About

I’m C.J. Baker, a database administrator and author based in Reading, UK.

I’m interested in character, atmosphere, and the pressure people come under when the architecture of their world begins to fail.

My background in distributed systems deeply informs my fiction: I’m drawn to universes where the laws of physics are maintained by ancient code, and human agency is the only unauthorized variable.

My current novel, Liturgy of Dust, is complete at 101,000 words. It is a hard sci-fi space opera that begins as a desperate deep-space heist and unfolds into a metaphysical epic. It follows Cael Solari, a salvage captain with an illegal neural Resonator, who takes a blind Omega-class run to a dead Cathedral ringworld. There, he discovers the signal in his head isn’t just controlling him; it’s preparing him to become the biological key to restoring an ancient metaphysics known only as the Song.

Synopsis and sample pages are available on request.