From both books
Research and Fiction
DISSONANCE
This story begins with a real region. Its future history, characters, institutions and events are invented. Research informs the distinctions the story makes; it does not predict this future or explain its mysteries.
Kanal is a constructed language. It was built from the documented histories of the languages spoken in and around New Orleans and from what linguists know about how contact languages form: tense and aspect words before the verb, words for “say” and “see” becoming markers of how a speaker knows something, and a spoken language living beside a written standard. Its forms are not the speech of any living community. Readers who know Louisiana Creole or Haitian Kreyòl will recognize family resemblances, and should not take Kanal as a representation of either.
Among the works the language drew on: Charles A. Ferguson, “Diglossia” (Word, 1959); Thomas L. Willett, “A Cross-Linguistic Survey of the Grammaticization of Evidentiality” (Studies in Language, 1988); and the Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures (APiCS Online).
Robert Greene’s books and Paul Kleinman’s Philosophy 101 influenced the novel’s questions about power, desire, strategy and meaning. The characters’ choices are their own, not demonstrations that any one account is true.
This book and its cover were developed with generative AI tools under the author’s direction.
AI was used for prose, editing, and artwork in this book.
The Fourth Rail
These stories begin with real regions. Their future histories, characters, institutions and events are invented. Research informs the distinctions the story makes; it does not predict this future or explain its mysteries.
Span, Latch and Switch are constructed languages. They were built from the documented histories of languages spoken along the northeastern corridor and from what linguists know about how contact languages form: words for “say” and “see” becoming markers of how a speaker knows something, relative clauses marked with a single particle, new ways of speaking that settle within a generation, and spoken languages living beside a written standard. Their forms are not the speech of any living community.
Among the works the languages drew on: Charles A. Ferguson, “Diglossia” (Word, 1959); Thomas L. Willett, “A Cross-Linguistic Survey of the Grammaticization of Evidentiality” (Studies in Language, 1988); Jenny Cheshire, Paul Kerswill, Sue Fox and Eivind Torgersen, “Contact, the Feature Pool and the Speech Community: The Emergence of Multicultural London English” (Journal of Sociolinguistics, 2011); and the Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures (APiCS Online).
Robert Greene’s books and Paul Kleinman’s Philosophy 101 influenced the novel’s questions about power, desire, strategy and meaning. The characters’ choices are their own, not demonstrations that any one account is true.
This book and its cover were developed with generative AI tools under the author’s direction.
AI was used for prose, editing, and artwork in this book.
Sources named above
- Charles A. Ferguson: Diglossia (1959).
- Thomas L. Willett: A Cross-Linguistic Survey of the Grammaticization of Evidentiality (1988).
- Jenny Cheshire, Paul Kerswill, Sue Fox and Eivind Torgersen: Contact, the Feature Pool and the Speech Community: The Emergence of Multicultural London English (2011).
- Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures (APiCS Online).
- Robert Greene’s books, on the author’s website.
- Paul Kleinman: Philosophy 101, on the publisher’s website.
About the art
The covers and the part and chapter engravings are AI-generated illustrations. They were made on 1 October 2026 with OpenAI gpt-image-2, from briefs written from the novels, checked against those briefs and approved by the author. The covers were enlarged with Real-ESRGAN.
What the disclosure means
By Manuel A. Dominguez
DISSONANCE opens after a storm, with a notice that reduces a death to an official entry. People in the ward know the man’s name, remember what he said about the pump, and have to find a place to bury him. The difference between the record and the life it describes is already costing somebody something.
The Fourth Rail opens with Ayida explaining how she can know anything at all. She hears people beside water and feels what happens in it. She cannot see into their heads. Along a corridor divided by war, a closed route reaches into an ordinary kitchen: supplies stop moving, and people still need to eat.
These are two ways into the Farbound Union. The books follow people whose work keeps other people going, and whose obligations do not fit neatly into an official account. They share a world, but each has its own people, pressures and story.
The scope of the disclosure
AI was used for prose, editing, and artwork in both DISSONANCE and The Fourth Rail. That scope matters. A reader looking at a cover credit alone would learn about the image, while still missing information about the text. The disclosure applies to the books’ writing as well as their illustrations.
The art credit already published here is more specific: the covers and part and chapter engravings were made from briefs based on the novels, checked against those briefs and approved by me. That gives a reader a concrete description of that part of the work. The general prose and editing disclosure does not yet give that same level of detail about how individual passages developed.
This note does not assign percentages to those contributions or offer sentence-by-sentence attribution. A detailed account of an individual passage would need the records for that passage. The same is true of a cover, a chapter illustration or a later revision. A precise-looking number without that support would give you less useful information than a clear statement of scope.
My responsibility
I am the author of the Farbound Union novels and publish them through Mud News Package. I directed these books. Their publication under my name carries responsibility for what the reader receives, including the way the work is described and credited.
The AI credit belongs alongside that responsibility. It gives readers information relevant to their choice. It does not establish whether a scene works, whether a character interests them or whether they want to spend more time in this world. Those questions depend on the writing they encounter.
The opening chapters are available without a sign-up. They offer something a description of production cannot: a chance to hear the narration, follow the people and see how the books handle language, care and power. A sample shows the work as published; a process note explains what is known about how it was made. Each answers a different question.
Two props for a 3D game in progress
A separate Farbound Union 3D game project provides a concrete example of what a limited production record can show. Two Meshy-generated props, a pump unit and a clock, were processed in Blender 4.3.2. The pump went from 360,824 triangles to 60,000; the clock from 193,876 to 40,000. Their textures were packaged with the files, and the exported models were imported again to check their contents.
That record supports a specific claim about two game props. The larger 3D game is still in development. The novels’ production requires its own evidence. Keeping the example that narrow makes it possible to check what changed without claiming more than the work demonstrates.
Where to begin
For the series reading order, start with DISSONANCE. Its opening brings you into Neo New Orleans through a ward’s account of a death and the people left to deal with it. The Fourth Rail’s opening introduces Ayida and the lives connected by water and a contested corridor. Both samples are free to read. The disclosure of AI use in prose, editing and artwork applies equally to both novels.
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