Sal Russo
Sal Russo is a Tier 2 IT Tech and an 80's / 90's / 00's era movie enthusiast.
He is also a black belt in ITF Taekwondo who enjoys video, tabletop, and role playing games.
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New Adult SCIFI
Artwork by Anum Faisal
In the distant future, socially awkward rocket scientist Svante Björk never planned to pilot a war machine, but when terrorists attack his asteroid research facility and kill his aunt, that's exactly what he finds himself doing.
Barely escaping with his life and a fragment of his AI friend, Svante is rescued by the Red Shift mech team, a ragtag group of mercenaries with questionable pasts. Their intervention thrusts him into a world of interplanetary mech combat far beyond his scientific expertise.
The attack was no random raid. His aunt's research on consciousness transfer for clone technology drew the attention of cybernetically enhanced intelligence officer Jacinda Vachart, who is tracking a terrorist organization's plan to replace influential leaders with mind-altered clones—a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of corporate power.
As the mega-corporation evacuates the entire star system, Svante must choose: retreat to laboratory safety or join Red Shift and pilot a mech into battles to uncover the truth.
My Writing Journey
Blog date 6/28/2026
I found out via the Novel Marketing YouTube channel that the Pope has asked writers to complete their manuscripts because the world needs them. Talk about a call to action!
In response, I stayed awake all night Friday and continued writing all day Saturday until I had fully drafted book 3 of my Red Eye Files, complete with an initial editing pass.
I put all three books together in a single Word document, but kept them as 3 separate units within it. This isn't as impressive as it sounds, because each book is a novelette- except for the first, which has about 17.5k words, meeting the cutoff for a novella. Across all 3 books, I have about 45k words.
I sent the whole trilogy manuscript to a paid beta reader, and won't get their reports until the middle of July.
In addition to chapter and book summaries, she always gives me inline comments about what she is thinking as she reads, which helps a lot.
What I'm hoping to find out from the beta reader:
I'm hoping that, as a whole, the book works as well as I think it does, but I know she will make observations and possible suggestions that can help me take the manuscript to the next level.
Also, one of the scenes in book 3 is the most gruesome I have ever written, and I'm not sure whether to tone it down. That scene and another questionable addition gave me pause, but I had to remind myself that the book needed to show some criminality. We'll see.
Overall, this is a fast-paced urban fantasy with emotional depth (yes, even at 45k words), inspired by a character I created and played in an RPG with my gaming group. I took inspiration from a number of action movies and made pop culture references to others throughout. I don't expect readers to get bored.
For now, I'm stepping away until I get the beta reader feedback. Remind me to consider adding John Woo doves to the shoot-out in the wedding reception scene of book 2. Maybe I opted not to for a reason; I'll have to reread it to be sure.
I'm mostly cleaning my house today. Then, I'll move on to editing one of my other works in progress.
Blog date 6/20/2026
I spent two years writing the Red Shift scifi book. It was tough writing while working full time, until I got laid off in the middle of 2025. It took several months to find new work, and I found myself with a lot of time to write during that period.
I started to get 'snow blind' to the point where I couldn't look at the scifi story anymore, so I started working on the Portal Finder novel. Eventually, I got snow blind on that story, too, and even switching back and forth between Red Shift and The Portal Finder wasn't enough to cure it. So, I started writing the Ragnarok novella trilogy. I found that rotating between the three projects was the right amount of mental refresh needed for me to write continuously, and I had finished drafting all three by the time I found a new job.
Drafting, it seems, was the easy part. Next, I had to edit them, and that felt overwhelming until a beta reader suggested I split Red Shift into two parts because it had a double arc. Suddenly, the thought of editing just half a book didn't feel so daunting. I took editing book 1 as far as my skills could, then published it.
My first book!
In high school I had been alright in AP English, but I never went to college. I enjoyed writing short stories and plays in school, but most of what I learned about how to write I got more recently from watching YouTube videos. Btw, I highly recommend Brandon Sanderson's free lecture series.
Anyway, edit wise I'm sure my book isn't perfect. Story wise, though, I poured my heart into all my works.
Still to do:
-I need to edit the second part of Red Shift, then possibly do another beta reader run and editing pass.
-I need to rewrite the ending of The Portal Finder and edit that book; I think beta readers have taken me as far as they can on that novel (they were all such a big help!), and editing should be all that's left after changing the last chapter.
-I need to edit the Ragnarok novellas, then do another beta reader round and final edits.
What I've been doing instead:
Every October there is a gaming convention in Pittsburgh, and I usually run a Feng Shui 2 role playing game there. I think I can finish a new trilogy of novellas by then, inspired by the fast pace 90's Hong Kong and Hollywood action movies that inspired this game. I've already drafted the first two and I am about halfway through the third. (I feel less pressure writing novellas than full novels, even if the novellas will ultimately be combined into a single book.) Of course, I'm working full time, so the process is slow going, but steady.
ABOUT RED SHIFT:
The protagonist is largely based on a character I created and played with my gaming group for a mech RPG, and my love of all things mech and future/space scifi. I made sure there was a companion AI with real emotional depth, and, it was very important to me that the scientist overcome challenges with real science, especially the final fight. I hope I nailed it.
While writing this story, in certain scenes I would hear the theme to the old TV show, Airwolf, and I even heard Final Fantasy 8 music. I have no explanation for that lol.
I went to sleep many nights with season one of Robotech playing (also the 2199 Star Blazers), but I think that ended up only influencing a single scene in what is now book 2.
Fun fact: 'red shift' defines how we see light that is moving further away from us. I used this term for my book title to define character growth; starting at point A, but moving to a new (and hopefully better?) point by the end.
ABOUT THE PORTAL FINDER:
The protagonist is largely based on a character I created and played with my gaming group for another RPG.
As I started writing, I kept feeling that I needed to go further and further back in his history and stay there. I went much further back than I had initially intended, but I liked it. This story changed from being an adult contemporary urban fantasy to a YA one.
I didn't outline Red Shift or The Portal Finder; I just started writing and slowly discovered where the stories took me. I did outline both the Ragnarok novella trilogy and the Red Eye Files one- except for book 1 of Ragnarok; that's just my creative retelling of an old story, with not much to change as far as the order of events go.
I think I like outlining better, but it was fun to discovery write too. However, I am still discovery writing the scenes after I outline, so I often have to modify my outline because of changes that brings, and even go back and change things in previous scenes. I still think having the guardrails and destination points of outlining help keep me focused.