Paperback Was the Intended Format
The first thing that everyone should know is that this book was intended to be read in paperback form. Not because the author cares about getting more money for a paperback, but simply because of what the book is and how it works. There is a physicality to the way the story and the lore are structured that naturally fits a printed book.
Sticky Notes for the Deep Read
If you have the cognitive ability and the curiosity to go as deep as all the lore takes you, I would suggest having a few sticky notes. Every time you encounter a chevron while you’re reading the story, stick a note there and then go to the shard logbook and place a sticky note in the shard for the chapter you’re currently reading. If that shard takes you deeper, into the Node Codex, for example, or into Emily’s Oraculum, or into the Thrae-Draen, you leave that sticky note at the shard so you always know where you came from. There are times when you will go two, maybe even three, layers deep into the lore. The sticky notes are simply there so you don’t lose your place. They’re breadcrumbs.
How to Navigate Chevrons in the E-Book – printed version
If you’re reading the book in e-book form, the process is similar, just digital. When you encounter a chevron and you intend to explore it, the first thing you do is bookmark your page. Then you click the chevron, which takes you to the shard logbook. Most of the time the shard will take you deeper, though not always. Sometimes those deeper levels will take you even further down. You can continue to go as deep as you want. If you lose your way, you’ll just have to find your way back, and that’s part of the experience. When you’ve gone as far as you want to go, you can tap inside the screen and a small box will appear in the bottom left that takes you back to the shard logbook (Kindle). Or you can simply go all the way back to your bookmark, then remove the bookmark, and continue reading the story. That last step is important.
In a regular printed book, you don’t need anything fancy. You can use sticky notes, scraps of paper, or simple markers. At the very least, I would mark where you are in the story and also mark the shard logbook. From there, you can always go deeper into the lore and then come back either to the shard or to your place in the story. The logic is the same whether you’re reading digitally or physically.
You Don’t Have to Go Deep
The most important thing I want to express about how to read this book is that you do not have to go deep if you don’t want to. I have read through the story myself many times, and there are moments when I want to know what’s behind a chevron, and there are moments when I just want to keep reading. It is not obligatory that you follow every shard. The chevrons are invitations, not commands.
Another Option: Read It Twice
Another option I’ve thought about many times is reading the story straight through once without going into the lore at all, and then going back and reading it again while exploring the deeper levels. There are so many ways you could do this. Sometimes the lore is very clear. Sometimes the chevrons are very clear about what they represent, especially when images are involved. There is no single correct way to read the book. I personally suggest you read it slowly enough to follow all the lore as deep as it goes. As soon as it becomes work or distracts you from the story, quit doing it.
A System That Even Very Young Readers Can Use
One of the things I really wanted with this book was to create a system that was organized enough for very young people, even 10-, 11-, or 12-year-olds, to explore the lore without getting lost or frustrated. That’s why everything is numbered and everything is linked. This is not one of those dossier puzzle books where you open it and papers fall all over the floor and you have no idea what goes where. You’re not meant to pull your hair out trying to find meaning. The system leads you where you need to go.
No Misleading Clues
There are no misleading clues in this book. There are no fake cryptic puzzles. The lore is not trying to trick you. It is what it is. Learning the voice of the alien race, learning their words and their way of thinking, is part of the journey and part of the fun. Everything has meaning, and some things have deeper levels of meaning. That’s why the symbols and numbers lead you deeper if you choose to follow them.
This Book Isn’t Meant to Be Read Fast
This book should not be read quickly in my opinion. I know a lot of people, including very young people, want to read a certain number of books every year. But if you’re reading books as fast as you possibly can, you’re not going to retain the meaning, and you’re not going to take away an experience that actually changes you. You’ll fill your head with information, but you won’t carry much with you unless you have ontic meta-consciousness like Emily Rowen. This book is meant to be read slowly. If you want the meaning, it takes time.
Read It Out Loud
Another thing I would suggest is reading the book out loud. It takes more energy, but it helps you process what’s happening, especially with the alien language. I’m working on ways to make an audiobook available, but navigating multiple layers of lore in an audiobook is complicated. The tactile experience of reading, pausing, and reflecting is still the ideal way to experience this story.
Everything Is Intentional
Everything in this book is intentional. Every chapter is written exactly the way it was intended. Every sentence is placed where it is on purpose. All of the symbols, numbers, and systems have meaning. None of it is accidental. It’s all there so you can enjoy the story and, if you want, go deeper and really understand what’s being communicated.
