San Marcos, California — October 27, 2026 — Software and robotics developer David Raine is introducing readers to Space Junker, a science-fiction series that combines his technical background with stories about family, loyalty, and survival on a damaged future Earth. Alongside the first novel, readers can explore free character stories, cinematic images and short videos, and LAND 402, a spaceship-landing game available through the project’s website.
Space Junker follows Kyte Jacobs and Bob, an aging robot with decades of service behind him, into an adventure involving a buried spacecraft and an inheritance with consequences neither anticipated. Their relationship anchors a world where advanced technology remains powerful, but access to reliable machines, clean water, and essential resources is increasingly unequal.
The series explores how ordinary people live with those conditions. Characters repair equipment that has outlasted its intended service life, navigate communities shaped by scarcity and surveillance, and make difficult choices about whom to trust. Dry humor runs through the story, particularly in the exchanges between people and machines trying to understand one another.
Raine’s experience in software development and robotics informs his approach to the fictional technology. Rather than treating machines solely as futuristic scenery, he considers how they are operated, maintained, repaired, and adapted over time. Equipment has limitations, repairs involve compromises, and an old robot’s usefulness can depend as much on accumulated experience as on its original design.
That practical approach also shapes the wider setting. Space Junker explores the effects of technological change and environmental decline through everyday details: a delivery route, a failing ventilation fan, an unreliable vehicle, or a community keeping old infrastructure working. These smaller stories give readers a view of life beyond the main adventure.
Free short stories on the Space Junker website follow supporting characters through that world. They offer additional entry points for new readers while expanding the lives and communities encountered in the books. Cinematic images and short video scenes provide another way to explore its locations, from crowded markets and weathered coastal buildings to aging spacecraft above Earth.
LAND 402 adds an interactive element. The browser game invites visitors to pilot a spacecraft through landing and delivery challenges connected to the fictional setting. New daily missions provide different environments and objectives, extending the project’s emphasis on practical problem-solving into play.
Each part of the project is intended to work independently. Visitors can read a short story, explore the visual material, or try the game without first reading the novel. Readers who follow several parts can discover additional details about the characters and their world.
Raine is also developing MIM, an AI assistant, and exploring the capabilities and limitations of AI in creative collaboration. His work on software and machine intelligence provides a parallel perspective on the series’ questions about autonomy, responsibility, and relationships between people and the machines they depend on.
Raine is preparing DUST, the next book in the Space Junker series, for release while continuing work on NUMUN, a further installment whose manuscript has reached approximately 46,000 words. New short stories, cinematic scenes, and daily LAND 402 challenges continue to expand the world between book releases.
A media kit is available for journalists and reviewers. Raine is available for interviews about the Space Junker series, his background in software and robotics, and his experience developing AI and interactive storytelling projects.
ABOUT SPACE JUNKER:
Space Junker is a science-fiction series by San Marcos, California-based software and robotics developer David Raine. Combining adventure, dry humor, and character-driven stories, the series explores a damaged future through resourceful people and the aging machines that share their lives. The project includes novels, free online short stories, cinematic visual content, and the browser game LAND 402.
CONTACT:
dave@daveraine.com
https://www.space-junker.com/land-402
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61594722637975
https://www.linkedin.com/company/110902769