Schrödinger’s Cat Logbook

A few days ago, just the last days of the passing year, I published a novel—and it still feels a little unreal to say that out loud.

What makes it even more unexpected is how this story began. It was never meant to be a novel at all. I originally wrote it for a short story competition on the Russian literary website Paper Elephant. I had a clear word limit, a clear deadline, and every intention of behaving myself as a writer. The story had other plans.

It kept growing. Scenes demanded more space, characters refused to stay quiet, and the plot pushed far beyond what any short story would allow. At some point, I stopped fighting it. The word limit was left behind, the competition version abandoned, and I allowed the story to become what it clearly wanted to be—a full-blown novel.

This book lived with me for a long time before it finally found its way into the world. It’s a story about space, yes, but even more about loss, resilience, and the quiet, dangerous places the human mind can slip into when grief goes unanswered.

At the centre of the novel is Kai Gromov, a man who investigates disasters in space: crashed ships, corporate cover-ups, and the neat official lies buried inside twisted metal and classified reports. He’s good at what he does. But after losing his daughter, even Kai can’t quite climb back from the edge.

When a remote ocean colony in the Nereus star system begins to unravel after years of unexplained failures, Kai is called in to find out why. 

He almost refused. The troubles felt far from technical. People are breaking down. Hallucinations are spreading. Suicides are rising. Equipment fails without logic. Tempers flare into violence. Nothing about the pattern makes sense—unless someone wants it that way.

Together with his tiny, mismatched team Kai follows a trail of sabotage, attacks, and buried secrets that stretch far beyond any malfunction report or safety protocol. Each step pulls them deeper into something that feels less like an investigation and more like a slow, deliberate unravelling.

And what Kai ultimately finds on Eurydice is nothing he’s prepared for.

This novel is tense, dark, and (I hope) psychological, but at its heart it’s deeply human. Publishing it at the very end of the year felt symbolic—like closing one door and quietly opening another. I’m nervous, excited, and a little afraid to let it go, but mostly I’m grateful it exists now, outside my head.

Thank you for reading, for supporting, and for being part of this journey into the deep, silent places between the stars.