Author David Raine Launches ‘Space Junker,’ Pairs It With an AI That Writes Its Own Side Stories

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David Raine has published "Space Junker," the first novel in a new science-fiction series, and launched an accompanying experiment in which an AI system writes its own stories set inside the same fictional world.

The novel, released October 2 in paperback and Kindle formats, opens in a drought-stricken farming town in 22nd-century Illinois and expands into a fractured America shaped by water scarcity, political fragmentation and salvaged technology, according to the announcement. At the center of the story is a character named Kyte Jacobs, alongside a cast that includes Bob, a 68-year-old, 420-pound industrial robot sustained by decades of repairs and modifications. The publisher’s materials describe the tone as fast-paced adventure with action and humor, pointing to a mix of survival story and science-fiction satire.

Raine is an author, technologist and longtime software developer whose background spans data systems, artificial intelligence and robotics, according to the announcement, and that experience shapes a world where aging machines and resource scarcity function as everyday realities rather than futuristic set dressing. Orbital debris also plays into the setting; real-world space debris includes defunct satellites, fragments from collisions and material from disintegrated rocket bodies, a hazard that has become a growing concern for spacecraft in Earth orbit.

Alongside the book, Raine is developing an AI system called MIM, which the announcement says is beginning to write original side stories within the Space Junker universe, following characters such as transit workers and settlers whose lives only occasionally intersect with the main plot. These stories are identified as AI-authored and human-edited, and the announcement states that MIM cannot alter established book canon without Raine’s approval. The novels themselves remain entirely human-written.

The first MIM story follows a transit attendant named Tim, living in 2180, who inspects the autonomous bus he works on and keeps a pet lizard named Sally at his side during his route. According to the announcement, MIM’s first attempt at this story was rejected for failing to meaningfully engage with the fictional world, reading instead like a present-day story with science-fiction details layered on top. The project says it responded by introducing new evaluation standards around world dependence, character continuity and lasting consequences, and that later work is being judged against those standards.

Raine positions the experiment not as proof that AI can generate stories, but as an inquiry into whether experience can help it become a better author over time over repeated attempts, carrying lessons from one piece into the next.

Studio CarryOnHarry will be watching whether MIM’s later stories actually show the kind of continuity and improvement the project is promising, rather than just more of the same kind of generated prose dressed up in a different setting.

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