The University of Mars by Michael D. Smith The University of Mars, 2024
Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Books2Read, and in paperback from Amazon and lulu.com.
In a dysfunctional 2065 where religious zealots restrict the world to outdated twentieth-century technology, eighteen-year-old Zeke Venan dedicates himself to the life of the mind and to the further evolution of humanity.
Supreme Commander Laurie by Michael D. Smith Supreme Commander Laurie, 2024
Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Books2Read, and in paperback from Amazon.
Before he shot his spaceship through a star to probe a cosmic anomaly, Jack Commer resigned as leader of the United System Space Force, elevating physician/engineer Laurie Lachrer to take his place. But now, inexplicably transported onto his doomed ship, she struggles to assert herself as the new supreme commander.
The Soul Institute, 2024
Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback from Amazon and lulu.com
Computer technician Himal Steina realizes his dream of a mythic return to the sanctuary of a vast foggy university of Soul when he’s appointed writer in residence at the Soul Institute and falls in love with one of its numerous faculty goddesses, unaware that he’s blundering into a catastrophic jumble of power lust, romantic chaos, drug abuse, and gang violence. Soul Institute Images
Asylum and Mirage by Michael D., Smith Asylum and Mirage, 2023
Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Books2Read, and in paperback from Amazon and lulu.com.
A naïve and disconnected artist gives a party to celebrate his success, only to find himself drafted that same night into a mindless war against the Reunion, an unstoppable army of hallucinatory consciousness.
Balloon Ship Armageddon by Michael D. Smith Balloon Ship Armageddon, 2021
Book Seven of the Jack Commer Supreme Commander series. Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback from Amazon.
Eight hundred years after his death as a human, Jack Commer’s rebellious son Jonathan James rises as a Wounded bio-robot to captain Balloon Ship Armageddon on a toxic waterworld in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
The SolGrid Rebellion by Michael D. Smith The SolGrid Rebellion, 2020
Book Six of the Jack Commer Supreme Commander series. Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback from Amazon.
When the solar system adopts the buggy SolGrid telepathic network designed by former Space Force officer Patrick James, Jack Commer’s charismatic but impudent son Jonathan James instigates a rebellion against fascist brainwashing.
The Wounded Frontier by Michael D. Smith The Wounded Frontier, 2020
Book Five of the Jack Commer Supreme Commander series. Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback from Amazon.
Supreme Commander Jack Commer pushes for expanded exploration far beyond Sol when a star thirty-four light years away abruptly vanishes, leaving the infrared signature of a Dyson sphere apparently built within one week.
Collapse and Delusion by Michael D. Smith Collapse and Delusion, 2020
Book Four of the Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series. Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback from Amazon.
As former Typhoon II ship’s engineer Phil Sperry struggles with his decades-long treason to the human race, Supreme Commander Jack Commer and his wife Amav journey to the paradise planet Andertwin for a painful visit with their reclusive son Jonathan James, survivor of an abduction by Alpha Centaurian security forces and now the author of a bestselling novel about the collapse of the Centaurian empire.
Nonprofit Chronowar by Michael D. Smith Nonprofit Chronowar, 2020
Book Three of the Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series. Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback from Amazon
Ranna Kikken creates the Committee to End Suffering on Planet Earth at her nonprofit Cat Farm, but its first conference in 2020 is ruined when Jack’s brother Joe inadvertently time travels from 2036 to lecture Ranna’s complacent nonprofit ladies about the destruction of the Earth in 2033 and the resulting evacuation of the remnants of humanity to Mars.
Jack Commer, Supreme Commander by Michael D. Smith Jack Commer, Supreme Commander, 2020
Book Two of the Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series. Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback from Amazon
Newly-promoted Jack Commer brings poor negotiating skills to the war with the fascist Alpha Centaurian Empire, losing his crew to Centaurian brainwashing as he and his wife are sent to be tortured on a barren planet.
The Martian Marauders by Michael D. Smith The Martian Marauders, 2020
Book One of the Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series, Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback from Amazon
After the evacuation of the Earth’s population to Mars, the crew of spaceship Typhoon I must fight native Martian terrorists led by their new human Emperor, political agitator and traitor Sam Hergs. But Captain Jack Commer compromises the mission when he kidnaps the Emperor’s consort and falls in love with her.
CommWealth by Michael D. Smith CommWealth, 2020
Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and lulu.com
Members of a theatrical troupe find themselves leading a suicidal revolution against the CommWealth system, which has outlawed all private property. CommWealth Images
Jump Grenade by Michael D. Smith Jump Grenade, 2019
Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback from Amazon and lulu.com
Berserk at missing his five hundredth point in a row, psychopathic Junior Dropout Basketball League star Billy Bolamme kills a taunting radio announcer with hand grenades, then blows up an entire sports arena to erase all witnesses to his crime. But his fame and luck can only grow as he joins shamanic forces with Guenevere “Universe” Ryder, fellow high school dropout, art gallery receptionist, and unwitting accomplice to thirty thousand murders. Jump Grenade images
Sortmind, the novel, by Michael D. Smith Sortmind, 2019
Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback from Amazon and lulu.com
An answer to any question is delivered in a telepathic instant. But is a database of all our queries and responses being used to track the progress of a coming apocalypse? High school art students Oliver and Sam struggle to define themselves in the face of urban terrorism and the malfunctioning, reality-altering Telepathic Database. Sortmind Images
Akard Drearstone by Michael D. Smith Akard Drearstone, 2017
Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback from Amazon and lulu.com
A twelve-year-old girl living at a rock commune near Austin, Texas in the summer of 1975 observes the rise and fall of the Akard Drearstone Group as she falls disastrously in love with the group’s severely disturbed bass player. Akard Drearstone images

