Thornton Books

What is the Exiles War series about?

Exiles War is a military science fiction series about a group of newly commissioned officers from society’s forgotten classes who, in the face of annihilation, seize an unfinished starship and lead a desperate fight for survival.

When a devastating alien attack shatters Earth’s defenses, Ryan Anders and his fellow graduates, lottery-picked outsiders from a broken, class-divided society, are left with no choice but to take command of the Cosmic Explorer, an experimental ship abandoned in the chaos.

Cut off from home, outnumbered, and vastly outgunned, these untested officers must rise far beyond their training as they encounter new worlds, ancient enemies, and a threat far greater than anything humanity is prepared to face.

Can I be a beta reader, ARC reader, Involved in some other way?

Yes! Use the contact form at the bottom of the homepage to send me a message. I’m new to the whole process but would love any help you can give!

What is the current status of the Exiles War series?

Exiles War is a planned trilogy, and the story is well underway! Fleet of the Forgotten, the first book in the series, was released on November 6, 2025, and is available now in e-book and paperback.

City of the Forgotten, Book Two, is complete and scheduled for release in November 2026.
The third and final book, is currently in development and will bring the Exiles War story to its conclusion.
You can find Fleet of the Forgotten on Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and other major retailers. The paperback can also be ordered through bookstores worldwide.

Here is the Universal Book Link which will show you everywhere it’s available: HERE

What is the world like in Exiles War?

Exiles War begins on a fractured future Earth, where technological advancement has far outpaced social progress, creating a society divided by extreme wealth disparity and rigid power structures. By 2184, much of humanity lives under neo-feudal systems, where privilege, family name, and political influence determine one’s future, while the majority struggle in decaying cities, overcrowded slums and refugee camps – largely forgotten by those in power.

Earth’s spaceborne military, the Interplanetary Security Alliance (ISA), is nominally controlled by the Orbital Security Convention (OSC), a treaty designed to unify planetary defense. However, in reality, the ISA serves the interests of Earth’s elite, who use military service as both a propaganda tool and a means of preserving their social order.

Cadets like Ryan Anders, a refugee from a megaslum in Washington state, are chosen through a lottery system – a public relations stunt meant to give the illusion of opportunity. In truth, they’re outsiders in a system that sees them as expendable.

Humanity’s reach into space is still young and fragile. Earth’s fleet of advanced sublight warships patrols the inner solar system, while massive orbital installations like the Forge stand as monuments to humanity’s technological ambition. Mars, settled but fiercely independent, is already beginning to chart its own course.

But Earth and Mars represent only a tiny corner of a much older galaxy. As the Cosmic Explorer and her crew are driven farther from everything they know, the world of Exiles War expands with them, revealing alien civilizations, ancient conflicts, forgotten worlds, and a history stretching back hundreds of thousands of years.

Who is the Exiles War series for?

Exiles War is written for readers who enjoy military science fiction with a strong emphasis on leadership, survival, exploration, and underdog protagonists. Fans of Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse, and Honor Harrington will find familiar elements in its mix of tense space battles, character-driven drama, political intrigue, and ordinary people forced to become leaders under extraordinary circumstances. But Exiles War isn’t only military science fiction. As the series progresses, the story expands into space opera, first contact, alien civilizations, ancient mysteries, and exploration, while remaining grounded in the characters aboard the Cosmic Explorer and their struggle to survive and find their way home.

At its heart, the series is about people society considered expendable discovering what they’re capable of when everything familiar is stripped away. Themes of class, found family, sacrifice, duty, and leadership run throughout all three books.

So, while military sci-fi fans are the core audience, readers who enjoy big science-fiction adventures, compelling characters, strange new worlds, and humanity facing impossible odds should feel right at home.

What can I expect from each book in the Exiles War trilogy?

Exiles War is a planned trilogy blending military science fiction, space opera, exploration, and character-driven drama, with each book expanding the story, the characters, and the universe around them.

Without giving too much away, Fleet of the Forgotten is about survival. It introduces the crew of the Cosmic Explorer and throws a group of untested officers into a desperate fight against an enemy they barely understand.

City of the Forgotten is about discovery. The crew finds themselves farther from home than ever, exploring a strange new world while uncovering secrets about the galaxy, their enemy, and themselves.

And the final book will be about war and homecoming, bringing the threads of the first two books together as the conflict grows beyond the Cosmic Explorer and its crew toward the conclusion of the Exiles War.

Each book tells its own chapter of the story, but together they form one continuous narrative, so they’re intended to be read in order.

Who are the main characters in the Exiles War series?

At the center of Exiles War is Ryan Anders, a young man from one of Earth’s forgotten underclasses who enters the ISA through a lottery program and finds himself thrust into command when an alien attack devastates humanity’s defenses.

