THE EMPIRE CONTROLS THE GATE. NOT WHAT LIES BEYOND IT.

False Sky is an atmospheric science-fantasy series about dangerous gates, hidden power, alien mystery, and institutions built to classify what they can control.

The story begins in Kharast, a gate-city of the Velkaryn Empire, where centuries of procedure have made the impossible seem almost routine—and where one university expedition leaves Ashar Vale changed in a way no approved category can explain.

What Readers Can Expect

Readers can expect layered mysteries, alien ecologies, dangerous gate expeditions, earned power growth, and a world shaped by the competing pressures of Empire, Church, university, and interests that operate beyond official control.

The deeper truths of the gates, Dominion, and the world beyond them unfold across the series rather than arriving all at once.

A routine university expedition beyond Kharast’s gate leaves Ashar Vale carrying something he should never have survived. The First Layer begins the False Sky series with alien wilderness, suppressed power, buried memory, and a growing mystery the Empire cannot neatly contain.

D. Labman writes science fantasy and epic fantasy about strange worlds, dangerous systems, and people forced to understand powers larger than themselves.

The First Layer is D. Labman’s debut novel and the first book in the False Sky series.