Rune Cards in the Paperback
At the back of the printed book are what I call rune cards. They are designed to be torn out and held in your hand. Every time you encounter one of those words in the story, you can look at the card, flip it over, and see the definition without constantly flipping pages. You can even cut them out and laminate them if you want. There are only about fifteen of these cards, and they represent the core words of the alien language that Emily created for the anomalies. They are pretty cool.
If You’re Reading the E-Book, Make Your Own Cards
If you’re reading the e-book, you don’t have that physical option, but you can easily recreate it. You can print the cards, write them down, or make simple 3×5 cards with the word on one side and the definition on the other. For example, ser’ethra is a word you’ll encounter in the story. Having a card like that keeps you from constantly going back and forth and lets the language settle in naturally.
Glossary, Dossier Style, and Hunting for Clues
As the lore expands, there is also a glossary at the end of the Node Codex. Not everything is linked directly (which is intentional but not misleading), and sometimes you will have to search for things. That’s intentional. The book is meant to feel like a dossier, like you’re hunting for clues. I would even suggest highlighting passages or underlining things you feel are important. There are stories within stories and arcs within arcs.
It’s Not Easy, But It Can Be
This is not an easy book, but it can be easy if you want it to be. If you read files 01 through 51, you’ve read the first novella, which is around 60,000 words. The lore adds roughly another 50,000 words. You can just read the novella and enjoy it. You can read it once and move on. Or you can reread it and explore deeper layers. All of those approaches are valid.
The Basic Principle: Don’t Let It Stress You Out
The most important principle is that this should not stress you out. It should not feel like work. If it feels like work, just read the story. It’s a good story. It stands on its own. Some depth is there if you want it.
A Place to Talk About It
This is simply how I, the author, would suggest reading the book. I hope you take your time with it, and I hope you enjoy the experience. There will be places for people to gather, talk, ask questions, and share their thoughts. That conversation is part of the journey too. See Subscribe above. If you start a discussion somewhere, send me the link and I will list them here on alieniam.com.
Example Chapter of the book below, look at the title:
SL-2 means there are two chevrons (links) in this chapter to deeper lore.
FILE 34 | If You Love Something | DATE 19 JUNE | SL-2
The city below throbbed with alien life—streams of Palraxians drifting down, terra-formers breathing streets flat, transmogrifiers peeling towers apart beam by beam—but all I could feel was the absence of people. I started to feel sick to my stomach.
My friends’ and family’s faces had been the anchors of my world, and now their faces were blurred images in warehouses, voices were echoes drowned in the collective hum. I had pressed my palms to their pod casings before leaving Millersburg, whispering lies about assimilation, about hope. Those lies gnawed at me now, with every heartbeat.
At least I had Amanda and Jerrid.
He had kissed me once, shy and awkward on a rooftop, under the glow of alien veins threading below the sky and the Milky Way. I tried to focus on it, proof that I was still human, but my eyes couldn’t stop looking at the aliens and their machines.
All of it pressed down until my stomach ached from retching. What was left for me now? I thought.
As if hearing me, Neur shifted. Her long fingers brushed against my temple, threading into me a memory that wasn’t my own. She brushed the hair off my face so I could see.
Toktilor’s sky peeled open. Two suns burned overhead, their gold bleached to brittle white. Black oceans slammed against salt-poisoned coasts. Cities choked on brine storms. Libraries were locked in crystal vaults, dwellings frozen in stasis, relics loaded into carriers—Galder’an bone murals, stone towers sawn from the planet itself. The last generation flickered along mirrored spires as they filed into silver starships, hulls angled to drink the dying light while the people kept their heads bowed in despair.
Neur’s vision cut deep into my neurons splitting them. I grieved for humanity. I grieved for all intelligent life. I felt the maelstrom in the universe pressing down. Emotion had nearly erased them, as it did everyone I knew. Could we carry all this emotion forward into survival? I didn’t think so.
Neur’s memory faded, and the view below returned. Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, once bitten twice shy, remade into something else entirely. Mirrored obelisks tilted to drink the sun. It was all relative, something told me.
But Neur’s thoughts merged with mine and stayed. Then she said,
<Supreme self-sacrifice is not driven by emotion. It could have only come from utter chaos and immense beauty. Two extremes coexisting to accentuate one another. And you, Emily, your species—you lived the culmination of it more profoundly than any other in the galaxy. This is why Ser’ethra was and is found uniquely in your existence. Only your planet.>
I thought, “If emotion nearly erased them, what did that mean for me?”
