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Patch Notes: Stories From an Imperfect Universe: Volume 2
The universe is still broken. The Being is still fixing it. Nothing has improved.
Welcome back to reality's most overworked IT department, where cosmic patches fix problems that shouldn't exist, users file tickets that violate causality, and The Being—an exhausted administrator maintaining the fabric of existence—is one critical failure away from letting it all crash.
Volume 2 delivers six new stories from an imperfect universe, each one a glimpse into the impossible maintenance logs of a cosmos held together by duct tape, deprecated code, and the sheer stubborn refusal of one celestial sysadmin to let entropy win.
Welcome back to reality's most overworked IT department, where cosmic patches fix problems that shouldn't exist, users file tickets that violate causality, and The Being—an exhausted administrator maintaining the fabric of existence—is one critical failure away from letting it all crash.
Volume 2 delivers six new stories from an imperfect universe, each one a glimpse into the impossible maintenance logs of a cosmos held together by duct tape, deprecated code, and the sheer stubborn refusal of one celestial sysadmin to let entropy win.
235 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 1, 2026
About the author
Jerome Pinkney
4 booksJerome Pinkney spent years analyzing classified intel as an Army veteran and over two decades working in IT systems and security. Now he writes science fiction about what happens when reality itself becomes classified information.
THE EPSILON SHIFT is his debut quantum thriller: A woman with perfect memory discovers that a shadow organization is rewriting history. She can save herself by accepting the lie, or she can destroy everything by revealing the truth.
Drawing on his experience with both intelligence operations and complex systems, Jerome writes hard science fiction where consequences are permanent and truth is weaponized. His work sits at the intersection of Blake Crouch's Dark Matter and Ted Chiang's philosophical depth.
Book 2, THE MERGE: REALITY WALKERS, launches November 2025.
He doesn't write escapist sci-fi. He authors stories about guilt, power, and the devastating cost of certainty. If that's your thing, you're in the right place.
THE EPSILON SHIFT is his debut quantum thriller: A woman with perfect memory discovers that a shadow organization is rewriting history. She can save herself by accepting the lie, or she can destroy everything by revealing the truth.
Drawing on his experience with both intelligence operations and complex systems, Jerome writes hard science fiction where consequences are permanent and truth is weaponized. His work sits at the intersection of Blake Crouch's Dark Matter and Ted Chiang's philosophical depth.
Book 2, THE MERGE: REALITY WALKERS, launches November 2025.
He doesn't write escapist sci-fi. He authors stories about guilt, power, and the devastating cost of certainty. If that's your thing, you're in the right place.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
Review of advance copy
I absolutely adored the first book (I work in this area, and I have my fair share of experiences with IT from various angles) and it resonated with me and was very entertaining.
The second book continued with some of the elements but slowed a bit down and the mentioned topics were a bit more complex and less about the *everyone probably understands these*. We have a boy that gets bullied and sees things others don't, an alien attack, a new release that was supposed to fix so many open tickets and issues but felt a bit underwhelming and a few others.
The frustration of the admin having to take care of an endless number of tickets, not having enough resources, waiting for others to finally fix things and having to deal with the constant suffering of the users (=humans, some deal with it better than others) was still present. Overall, I enjoyed it, but not as much as the first one. What made the first one shine was making it so relatable to everyday life, which is what I missed a bit here.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
The second book continued with some of the elements but slowed a bit down and the mentioned topics were a bit more complex and less about the *everyone probably understands these*. We have a boy that gets bullied and sees things others don't, an alien attack, a new release that was supposed to fix so many open tickets and issues but felt a bit underwhelming and a few others.
The frustration of the admin having to take care of an endless number of tickets, not having enough resources, waiting for others to finally fix things and having to deal with the constant suffering of the users (=humans, some deal with it better than others) was still present. Overall, I enjoyed it, but not as much as the first one. What made the first one shine was making it so relatable to everyday life, which is what I missed a bit here.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Displaying 1 of 1 review