Ad Astra Folios
Our indie publishing imprint

To help support our creative community, the Ad Astra Institute for Science Fiction & the Speculative Imagination has launched its own publishing imprint: Ad Astra Folios!

With the consolidation of large publishers and their tepid interest in short-fiction collections and reprints - plus a drop in agents working with new authors and the rise of AI slop - traditional book publishing has become increasingly difficult to break into or work with for specialized books. We have long discussed forming our own indie press cooperative to ensure the good work of our alumni and associates sees print and finds readers, and we feel this moment in publishing history presents the perfect opportunity to launch a new imprint.

Catalog of titles

Our currently available titles:

 Visions of Space & Time 
 by Christopher McKitterick

Limited ConStellation Edition
February 2026
ISBN 978-1-972227-00-8
196 pages, 6"x9" trade paperback
$16 (plus $5 shipping in the continental USA; free delivery in Lawrence, Kansas)
$4 for DRM-free ebook only (free with print-book purchase; no delivery fee)
No additional print or ebook licensing fees for libraries, but please order as many copies as you plan to circulate.

"McKitterick has a gift for language and is a brilliant stylist, especially for adventure." - Kij Johnson

This first collection by award-winning author and educator Christopher McKitterick invokes the limitless possibilities of modern space opera through captivating tales that explore the deaths of worlds, the end of humanity, futures hope-filled and otherwise, surprising pasts, and what lurks between the stars - and in our hearts.

Includes six stories from throughout McKitterick's career and a new one written especially for this volume, plus a preface by acclaimed author Kij Johnson and introductions by the author.

This special edition was created for McKitterick's Author Guest of Honor appearance at the 2026 ConStellation convention in Lincoln, Nebraska, and is limited to 50 copies after the event. Can be signed and personalized if you wish.

Print-edition purchases come with free copy of the DRM-free ebook - just let us know when you order if you would like a copy, and we'll email it to you.

Ebook-only purchases are emailed directly without delivery fee; please be kind and purchase separate copies for each recipient.

Bulk / bookstore and individual order information below.

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 Transcendence 
 by Christopher McKitterick

Ad Astra Edition
May 2026
ISBN 978-1-972227-01-5
approx. 418 pages, 6"x9" trade paperback
$29 (plus $5 shipping in the continental USA; free delivery in Lawrence, Kansas)
$5 for DRM-free ebook only (free with print-book purchase; no delivery fee)
No additional print or ebook licensing fees for libraries, but please order as many copies as you plan to circulate.

Reviews:

"In the near future, technology pushes the world toward self-destruction. As a teenage hacker attempts to use his skills to find a girl he once loved and unwittingly betrayed, a supertycoon uses his artificial constructs to increase his control over the world. Actors in a virtual reality drama start a real-time war in space, while an artificial intelligence decides to try on a physical form and live as a human. Short story writer McKitterick’s first novel tells a larger-than-life cautionary tale of men and women in crisis and of the dangers posed by an out-of-control technology. VERDICT: Readers who enjoyed the cyberpunk feel of Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash as well as the cosmic fiction of James Blish’s Cities in Flight should welcome the author’s full-length sf debut." - Library Journal.

"McKitterick's first full-length novel is set in a dark, populated galaxy where everyone is wifi-ed to computers and physical bodies are mere 'meat,' where reality is rewritten by participants to fit their self-images, and being 'intheflesh' is retro and frowned upon - yet 'feedrapture-addiction' is the price one pays for becoming too computer involved. Two nearly simultaneous events have the power to upend all the accepted realities of this computer-driven galaxy - alien technology has been found on Neptune's moon Triton; and the Brain, which controls all computer interaction to EarthCo citizens, has become fully sentient. Amid the chaos, three men living on different planets, who at first glance have no connection, will cross paths during the next seventy-two hours as Earth and Neptune face off in a war that could mean the end of the entire solar system. McKitterick's narrative and its intricate setting creates a stark, thoughtful, and engrossing look at human society and its interactions with animate and inanimate objects." - Publisher's Weekly.

"What’s important is his understanding of the human condition." - Michael Allen, Tangent magazine review.

"Brilliant." - Algis Budrys, Pilgrim and Solstice award-winning author of Who? and Rogue Moon.

"A gorgeous cyberpunk/space opera/coming-of-age/new-wave philosophical action novel." - Kij Johnson, Nebula, Sturgeon, Crawford, and World Fantasy award-winning author of The Fox Woman and Fudoki.

"There has been a lot of talk about the New Space Opera. Chris McKitterick's TRANSCENDENCE may be the new New Space Opera - soap opera in space, contemporary realities meet future possibilities." - James Gunn, Damon Knight Grand Master and Hugo and Pilgrim Award winning author of The Road to Science Fiction and The Listeners.

"A wild ride through a hypertech world. Riveting." - Jack McDevitt, Nebula Award winning author of ECHO.

"McKitterick’s writing exhibits elegance and grandeur of style." - Trent Walters, Speculon magazine review.

"This is the kind of book our genre needs more of." - George Zebrowski, Campbell Award winning author of Brute Orbits.