But Ryan’s story is only part of Exiles War. The series follows the unlikely crew of the Cosmic Explorer, a group of newly commissioned officers, soldiers, construction workers, civilians, and others who were never supposed to be responsible for humanity’s survival.

Among them are Elizabeth Miller, Ryan’s executive officer; Anna Rodriguez, fellow lottery candidate, close friend and ship’s tactical officer; David Kim, best friend and brilliant but sometimes reckless navigator; and Aurora, the Explorer’s artificial intelligence, whose role in the crew’s journey becomes far more important than anyone could have imagined.

As the series expands, so does its cast, introducing new allies, enemies, alien civilizations, and perspectives. But at its heart, Exiles War remains the story of the people aboard the Cosmic Explorer and how an unlikely crew becomes something much more than anyone expected of them.

Do the Exiles War books end on cliffhangers?

Fair warning: I love a good cliffhanger.

Exiles War tells one overarching story across three books. Each book has its own conflicts, discoveries, and resolutions, but the larger story continues from one book directly into the next.

I also love “What the heck are they going to do now?” moments!

Those are the kinds of stories I love to read, and when I finish a great book, I want to find myself thinking about the characters and wondering, “How are they possibly going to get out of this?”

So, expect answers along the way, but also expect new questions, big reveals, and endings designed to make you want to pick up the next book.

The good news? Exiles War is a trilogy with a planned ending. I’m not going to leave you hanging forever.

How did Exiles War begin?

In one form or another the Exiles War saga has been in the works since my service in the Navy. The original story was very different. It followed a guy working a temporary job at a decommissioned government facility who stumbles across a mysterious signal that turns out to be an alien ship, along with a massive conspiracy to hide the truth from the public.

Many of the characters, names, places, and ideas in Exiles War actually originated in that first version. I wrote more than three-quarters of the novel before eventually realizing that the story I really wanted to tell wasn’t about discovering alien life. It was about what would happen if we discovered it, and it came to kill us.

Did any of the characters surprise you as you were writing?

I’m sure this happens with every author, but so many of the characters I pictured in my head turned out differently when put to the page. Main characters that I was sure would be my favorites turned out to be completely rewritten or even deleted from the book. Minor side characters end up becoming so complex, that I end up featuring them in certain chapters or even weave them into the main plot of the book. For instance the bartender in Fleet of the Forgotten was never a named character until the third draft of the book. I really liked his character and may do a short story about him in the future. Also, Captain Armstrong was only a minor side character until I realized I needed someone competent to fight the alien menace, and telling the story from the perspectives of eight different ship captains was impossible (for me).

What changed while writing Exiles War?

The short answer? Oh, so much. Entire plotlines, characters, locations, and even the relationships between the main characters changed while I was developing the series. In an early version of Fleet of the Forgotten, Ryan only knew David and didn’t meet Anna until they arrived on the bridge of the Cosmic Explorer (which didn’t even have that name yet). They were being evaluated as candidates for bridge positions and had to work their way through a series of tests before being selected. As you can probably imagine, “young officers take a bunch of tests” wasn’t exactly the most exciting opening, so that version didn’t survive long.
In City of the Forgotten, I wrote nine chapters of political intrigue before I tossed it all away because this is a Military Sci-Fi series and not a Tom Clancy novel.

Mars was also originally a much bigger part of the original story. I developed the history of Martian colonization and independence, including its political movement, military conflicts, and major battles. Most of that storyline was eventually cut, although the Martian special forces soldiers (MSS) who appear in both Fleet of the Forgotten and City of the Forgotten are remnants of it.

That’s one of the strange things about writing a novel: cutting something from the book doesn’t necessarily mean it disappears from the world. A lot of that unused material became part of the history and background of Exiles War, and some of it may eventually find its way into other stories.

If you’d like to dig deeper into that part of the universe, check out “Perspectives on the Colonization of Mars” in the podcast section. Those podcasts draw from material originally created for that deleted storyline, along with additional worldbuilding I’ve developed since.

Which Exiles War book did you enjoy writing the most?

That’s a tough one because each book has been fun to write for completely different reasons.

Fleet of the Forgotten will always be special to me because it’s where I finally got to introduce characters and a universe that had been kicking around in my head in one form or another for so many years. I especially loved writing Captain Armstrong’s battle against the alien fleet. He’s one of my favorite characters, and writing a commander who sees a situation differently from everyone around him and is willing to act on it was incredibly satisfying.

City of the Forgotten, though, gave me the chance to really open up the universe. The crew of the Cosmic Explorer are no longer just running for their lives. They’re exploring the unknown, encountering things humanity has never seen before, and learning that the galaxy is much stranger, older, and more complicated than they ever imagined. I also got to take characters I’d already grown attached to and push them in directions I couldn’t have explored in the first book.

And then there’s the last book. I can’t say much about that one yet, but it’s where everything I’ve been setting up finally gets to come together. If I can pull off everything I have planned for it, it may end up being my favorite of the three.