Would assimilation strip away everything I still clung to—the ache for Mom’s embrace, the brief warmth of Jerrid’s hand brushing mine? The purr of Katniss while I sketched till early morning? Would I survive the chaotic and the sublime only to become like Neur—sleek, gray and endless? And my memories, archived in the annals of time for what? What good were they if I was just another normal small-town kid?
Would I still love?
Would it matter?
Would I even matter?
Part of me wanted to scream, “I’m tired as hell and I can’t take it anymore.” What’s the point of survival if it means silence? But I swallowed it down like a hated food. The Node was always listening, analyzing and measuring, making permanent every thought.
As the invasion kept falling, I kept sinking lower into my own mind’s caverns. I fell into a sinkhole and felt the ground start to give way again, fell farther, and the dirt gave way again.
Suddenly, it came back to me. “I used to want to change the world.” I spoke out loud, thrashed voice. I pressed dark thoughts down, burying them between the terror I was witnessing and star-carrier counts. And in that darkness, a private vow took shape:
If I had to endure, if I had to become more than just another one of two hundred thousand assimilated, then I would not give up. Not on the memory of my mother’s hand brushing my hair as she smiled in complete peace. Not on Amanda’s loyalty and her dark sarcasm, not even on Jerrid’s ghost of a kiss, and his silent crush.
But most of all, I would not give up on my dream to change the world. I just never imagined it would mean emptying it out and offering its skin to something bigger.
Inside me, something else began to stir—the conflict and despair Neur’s people had tried to erase by coming here. Wasn’t it all the same conflict, the same struggle, the same search for significance? Had we been in their position, wouldn’t we have done exactly the same thing?
Would I be so assimilated that I wouldn’t be allowed to love again? Would I be allowed to feel? Maybe I wouldn’t be able to fill my lungs with the smell of rain in the air before my favorite storm of the year. Did it matter? Were my feelings, my memories—important? Were they that important to me? Were they relevant? Were they special? Were they going to make one bit of difference?
What about Neur? Were Neur’s memories important, relevant? “What are your memories from when you were young?” I asked. Neur waved her hand in front of my eyes again. ◇ (this chevron is a link to the Shard Logbook.) Book mark your page in the eBook reader then click the chevron.
Weren’t there a million other fifteen-year-olds on my planet, on hers. Over the course of time and space, who counted in the end? Weren’t they just like me? Or were they just some variation on the same desires, wants, goals—eyes still turned inward until white with self-consciousness?
Weren’t there other species in the universe living in some level of chaotic wonderful misery, clawing and scratching their way out of the muck and mire, eyes rolled back white with “I need my this, get me my that?”
If there weren’t other fifteen-year-olds out there just like me, just like her? They need purpose too, just like me, just like her. Calling occupants of interplanetary craft.
If we have experience without purpose, what good is it? Is it just function, instinct, deterministic irrelevant pastimes and sugar bombs?[1] My mind was spinning dizzily into a convoluted hypnotic spiral wheel from watching thousands and thousands of Neurs pour down like rain.
I pressed one palm against the tar roof, then the other into my own vomit and tears. I pushed myself up, elbows locked and wiped my wet hair off my face. I sat watching the obelisks rise into the sky reflecting light toward the Prime Node. I whispered under my breath to them all, “I won’t let you take purpose from them.” ◆ DI#13
I felt like all my innards had been pulled out through my mouth with a sharp hook. I thought I had died—literally beaten to death but left barely alive out of spite. A whole minute passed, not more. And I thought, “Now I’ve finally been born.”
We stayed until dark on the roof, not speaking a word until the arrival had calmed. The movement and shifting below had stopped churning. The city, half in ruins, half transmogrified, was now lit by another source.
A second moon appeared in the night sky, closer than the first, reflecting the sun’s rays too brightly to stare into.
The Prime Node.
If you love something, let it go.
If it returns, say good riddance.
[1] “Sugar bombs” are foods or drinks very high in sugar, often with little nutritional value. The term usually refers to sugary snacks, desserts, sodas, or cereals loaded with sugar and implies a negative health impact due to excess sweetness.
Chapter from the Book “Alien I Am”
David Markham
Copyright 2025
