Welcome to the Syphon Continuity!

Who is ASK?

A. Sherman Karlsson is the pen name for two academic women in a trenchcoat who have been collaborators across moves abroad to Japan and South Korea, Master’s degrees in Sociology and Japan Studies, and two PhDs.

To our writing, we brought our fascination with how culture shapes thinking, our fury about the ways that modern capitalism disenfranchises individuals, and our delight in the absurdities of life, aiming to create a compulsively readable critique refracted through a fantastical lens.

Wait, is the whole novel already written?

Yes, The Butterfly Koi is fully written and edited, all 47 chapters.

The Butterfly Koi is book one of a five-book series. We’re sharing the first book at the rate of one chapter per week. Once we finish, we plan to take a short break to post a few side stories before continuing on to share book two.

We’d love to write even more in the Syphon Continuity given the time, including more short stories and other series set in the same universe. If you’d like to support this, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

How else can I support this project?

Consider sharing this project with others. The book is free, so you’re welcome to share chapters with any of your human friends, post about the project on social media—anything helps!

But also, because we live in the weirdest timeline: No rights are granted to use this work for purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies.