Cold Creek and Refusenik never met, as far as I know. They write in different genres years apart. One builds a hockey story, the other a science fiction saga. On paper, they have almost nothing in common.
I have spent a long time now living inside both their worlds, and I think they are writing about the same man.
Cold Creek gives us Michael Stewart. A Defenceman whose decency is never mistaken for softness, who takes his life off and on the ice seriously, and keeps earning his next chapter by staying true to his moral compass. By any measure, Michael could have become the entitled athlete and showboat. The successful hockey star, the international male model, the tech guru: any one of those would turn most people insufferable. He never does. He always tries to lift the people around him rather than make them smaller for his success.
Refusenik gives us Waylon Eckermann and Scott MacIntyre. A Navy man who builds a nation, and a Marine who runs a bar in West Texas and wants nothing more than Janie's love and to be a good man. Neither of them performs competence, and yet they are the most capable people in any room.
That is the thread. All three stay below the radar by choice, not by limitation. Each of them could take up more space, and each chooses to avoid the spotlight. Waylon and Scott share military service, while Michael, a civilian, shows the same commitment to others in his every action. All three have an innate understanding of duty, and a habit of putting others above themselves. They help their friends because that is who they are. The principle is the engine, not the performance.
That is rarer than it sounds. Cold Creek and Refusenik both ask the harder question: what does a good man do when his life grows beyond anything he planned for?
When I started writing The Vallis Defense, I assumed I was beginning from separate universes that I would somehow have to merge. I was mistaken. Scott, Waylon, and Michael are never that far apart. Put the three of them together and they know each other within minutes, because two writers who value integrity build the same sort of man.
That recognition is why this book exists. Not the plot, but that these three belong in one story, and always did.
The Vallis Defense: Cold Human launches after Defenceman: Parallel Ice concludes, in July 2026.
CCTW