Laundrygate: the Verse

by Tery Spataro, Bud Lavery (Illustrator)

Step back into the Laundrygate universe—stranger, funnier, and more cosmic than ever. The Verse continues the journey begun in Strange Stories About the Future, expanding its surreal blend of sci-fi, satire, and metaphysical wonder into a daring adventure across starships, digital realms, and the shimmering edges of reality itself.

A blue-skinned heroine on an interstellar cruise.
A dimension-slipping cat with uncanny intuition.
A bio-engineered superstar pig seeking freedom.
A super-intelligence rethinking perfection.
A vanished digital creator.
A cosmic archivist searching the ancient heavens.
A universe that may be more alive than anyone realizes.

At the heart of it all is Kela, whose journey aboard the Helen of Troy launches her into a chain of events far stranger than she ever imagined. Beside her is Cat, traversing realities with feline ease, sensing disturbances no human—or AI—can name. Throughout the Verse, forces enigmatic corporations, vanished visionaries, and intelligences shaped by code, consciousness, and something entirely other.

Characters old and new collide in unexpected, humorous, and sometimes profound ways. A super-AI shepherding a society begins asking dangerous questions. A beloved pigfluencer challenges the world that engineered her. A digital afterlife hides secrets of creation and disappearance. A techno-archivist pieces together messages from forgotten corners of the cosmos. And somewhere, the fabric of the Verse stretches… whispers… shifts.

But this is not a tale of doom. It’s a kaleidoscope of cosmic humor, speculative mischief, and deep questions about life, identity, and the future’s wild imagination. Fans of unconventional storytelling, AI-tinged futurism, and surreal adventure will find themselves right at home.

Because in the Verse, reality is flexible. Destiny is hackable. And the beings who shape the future aren’t always who—or what—you expect.

If everything can be engineered—life, memory, afterlife, even destiny—what remains unmistakably real?

255 pages, Paperback

Published December 15, 2025

About the author

Tery Spataro is a a multidisciplinary artist, creative director, and storyteller at the intersection of human emotions and future tech, her passion lies in expanding the storytelling landscape. Exhibiting globally, her repertoire spans fine arts, published cosmic sci-fi stories and enchanting picture books, film, music, VR experiences, and tangible goods all reflecting her provocative and forward-thinking spirit and challenging and expanding the boundaries of conventional artistry.

Drawing on sci-fi and cosmic fantasy richness, she merges photorealism with surrealism to immerse audiences, not only crafting intricate, strange dreamscapes but also embarking on way-out adventures to the far reaches of the cosmos.

Being digital since the 1980s, her approach to art echoes the transformative power of embracing AI with digital, offering a glimpse of the future as more than mere imagination.

Tery wrote and illustrated eight books including Beyond Darkness and AI for Brands. She is a contributor to several other books.

Her art is shown globally, collected and commissioned by corporations and art connoisseurs.

"Space Diner" is just one of several short films she created using AI included in the Retrofuturism (AI World) collection. Beyond Darkness (film based on her book) accepted for public showing at the JAX Fuse Film festival 2024, and AIFilm3 Festival 2024 in Arizona. "Lukie, the Cosmic Cat" was publicly shown at NFTNYC 2024 Hudson Yards. "Strange Place" (poem) a VR experience created by Tery is included in the Loop Art Critique.

Tery has an MBA in Marketing from Regis University and BFA from Albertus Magnus College, studied art at Paier College of Art and uncompleted MFA from Pratt Institute.