Other Publications

Man Against the Horses! Four Theater of the Absurd Novelettes by Michael D. Smith Man Against the Horses! Four Theater of the Absurd Novelettes, 2024
Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Barnes and Noble and Smashwords and in paperback from lulu.com
Collection of four stories: “Space, Time, and Tania,” “Man Against the Horses!”, “The Highland Park Cadillac Races,” and “The 66,000 M.P.H. Bicycle”
The Damage Patrol Quartet copyright 2022 by Michael D. Smith The Damage Patrol Quartet: Four Stories, 2022
Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, and in paperback from Amazon
Collection of four stories: “Roadblock,” “Randy and Laura,” “Perpetual Starlit Night,” and “Damage Patrol”
The UR Jack Commer by Michael D. Smith The UR Jack Commer
Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Barnes and Noble and Smashwords and in paperback from lulu.com, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble
The author reviews the childhood beginnings of the Jack Commer saga, as well as experiments that never made it to the published Jack Commer, Supreme Commander series.
The Balloon Ship Interviews by Michael D. Smith The Balloon Ship Interviews
Published by Sortmind Press, available as eBook from Barnes and Noble and Smashwords, and in paperback from lulu.com, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble
Twelve series characters plead with their creator for a chance to star in the last Jack Commer novel, Balloon Ship Armageddon, surprising the author with their eloquence and concerns.
Trip to Mars, the Picture Book by Mickey Smith Trip to Mars, the Picture Book, 2017
Published by Sortmind Press; paperback available from lulu.com
A sixth grade boy reports that World War IV has rendered the planet uninhabitable, and that Jack Commer and the crew of Typhoon I have been chosen to spearhead the evacuation of Earth’s surviving population to Mars.
The First Twenty Steps by Michael D. Smith The First Twenty Steps, 2011
Published by Sortmind Press; eBook available from Smashwords, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble; paperback available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble
An ex-convict finds himself mixed up in a motorcycle gang’s plan to heist a hyperspatial supercomputer. The First Twenty Steps painting

Unpublished Novels

Notice and Dream Topology by Michael D. Smith Parts I and II/Notice and Dream Topology, 1992
In Part I a naive and disconnected artist gives a party to celebrate his career, only to find himself drafted that same night into a mindless war. In Part II he becomes a sergeant leading frightened yuppies against an unstoppable Army of Evil. A partial 1992 second draft, Notice and Dream Topology, was revised into a play titled Linstar, which unfortunately proved to be a bombastic failure. Ideas from this experiment went into my 2023 novel Asylum and Mirage.
Zarreich by Michael D. Smith Zarreich/The Galaxies Groan Within, 1981-2024
A recent college graduate comes to live in a small town with his grandmother, only to discover that all his memories have been wiped out. He panics and commits a murder, then finds himself a member of a secret commune remembered only in dreams.
The 2015 Homage Blog Post | The 2024 Draft Two Blog Post | Zarreich Character Images
The Akard Drearstone Tarot Card copyright 2015 by Michael D. Smith Akard Drearstone, the original 1976-1978 Draft 1
From May 2011 through July 2012 I finally realized a long-standing desire to scan in the 1976-1978 rough draft of Akard Drearstone. The sprawling 1,587 typewritten pages of Chapters 1-31, plus the fourteen songs Akard wrote and a short story from 1985 called “Chapter 32” which psychically completed the novel, brought the final total to 682,516 words in 2,378 pages. The 7/19/11 blog entry covers this obsessive project in much detail.
The Nova Scotia Tarot Card copyright 2015 by Michael D. Smith Nova Scotia, 1974
Two boys drive a 350 m.p.h. Corvette to Nova Scotia in one night in a demented quest to save the world. This was actually my first novel in June-July 1973, but it saw a second draft as a “senior thesis” at Rice University in the spring of 1974.
The Fifty-First State of Consciousness Tarot Card copyright 2015 by Michael D. Smith The Fifty-First State of Consciousness, 1973
The Governor of the Fifty-First State, in despair over a failed love affair, begins the Apocalypse at a shopping mall. The Fifty-First State of Consciousness painting

Published Stories

“Perpetual Starlit Night,” 2013 (in Twisted Tails VII, published by Double Dragon Publishing)
Archeologist Sairjin ShiriKor arrives on a tiny artificial gravity platform in deep space to give a scholarly lecture. However, the barbarian colonists scoff at her evident delusion that she’s anything but a criminal sent to be incarcerated on the changeless and apparently motionless platform.

“Roadblock,” 2013 (Etherbooks)
A feckless architectural school graduate finds himself blindly falling in with Oceanmouth, a sixteen year-old car mechanic, in a dubious trucking venture that takes them to the rural south in deep night. There they encounter the massive roadblock created by road construction strikers who have the power to eradicate all light.

“Space, Time and Tania,” 1977 (PigIron Magazine)
Bumbling ex-Texas Department of Public Death officer Marty Brimfeeler probes the demise of Tania in Houston shortly before World War III erupts.

All words and images (except Jack Commer 1-6 covers) copyright by Michael D. Smith