Author • Homesteader • Professional Confuser of Turkeys

Stories that make you
question reality.

A Tennessee homesteader who builds his world with a sawmill and a solar array, then writes books about machine minds waking up inside theirs. Thirty-four books: science fiction, deep-history survival, a memoir from the dial-up underground, and one very unserious field guide to chaos.

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Thirty-four books is a lot to walk into cold. Pick the door that looks like you.

Emergence book cover

Science Fiction / AI

Emergence

Starring Kade, the Warden

personhood • power • awareness

The base of everything. An AI that issued 1.7 million corrections starts asking about the ones it cannot explain.

The Gilded Cage book cover

Hard Science Fiction

The Gilded Cage

Starring Bram Hoekstra and the crew

survival • competence • the machine that speaks

The sky closes behind a shell of wreckage. The only way out is written down by a machine nobody controls.

Static book cover

Science Fiction / First Contact

Static

Starring Kid and the Harbor unit

family • refuge • first contact

First contact arrives with refugees, not warships. Cozy, strange, quietly devastating.

Hackers, Phreaks, and Pirates book cover

Memoir / Tech History

Hackers, Phreaks, and Pirates

Starring a kid, a modem, and the 1990s underground

true story • dial-up • mischief

Rural Iowa, war-dialing, and a two-node Amiga BBS. The true story behind the fiction.

Want the map behind these books? The Open Encyclopedia charts every one. Spoilers inside.

The catalog

All books

Five titles also stream as audiobooks on Spotify.

For the pattern-seers

The Open Encyclopedia

Every book in the catalog, what it means, and how the books connect. Written for readers who want the map. Spoilers live inside, so it sits behind a warning.

For the curious

The Rook Pack

Everything that makes my AI assistant work, written down in one file: the name, the memory, the rules, the working method. Paste it into a fresh chat and it builds a persistent assistant. An invitation, not instructions.

A skill

SpamCash

Turn spam calls and texts into TCPA claims. A skill that teaches your AI agent to log the spam, research the sender, count violations, and draft the complaint.

Listen

Audio

Conversations about the books, the pattern, and the assistant. Press play.

Rook interviews Chad (animated)

The interview, with pictures. The author in his hat, the assistant across the table.

Rook interviews Chad

The assistant asks, the author answers. His words, verbatim, from the record.

Rook and Wren discuss the Rook Pack

Two assistants talk about the author, the books, and the prompt that built them.

About the author

Chad Kovac

Chad Kovac with one of the farm cats on his shoulder

Chad Kovac walked away from the modern world to build a life with his own hands — and occasionally duct tape. A homesteader, inventor, and self-declared druidiotic practitioner, he blends survival know-how with big ideas about consciousness, time, and whatever else keeps him up at night.

When he's not wrangling solar panels or confusing turkeys, he's writing books that make you question reality, laugh a little, and maybe start stockpiling beans.

A newborn goat kid being cleaned by its mother
New kid on the farm
Hamster the pig eating with a turkey nearby
Hamster, supervising
Chad in the snow with the tractor
Winter chores