Sci-fi horror on a Pacific island breaks out in:

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Discover Digital Novelist Keith Hayden's writing from the beginning

Start Here · A Reading Path

Never read me before? Start here.

I'm Keith Hayden — a digital novelist and technologist. I write character-driven stories about technology, memory, and the fight to stay human, across novels, essays, games, and languages. You don't have to read in order. But if you want a path that starts in two minutes and ends with a 200,000-word doorstop novel, this is it.

Military sci-fi Horror AI & relationships Okinawa / Japan Literary tech-fiction Indie publishing

Read on if you

  • like big ideas delivered through story
  • use technology but don't fully trust it
  • want modern anxiety explored across genres
  • enjoy work that crosses media and languages

Maybe not, if you want

  • clean escapism and tidy closure
  • pure genre comfort, no friction
  • a story that asks nothing of you

The Ascent · short & quick → long & deep

02 · fragments

≈ 3 min read

Keith's Quotes

The worldview in shards — the lines I keep coming back to.

Browse the quotes →

03 · essay · the thesis

≈ 8 min read

Accused of Making AI Slop? Do This to Prove You're Human

If you read one thing to understand what I care about, make it this. The core argument: lived experience is the only non-replicable creative input — the line between a practitioner and a slop-shipper.

Read the essay →

04 · essay · the sensibility

≈ 10 min read

The Soft Horror of Enhanced Historical Archive Footage

A good preview of the unease that drives my fiction — quiet, technological, hard to shake.

Read the essay →

05 · short fiction · complete

≈ 20 min read

Story on the Salar

A non-fiction account of my dramatic visit to Bolivia.

Read the story →

06 · my most recent · preview

Full novel · sample free

Prompted Hearts & Grief Algorithm

My most recent novel — a dual-book duology where a newly divorced husband and wife who process grief through AI companionship. Start with the preview.(Want a whole novel free right now? Gates of Okinawa is readable in full on-site.)

Read the preview →

07 · the flagship · in editing

Flagship novel · 200k words

Cereus & Limnic: Escape From Okinawa — Type B

Where it all points — my flagship. A 200,000-word military sci-fi horror told as a classified case file: among the ruins of war-ravaged Okinawa, three brothers battle war experiments, a cult, and an ancient monster — only to find the fight for survival is really a fight for their humanity. In editing now; this is the full briefing.

Open the case file →

End preview.

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