Anthony Camber

Between Two Worlds is a different kind of book for me. It’s unlike anything I’ve written before. It’s unlike most YA books. It’s unlike most queer books.

I do like making life difficult for myself, don’t I?

I could’ve bashed out a generic MM hockey romance. Picked some tropes out of a green velvet hat: enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, age difference, allergy to bacon (that one’s right at the bottom of the hat, tucked into the seam). Written 10K words a week at a canter to hit 70K words total — with kissing at 50%, break-up at 75%, a happy ending, and a cosy epilogue. Bolted on a cover from stock photos of sweaty guys in a boy aquarium with some sexy typography on top. Three months from first word to publication.

It’s a lucrative (relatively speaking) way to make money from books.

But would it make me happy?

Well, yes, the money would make me happy, as it whooshed into my eager hands and out to pay the bills.

But would it make me happy happy?

Or translated into Capricorn Basic: It gonna happy happy me?

No.

I’d love to make a living from writing, but it’s not the reason I write. It’s not the reason I wrote Between Two Worlds (and its sequel, out next year).

Let’s face it. If money was the goal, I’d join the “authors” embracing AI and churn out a book a week, diluting Amazon even further with slop.

I haven’t done that, because the writing is the point. It’s the joy and the frustration and the revelation and the suffering.

And that’s why Between Two Worlds is so different. It might very well earn me nothing and be a tremendous flop. It might review badly, with the dialect alienating readers. That’s the most likely outcome, I suspect.

But at the moment it feels like a book I had to write, and I’m incredibly proud of it.

A setting I’d never used before: thousands of years into the future aboard a generation ship — a spinning colony wheel.

Many more characters than I’d ever created before: at least twenty named characters with dialogue in book one alone. I think book two has a few more, with overlap.

A way of writing I’d never attempted before: a hypothetical future dialect of English, for about 170,000 words. Aside from front and back matter, the entire story — both books — is written in Capricorn Basic. I recently drafted book two’s “what happened in book one” recap — because I know readers will have forgotten by then — and even that’s in dialect.

New challenges. New setbacks. New discoveries.

For the first time I’m not marketing one of my books as humour. My earlier books have all been overtly comedic even with dark events taking place, from the desperate defences against zombies using paddles and punt poles in Till Undeath Do Us Part, to Luke saying, “I think Sauron’s a top, babes,” at a climactic moment in Unstable Orbits.

That’s not to say it’s a deadly serious book. There’s humour in Between Two Worlds but it’s the shared laughter between friends, one of those aspects of social grooming humans perform. It’s humour that makes you love the characters rather than laugh out loud.

I’m not sure when I started thinking about the wheel of Capricorn. I’ve been excavating and the earliest recorded date I can find is June 8, 2023. That’s the creation date of a file that held my initial sketchy thoughts, and it’s where I wrote the opening couple of lines of the first draft. The file is now, irritatingly, blank for reasons I can’t fathom. (It’s a file I created in Nebo, now called MyScript Notes. The content may have evaporated through many app upgrades over the years.)

Back then the story was called “The Capricorn Torus” and I think I was thinking the Torus/Taurus pun would make it hilarious. I binned it with prejudice once I realised this wasn’t a punny-title story.

Let’s say June 8, 2023 was the start date. That’s 1,181 days before publication, September 1, 2026. No, this isn’t a cash-grab three-month book. It’s a 39-month labour of love, with a detour in the middle while I rewrote and released Unstable Orbits.

Here’s one of my favourite parts from the early chapters in the book — in this case, chapter 2. For context, “C-dog” is the name Pod and his friends often use for Capricorn-the-AI — especially when they think it might hear them, because “Capricorn” acts as a kind of wake word like “Siri” or “Alexa”. C-dog/Capricorn manifests as a dull metal ball about 15cm in diameter that emerges from a hatch in the wall and hovers, fussing around you.

Hatch over the galley door circles an iris and Capricorn, he rolls through.

Skylight, he taps finger on the level, grabbing my eyes. He fakes a big grin so I see, telling me I gotta happy happy C-dog.

Sure. C-dog, he gotta live happy. Me?

Yesday, a guy winked me. Lifted me happy for a sec. Maybe he gonna return thisday and wink me again?

He ent, I know it. Never saw him before, never gonna see him again. Lost my dice, again.

C-dog, he lifts and hums above us, spinning to take us in. “Hygiene cycle, Pod.”

“Eating still.” Half a wet crust, pushing round the bowl.

“You’ll be late for academy.”

Push push.

“You’ll be late for academy.”

“Like I gish,” I mutter.

Skylight, he smiles at the ball. “He jokin.” He gives me eyes.

I not look. “Only—”

“Systems is a vital—” C-dog, he starts.

I squeeze eyes shut. “I know, but—”

“Systems is a vital—”

“Skylight, he farms, and it happies him, and I wanna do some happies me.”

“Pod,” Skylight, he warns.

C-dog, he pauses. “Systems is—”

“I know. You said it.” I clatter my spoon in the bowl. “Systems— it vital, sure, and I know some gotta play shit goblin with their arm up sewer pipes. I gonna help you better if I happy, not—”

C-dog, he spins faster, the whine screaming high, and he lifts outta bat range.

Skylight, he jumps up to face the ball, the level bouncing, my bowl ringing. “He jokin, he not mean it.” He glares me. “Say it. You not mean it.”

Aerial, she sits calm, carving and spooning mush. “You want a scar?”

“I want—” I stop. I not want a scar. I not want C-dog to spark me. I not want him to nope soap. I not want to unblock shit pipes. I not want C-dog telling every piss and every scratch. There a lot I not want.

Why should you read Between Two Worlds?

To discover something new, different, unique.

To feel the slowest of burns.

To see through the eyes of someone who’s never seen what you see every day of your life, and who sees as mundane the most wondrous world.

To experience a boy becoming the man he needs to be.

To fall in love with Pod and his friends.

How can I buy Between Two Worlds?

Between Two Worlds is released on September 1, 2026 for Kindle and Kindle Unlimited, and in paperback. If you’ve been meaning to preorder it for Kindle, now’s the time. Choose the link for your closest Amazon store:

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