"Beautiful, moving, and ambitious." - Ann Tonsor Zeddies, Philip K. Dick Award nominee and author of the Typhon series.

Humankind rushes toward self-destruction, and must evolve or die. Our perspective: a scientist exploring an alien artifact on Triton, a teen-aged hacker in a city gone mad, three actors manipulated into igniting interplanetary war, the de-facto ruler of half the solar system, a soldier fighting in Africa to entertain his audience, an artificial intelligence facing personal crisis, and a cast of billions.

McKitterick's debut novel, originally written as his MFA thesis under James Gunn's guidance and published by Hadley Rille Books, gets an updated edition complete with a new introduction by the author and a collector's afterword by science-fiction scholar and educator, Michael Page.

This Ad Astra edition is being created for McKitterick's keynote appearance at the 2026 Free State Book Festival. Can be signed and personalized if you wish.

Print-edition purchases come with free copy of the DRM-free ebook - just let us know when you order if you would like a copy, and we'll email it to you.

Ebook-only purchases are emailed directly without delivery fee; please be kind and purchase separate copies for each recipient.

Bulk / bookstore and individual order information below.

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 Chapbook series - coming soon 
 by Kij Johnson

Starting fall 2026, multiple award-winning author Kij Johnson will begin releasing chapbook editions of her delightful, shocking, and moving short fiction through Ad Astra Folios. These volumes will include individual novelettes, collections of flash fiction, and much more.

Stay tuned for details!

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Bulk discount orders

If your organization would like to order bulk copies of our books for educational, reading group, or other purposes, we offer bulk discounts. We also offer wholesale orders for booksellers, and do not charge additional licensing fees to libraries.

Domestic, continental USA delivery time is typically 1–2 weeks, or less if local to the Lawrence, Kansas, region. Local bulk deliveries are usually free, as are ebook orders.

We take returns on undamaged, as-new books.

Let us know if you would like signed copies at no additional charge.

For more information or to make a bulk order, contact us:

      email:
    adastra-folios@adastra-sf.com

      mailing address:
    Ad Astra Institute
    attn: Ad Astra Folios
    1809 Indiana St.
    Lawrence, KS  66044

Individual direct orders

Want to order individual copies of an Ad Astra Folios volume? We can do that, too! Simply check our current catalog to see what's available, pick the title and/or ISBN of the book(s) you'd like, use your preferred payment method to send the amount due (plus shipping as necessary), and as soon as funds clear and we have your address, we'll get it headed your way!

Domestic, continental USA delivery is $5 (five US dollars), and delivery time is typically 1–2 weeks (less if local to the Lawrence, Kansas, region). Lawrence deliveries are usually free, with delivery within 1–5 days after we have your address. Ebook delivery is free, of course.

Let us know if you would like your book signed (or personalized to you or the gift recipient) at no additional charge.

We can accept payment via these methods:

Check - please mail to:
  Ad Astra Institute
  1809 Indiana St.
  Lawrence, KS 66044

Zelle: adastra.sf.institute@gmail.com

Venmo (ask for details)

PayPal (user: AdAstraSF - note this method requires additional 3.5% fee) - scan this QR code:

Feel free to add a donation to your purchase - we will count any amount over the cost of your book(s) and shipping as a donation to the Ad Astra Institute, and if requested can provide a receipt of your donation for tax preparation; donations to Ad Astra are usually fully tax-deductible. Does your workplace match contributions to nonprofit organizations? Many do! Check with your HR rep or manager to see if yours might double your donation. Thank you so much to our donors and supporters! You make all this possible.

If electronic payments aren't your style, feel free to contact us directly with the title and/or ISBN of the book(s) you'd like, and we'll work out something:

      email:
    adastra-folios@adastra-sf.com

      mailing address:
    Ad Astra Institute
    attn: Ad Astra Folios
    1809 Indiana St.
    Lawrence, KS  66044

Join us!

Want to get involved? To offer the best publishing experience for everyone in this collaborative venture, we need folks to help with all aspects of publishing, including editing, copyediting, interior and cover design, art, production, the final stages of putting everything together, plus distribution and advertising. We see this process as a collaborative effort, where everyone involved shares their skills and gains new ones in order to help raise everyone else's literary ship.

Donate

Ad Astra Folios is a nonprofit publisher dedicated to supporting outstanding speculative fiction. It is an outreach arm of the Ad Astra Institute, a registered 501(c)3 educational, arts, and research nonprofit chartered in Kansas, so your donation is fully tax-deductible. If you wish to support our activities by making a charitable donation to help support our publishing program, or to support scholarships and educational outreach, check out our donation page.

We also partner with Farbeyond Books - a fantastic, woman-owned spec-fic bookstore - which donates at least 50% of all sales to help support Ad Astra, so if you have books you'd like to donate, let us know. Farbeyond mostly sells collectible and vintage books, but also carries Ad Astra Folios.

Does your workplace match contributions to nonprofit organizations? Many do! Check with your HR rep or manager to see if yours might double your donation.

Thank you so much to our donors and supporters! You make all this possible.

Stay tuned for lots more coming soon. In the mean time, Ad Astra!  

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