# Geometry of Grace > *Geometry of Grace* by M.D. Scur is adult first-contact science fiction about a covert crew that assumes responsibility for a surviving alien intelligence every surrounding power wants to turn into a secret or a tool. ## Book identity - Author: M.D. Scur - Series: The Emissary Series - Position: Book One and the opening volume of the series' first trilogy - Genres: science fiction, space opera, first contact, and military science fiction - ISBN: 9798995611806 - Status: available in paperback, ebook, and a human-narrated audiobook The novel works as a complete story on its own. Books Two and Three continue the larger arc and are complete in draft. ## Premise When Confederate operative Kaid Sidorov is sent to extract Tavanda Ruun from a newly annexed world, the job looks like the quiet, deniable work his crew has survived before. Instead, Ruun leads the crew of the *Rebel Ascendant* to evidence of first contact: a surviving alien intelligence hidden inside the remains of a civilization that chose torpor over extinction. As Federation pursuit closes in and safe harbors collapse, the crew must protect someone the war is not capable of treating as a person. The question beneath the novel is: when something sacred enters a world built to use things, what does protection actually require? ## Four pressures ### A war kept just below the surface Annexation shows up as paperwork long before it shows up as violence. The crew lives in the seams of that slow war, under borrowed names, holding its own force one notch below anything a government would have to admit to. ### Contact that breaks human categories The crew finds a presence intimate enough to speak with and strange enough to break every human category. The central question becomes how to receive it rather than how to classify it. ### Distance still matters Ships cross higher-dimensional space while news still travels at the speed of light. Commanders act on stale truths, and power depends on relay schedules, repair debt, and other material constraints. ### Grace is what you refuse Grace appears as restraint under fire and refusals that cost the people making them: a pattern made by people declining to become what the war rewards. ## Spoiler-safe crew guide - **Kaid Sidorov — field commander.** Hard to surprise and dangerous when he is, which is why first contact reaches him as it does. - **Tavanda Ruun — scientist and first-contact witness.** The first to understand that what the crew found will not fit in any file the war keeps. - **Sam Rothrock — signals analyst.** Self-taught and patient, often understanding a threat just before it becomes lethal. - **Nadira Izmaylova — technical backbone.** Keeps several problems moving at once so everyone else stays alive. - **Alex Dakota-Kinsworth — engineer and pilot.** Knows the *Rebel Ascendant* well enough to force one more miracle from it. - **Goblin — youngest aboard.** Gifted and still learning his place in a crew that has already paid for its competence. - **Nobu — close-quarters operator.** Borrows structure from gematria, astrology, and historical warfare as if pattern might keep a person intact. - **Pepper — former attorney.** Keeps his faith close and makes officials feel like paperwork in their own system. - **Elesylis — the presence they carry.** The novel's central shock: how do you receive a person the whole war intends to treat as a thing? ## Public sample The reader site includes a bounded early-book excerpt from Chapter One, “Clonmel,” in which the crew prepares to enter a newly annexed world under temporary identities. - [Read the approved Chapter One sample in Markdown](https://geometry.mdscur.com/chapter-1-sample.md) The sample ends at the first “They moved.” It is not the complete chapter or manuscript. ## Author Q&A ### What is *Geometry of Grace*? Adult first-contact science fiction about a covert extraction mission that becomes a struggle over the remains of an alien civilization. A small crew tries to protect someone it cannot use and does not fully understand while a war turns every revelation into leverage. ### What drew the author to first contact? The focus is not spectacle but what human institutions would try to do with something alien, and what it would cost a few people to say no. ### Why the title? Mercy under pressure has a shape. Watch people protect something long enough and a geometry emerges: who stands where, and what it costs them. ### Who is the book for? Readers who want first contact to remain genuinely strange, ensemble crews under political pressure, and space-opera action that carries emotional weight instead of replacing it. ## Formats and links - Paperback: [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H11TMX15) and [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/geometry-of-grace-scur-m-d/1150158746?ean=9798995611806) - Ebook: [Kindle on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GX3B3MQV) - Human-narrated audiobook: [Audible](https://www.audible.com/search?keywords=Geometry+of+Grace+M.D.+Scur) and [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/0n5RRVZAMNKZsr8xdcidx7) - Designed reader site: [geometry.mdscur.com](https://geometry.mdscur.com/) - [Emissary encyclopedia](https://emissary.mdscur.com/): Explore the people, places, and ideas of Emissary. Choose your reading progress to reveal story details. ## Author and disclosure M.D. Scur works in clinical research and biotechnology and writes science fiction. He lives in San Diego, California. The reader site was developed with AI-assisted tooling. Its visual companion art includes AI-generated images prepared for the Book One launch and related promotional material. This Markdown page is a public-site representation, not a lore archive. It intentionally excludes internal planning, unpublished manuscript material, and later-book spoilers.