A Grand Scale
Military Realistic
Space Opera.
The Gardener: Deluxe Edition
From a 28-year U.S. Army combat veteran — a masterclass in quiet devastation. Speculative fiction at its sharpest.
"Hope grows best in broken ground."— The Gardener
"Bureaucracy doesn't bury the dead. It files them."— The Gardener
"They're not rebels. They're us—with better maps."— Localized Collapse
What Readers Are Saying
Don't take our word for it — hear from verified Amazon readers.
"Forget the big explosions; The Gardener is a masterclass in quiet devastation. It's speculative fiction at its sharpest, ditching the spectacle for haunting prose and a bone-deep look at the cost of falling in line."
Verified Purchase · Kindle
"This should be a long running television series. I was enthralled with the story and characters from the first page. The amount of detail placed in character development and setting the scenes is immaculate."
Verified Purchase · Paperback
"You can feel the dirt and smoke from years of hard duty, giving the story a grounding that is hard to find in most science fiction. Solid read, great characters."
Verified Purchase · Hardcover
"Nothing short of spectacular. He expertly weaves a science fiction tale filled, not just with incredible worldbuilding, but with plot lines grounded firmly into the reality of today's military."
Verified Purchase · Paperback
"This book embraces you and pulls you into the side of conflict rarely seen. You feel the strife that's going on inside every individual. I've never read a book that does this."
Kindle Edition
"If you enjoy military science fiction with emotional depth — think along the lines of Battlestar Galactica or The Expanse — this book will resonate strongly with you."
Verified Purchase · Paperback
If You Like These Stories, You'll Love The Gardener!
Dune
Fans will appreciate the layered political machinery, the mythic undertones of memory and survival, and the way silence becomes a form of resistance.
Babylon 5
Same emotional weight, long-arc consequences, and quietly devastating character choices that make history feel personal.
Foundation
Readers will connect with the systemic collapse, institutional manipulation, and the intellectual unraveling of truth through analysis, policy, and power.
Starship Troopers
Fans will recognize the tension between service and skepticism, duty and defiance—and how individual conviction can still matter inside the machine.
The Expanse
You'll find the same gritty realism, multi-faction politics, and the cost of survival when every system is designed to break you.
Atlas Shrugged
The tension between individual conviction and the weight of entrenched systems will resonate with readers who've questioned the cost of compliance.
Fahrenheit 451
The same urgency around forbidden knowledge, the erasure of history, and the quiet rebellion of those who refuse to forget.
Mother Night
Readers will connect with the moral ambiguity of wartime identity, the cost of deception, and the thin line between service and complicity.
Ender's Game
The same militaristic pressure, child prodigies shaped by war, and the devastating realization of what leadership truly costs.
Firefly
You'll recognize the ragtag crew dynamic, the frontier spirit in space, and the fight against an authoritarian system that won't let you go.
Featured Author
CSM(R) Daniel R. Auxier, SR.
Creative Director & Author
Daniel R. Auxier, Sr. served for twenty-eight years in the United States Army, retiring as a Command Sergeant Major. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, and enlisting at the age of seventeen, he built a distinguished career across the Regular Army, National Guard, and Army Reserve. His service spanned multiple global operations, including Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom.
His experiences as a soldier and leader inform the realistic "bureaucracy of war" themes in his writing—stories where the most devastating battles are fought not with starships, but in silence.
Read MoreJoin the Universe: AM+
Read · Listen · Ask · Play
Get all A&M books & audiobooks, weekly stories, and a canon-aware AI companion.