world he has entered.

Eagle's Edge is a serialized Roman historical fiction for boys 8–14 and families. Every detail of military life is drawn from real sources — Caesar's war commentaries, the Vindolanda tablets, archaeological evidence from legionary fortresses. 

Start here.

For fans of Conn Iggulden's Emperor series, Bernard Cornwell, Simon Scarrow, Total War: Rome II, and Kings and Generals.

📖 Buy the Eagle's Edge audiobook: Coming Soon!

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.

Jim Hawkins has never left the Admiral Benbow Inn. Then Billy Bones arrives.

He’s a weathered, scar-faced pirate who takes the corner table by the window and never takes his eyes off the road. He pays in strange foreign coins, drinks rum from morning to night, and whispers warnings about a seafaring man with one leg. Jim takes his money. And watches the road too.

Treasure Island — Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic adventure retold for boys ages 8-14. 

New chapters weekly. Narrated by Reed Sterling.

For fans of pirates, buried treasure, and stories where ordinary kids get pulled into extraordinary danger.

Never Stop Exploring Unknown Worlds.

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.

Fire ants don't enter beetle territory. Cinder Marlowe just did — and now his whole team is locked in a hollow log while the beetles prepare to use them as bait at dawn.

This fire ant adventure story follows Cinder, Blaze, Thistle, and Silas as they cross the border, face Rook Calder, and discover something nobody expected: the beetles are starving too.

For fans of Empires of the Undergrowth and AntsCanada — Colony in Danger is built on real fire ant science. The border marking system, territorial behavior, and colony starvation dynamics in this chapter are all grounded in how fire ant colonies actually work.

▶ Start from Chapter 1 of this story: A Colony In Danger
📧 Get the Free Ant Codex Field Report: compass-codex.kit.com/ant-codex-subscribe

---

Colony in Danger follows Cinder Marlowe, a fire ant scout who discovers his colony's food stores are being systematically stolen — and nobody in charge will listen. Every chapter is grounded in real fire ant science: colony structure, forager behavior, territorial marking, predator threats, and the biology of how fire ant colonies actually survive.

For boys who love ants, insects, and real-world science wrapped in a story that doesn't talk down to them. New chapters weekly on Compass & Codex.

Read by Reed Sterling. Never Stop Exploring Unknown Worlds.

#FireAnts #AntColony #ColonyInDanger

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.

Max built a LEGO town called Brickhaven. Every wall, every street, every guard. Then he woke up inside it — one-and-a-half inches tall. And they closed the gates.

Brickhaven Ep.1 follows Max across the vast landscape of his bedroom floor — now a wilderness at minifig scale — to the walls of the town he built with his own hands. When he gets there, the guards raise their spears.

For fans of the LEGO Movie and Minecraft.  Fan fiction at it's best.

▶ Start the series from Ep.1: You're here!

---

LEGO fans — if you woke up inside your own build, what's the first thing you'd fix about it?
Minecraft players — Max is about to discover his world has expanded beyond what he designed. Sound familiar?

---

Brickhaven is a LEGO adventure story for boys 8-14. Max, age 10, built a LEGO town called Brickhaven. When he wakes up inside it at minifig scale, he discovers his creation has come fully to life — and locked him out. A story about building things and refusing to be told you don't belong in what you made.

New chapters every Monday on Compass & Codex. Read by Reed Sterling.
Never Stop Exploring Unknown Worlds.

#LEGO #LEGOAnimation #LEGOAdventure

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.

They’ve been underground their entire lives. The world outside is enormous. And it is trying to kill them.

In this episode, Cinder, Blaze, and Thistle emerge from the maintenance tunnel at dawn into the outside world for the first time. Thistle immediately begins mapping landmarks. Blaze leads through the dense grass. They detour around a colony of black ants defending their territory. They encounter a vast puddle. They build a leaf boat. Then Silas Venn appears behind them — and reveals he planted the shell evidence to make someone investigate. Then a water strider approaches. And the four ants paddle for their lives.

Colony in Danger Part One ends here. The adventure continues in Part Two.

📖 Buy the full Colony in Danger Part 1 audiobook: Coming Soon!
📧 Free Ant Codex field reports: https://compass-codex.kit.com/ant-codex-subscribe

The world is bigger and more dangerous than anything the colony could have taught them. Grass stems become a forest. A puddle becomes an ocean. And trust — built across seven episodes — gets tested when Silas’ secret is revealed. 

This reluctant reader and homeschool audiobook series concludes Part One with the four ants on open water, a water strider bearing down on them, and a mission that is only just beginning.

Fire ant behavior in this episode: real foraging and navigation strategies, including
landmark mapping and scent-trail use.

Part Two of Colony in Danger is coming. Subscribe so you don’t miss it!!

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.