Overview

Some caves echo. This one remembers. When archaeologist Moria Chione receives a letter from a vanished colleague, she follows a trail into the empire's forgotten north-where maps end, empires fade, and the land itself begins to dream. What she finds beneath the mountain is no ruin, no myth, and no machine. It is something older than civilization-a sentient labyrinth that remembers everyone who enters it. In a world rebuilt from the bones of fallen ages, Moria and her companions descend through strata of memory and stone, uncovering the last field notes of a doomed expedition. Their discoveries expose the empire's darkest secret: its power was never its own. At the heart of the earth waits Calor, a feathered dragon engineered by an ancient god-machine, guardian of humanity's endless cycles of creation and destruction. When Moria's presence awakens the dragon's long-buried consciousness, she becomes the one witness to a truth the empire has spent millennia erasing-that history itself can be rewritten. As echoes of the past bleed into the present, the expedition must navigate a collapsing reality where science becomes scripture, memory becomes weapon, and loyalty becomes a form of treason. Every step downward reveals another civilization turned to ash, another world forgotten, another echo waiting to be heard. Blending the archaeological detail of historical fiction with the philosophical sweep of literary science fiction, The Cave of Past and Present is both a thriller of discovery and a meditation on empire, regret, and recursion. It evokes the haunted wonder of Annihilation, the moral gravity of Dune, and the historical scope of The Book of the New Sun. Rich in atmosphere and mythic resonance, Scott Justin Bradley's debut novel invites readers into a labyrinth where the past is alive, the future is buried, and remembrance itself may be humanity's final act of rebellion. Perfect for readers who love: - Archaeological adventure and lost-civilization mysteries - Speculative and philosophical science fiction - Mythology, empire, and alternate history - Atmospheric world-building set in South American-inspired prehistoric landscapes - Literary thrillers that explore consciousness, recursion, and the weight of memory

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9781069724403

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From the rugged farm fields of Meigs County, Ohio-where dawn's hush and the wild tang of soil first taught him that all stories begin in the churn of memory-Scott Justin Bradley has forged a singular career at the crossroads of myth, museum, and manuscript.Holding a Bachelor of Arts in History (2003) and a Master of Arts in Public History (2005) from Wright State University, Bradley spent over sixteen years with the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. There, he oversaw major exhibitions and curated collections that included uniforms, firearms, and munitions, earning the U.S. Air Force's Exemplary Civilian Service Award and Meritorious Civilian Service Award for his distinguished contributions to aerospace heritage.In 2020, he moved to Thunder Bay, Ontario, and took on the role of Executive Director at the Thunder Bay Historical Museum Society. There, he shaped the museum's strategic direction, managed daily operations, led curatorial and financial initiatives, and grew community programs-bringing history to life for a diverse and inclusive audience. He also teaches Museum Studies at Lakehead University and chairs regional heritage boards, including the Arts & Heritage Alliance of Thunder Bay and the City of Thunder Bay's Tourism Investment Committee-a reflection of his dedication to local history and civic engagement.Parallel to his archival and institutional work, Bradley is the founder of his imprint, The New Appalachian Workshop, conceived as a place where craft meets conscience. His fiction is alive with archaeology, echo-memory, and the clash of empire and wilderness. His novella The Cave of Past and Present channels ruined giants, imperial legions astride megafauna, and subterranean reckonings. This work is rooted in the medieval re-enactor's hands-on sensibility, as seen in the Society for Creative Anachronism, where he was knighted in 2012, and the historian's archive of the fantastic.When not writing or directing museum exhibits, Bradley gardens, hikes in Northern Ontario's wilds, cares for his dogs and cats, and gamely returns to the RPG table for sessions of Dungeons & Dragons-a hobby begun in 1990 that now feeds his mythic sensibility and narrative imagination.Scott is married to Jennifer; together, they raise two children in Thunder Bay, in a home where the buried traces of hill-giant ruins sit in metaphor beside the maple trees and lake winds of the north. He writes toward what lies beneath and beyond: ruin, renewal, the echo of story through machine and myth.

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