Joel
Gaines

Science Fiction

Chaos Terrain

Propulsion scientist Dr. Todd Cunningham thought his chance to reach space had died with a canceled mission. Then a daring expedition to Europa puts him back on the flight roster—and alongside the man he blames for destroying his NASA career. Beneath the frozen surface of Jupiter’s moon, the crew discovers what humanity has searched for since it first looked toward the stars. But scientific triumph quickly becomes a fight for survival on an alien world where nothing is quite what it seems. Grounded in real science, *Chaos Terrain* is a tense journey into the unknown—and a warning that some discoveries change far more than our understanding of the universe.

Science Fiction

Starlight Event

Chaos Terrain Series - Book 2 On December 5, 1945, five Navy bombers disappear over the Atlantic. As the official search begins, Ensign Tony Summers is drawn into a second mystery—one the Navy will spend decades trying to understand and even longer trying to conceal. What remains is a classified program called Starlight, a trail of impossible evidence, and a strange artifact Tony guards for the rest of his life. Eighty years later, the secret is beginning to surface. Old files no longer agree with history, forgotten witnesses are being watched again, and someone is searching for what Tony kept. *Starlight Event* is a science-fiction thriller about buried history, unexplained disappearances, and the unsettling possibility that the missing may not be gone.

Geopolitical Thriller

Code Name: Crimson Sun

Former Special Forces NCO Nathan Kang thought his days in the shadows were over. Then his former commander pulls him back into the CIA. His mission: infiltrate North Korea and prevent a gathering crisis from pushing the region into war. Inside the DPRK, Kang finds himself trapped among political elites, black-market smugglers, secret police, and competing intelligence services. Every contact has an agenda, every piece of information could be bait—and the deeper he penetrates, the more he suspects the operation was built on a lie. Code Name: Crimson Sun is a tense espionage thriller in which loyalty is uncertain, truth is a weapon, and the mission meant to stop a war may have been designed to start one.

Geopolitical Thriller

Code Name: Rising Shadow

Military Thriller / Anthology

Apocalypse in Pieces (Mongol Moon)

When World War III erupts on American soil, the chaos ripples across the globe. This anthology explores the untold stories unfolding as civilization's lights go dark. Features Joel Gaines' story "Echoes from the Silent Front." Published by WarGate Books, November 2024.