Zero-Point Prop: Hard Science Fiction Thriller

by Hugh Watkins

Joseph Wright builds movie props for a living. He's good at it — the best in Georgia, maybe anywhere. A Georgia Tech engineer who ended up in Atlanta's film industry after a startup went sideways and took his marriage with it. He sees his daughter on Saturdays. He does industrial repair work when the prop jobs dry up. He gets by.

When a screenwriter hands him AI-generated specs for a sci-fi film's fusion reactor, Joseph builds it to spec. Every tolerance. Every detail. The way he builds everything.

Then it powers up for real.

Now Joseph is running secret tests on a soundstage at midnight, filling notebooks with equations, and missing weekends with his daughter. His best friend thinks he's having a bipolar episode. His estranged wife thinks the same thing. Federal agents are asking questions about the prop that Joseph can't answer without sounding insane.

The device works. Joseph can prove it — to himself. Proving it to anyone else might cost him everything he has left.

A near-future thriller about the collision of genius and mental illness, set in the machine shops and soundstages of Atlanta's booming film industry.

290 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 5, 2026

About the author

Hugh Watkins has been obsessed with how things work since he was fourteen, when he bought an Apple II and taught himself to program. A degree in physics and forty years in software followed, but the obsession never changed, just the machines.

He's a lifelong hard sci-fi reader who grew up on Clarke and Asimov and believes the best science fiction makes you feel like you could build it yourself. When he's not writing, he restores vintage computers, builds equipment on his farm in Georgia, including a rock crusher for extracting gold from quartz, and disappears into the mountains.

He is the author of the Zero-Point Prop and Retro Fold hard science fiction series. Get an email when the next book is out at https://hwatkins.com/newsletter

Reviews

[Propagation Of · Rating 1 out of 5]

No. I cannot read a book with a main character like Joseph

The “Fold” books were beyond excellent.
Unfortunately, I could only stomach Joseph’s character up to page 118. I don’t know what happened between the fold books and this one, but I cannot recommend this book. And then there is the evil billionaire. If I want the horrors of real life, I watch the news (which I don’t). My fiction needs to be brilliant and wholesome (like the fold series). I’m disappointed.

[Dennis Plante · Rating 2 out of 5]

No Story, Didn't Finish

Basically a technical manual. Kept hoping the story would start, but 30% into the book there was just technical information. I started skimming almost every page and lost interest.