Ryan M. Patrick

It’s been a long time coming. The Europan Deception is now available in ebook, paperback, and hardcover from Amazon. If you’re looking for a fast-paced sci-fi thriller, this is the novel for you. It’s the best book I’ve ever written and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I (and my ARC readers) did!

This story in its various iterations has been lurking around in my brain for the better part of two decades. If you’d like to know more, the below post is from the “Afterword” of the release copy.

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I don’t even know where to start.

This is the book I always wanted to write. And its journey from idea to final product is a journey in and of itself.

All authors have it, the “one golden idea” that makes them want to be a writer. Some finish it, some don’t.

For me, it was a long journey.

I remember discussion books in my Phase 4 (honors) English Lit class my sophomore year at Salesianum, and thinking that I could write better books than some of them we had read – The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne being one of the big ones. I had wanted to be a writer before that (see my “Writing Journey” blog post on my website here) but that class – which I hated, by the way – made me want to write what I loved in the books I was reading for “fun” at the time by Michael Crichton, Robert Ludlum, and Tom Clancy. Big, complex plots with incredibly high stakes and a large cast of characters. And, in my free time, I started to try and make that happen, starting with a modern-day espionage thriller.

It is much harder than it looks.

My first couple of attempts didn’t go anywhere, but the third I somehow finished. It wasn’t great, but I had completed a roughly 80,000 word novel as a 17-year-old. That’s an accomplishment in and of itself, but I realized that the book just wasn’t that good. And I had started to read sci-fi again, after a 2-3 year hiatus while I read mostly technothrillers, and realized that the plot – a lone government agent fighting an ancient conspiracy set up by the remnants of Atlantis – would work better in a science fiction setting.

But then USAFA happened, and I didn’t write for 4 years. But I kept the idea alive, scribbling little notes to myself from time to time, promising myself that when I wasn’t in an academic crucible I’d come back to it.

After graduation and PCSing to Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio, I did. My entire unit went out to lunch every workday, save for me (who was saving for a wedding!), leaving me with an hour by myself to write. And write I did, going through a couple of short try/fail cycles of that same sci-fi plot idea before stopping to write (most of) the first version of what would become The Martian Incident. After failing at that – big surprise – I went back to the sci-fi thriller idea that would later become this book and got about 40,000 words in before being picked up to go the Air Force Institute of Technology to get my master’s degree.

There, I didn’t write much either, but I did figure out how to outline based on some very good articles I read online. And, after I finished my master’s thesis, I started outlining the next version of what would later become The Europan Deception. When I got to Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque after graduating, I started writing it, and outlining the rest of the series, but then put it aside for what ended up as the first draft of The Martian Incident (with an associated outline!). That took me 2 years to write only 90,000 words, but I got it done, then jumped on that story idea, called The Balmoral Transaction. I got about 100,000 words into it, spread between my stops in Albuquerque and D.C., and then put it down again (sound familiar) when a friend got me into writing craft books and I realized what I was doing wrong – roughly the same time as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The next book I wrote was Lag Delay, and that was a blast, but it was time to come back to the sci-fi conspiracy thriller concept. The Balmoral Transaction was now The Europan Transaction. Both were based on The Rhinemann Exchange by Robert Ludlum – I had loved how two opposing sides were forced to work together – but after 40,000 words I grew tired of this concept too. It didn’t work, didn’t have what I was looking for, wasn’t the right start to a series that I now call The Expanse meets The Bourne Identity.

So I started from scratch.

I went back and wrote a very detailed outline, chapter by chapter, of this “one golden idea” I still clung to. The Europan Transaction became The Europan Deception, and the plot became a former starfighter pilot turned espionage agent clearing his name and working his way through a vast conspiracy.

In 2022, I finally wrote it. And finished it.

I sent it out to my now-large group of alpha and beta readers, but even before I started getting feedback back in I realized a number of things I had done wrong. The main character arc was weak, parts of the setting didn’t make any sense, but worst of all I missed the grit that Ludlum novels have in spades. But I was exhausted, tired of the concept, and I wasn’t ready to jump back in.

2023 got me the first draft of Crush Depth as well as Engima – a short sci-fi novel that will never likely see the light of day in its current form. I also got clearance to publish The Martian Incident and Lag Delay and had to get them ready for publication. Then, in 2024, I wrote Trials, but then decided I needed to “Finish the Fight” if you’re a Halo fan like me. It was time to take on edits to The Europan Deception.

I re-outlined, then buckled down and wrote it. And when I went back through, with some small exceptions, I loved it. I was finally happy with how it turned out. A couple of alpha and beta reads and a lot of line-level editing later and I had the finished product, which went smoothly through the Pentagon and is now in your hands. I hope you enjoyed it, this was a long time coming, and there are six (!) planned sequels – a lot more to come for Mark Clancy, Adrianna Hall, Amanda Anderson, and the rest of the now-large cast! I have barely started to scratch the surface of what will happen in this rich universe. Look forward to The Apophis Contingency sometime in 2026 or 2027!