Project Tasman is a sapphic dystopian novel that follows Alana Quevedo as she navigates a terrifying government experiment where she has to decide who will live and who will die.
Teenage me loved dystopia books. It's just a shame we have to live in one. So why not help make one that's more entertaining -- if not better -- than our current reality?
Project Tasman is a sapphic dystopian novel with inspiration from the styles of Aldous Huxley, Sinclair Lewis, M. T. Anderson, and Kurt Vonnegut, told in a near-future dystopia where the American government chooses when citizens die. The story explores themes of personhood and power, obedience to power versus subversion of that same power. Do the harms of your past outweigh the reality of your present? Can you truly find love in all the wrong places? And are waffles really a part of this balanced breakfast (spoiler: no, they are more than that, they are a vital component of survival).
This book is the combination of the book teenage me would have loved to read and the book that teen me desperately needed to read. A book to help me discover, accept, and love myself. All set in just the worst timeline -- but one that would have entertained me. I truly believe that Project Tasman is the best thing I've created to date. I hope that this book provides the same joy to you.
This is functionally the baseline goal for Project Tasman to get out in the world on the timeline I'm trying to get it out there. This will allow Project Tasman to publish in the listed timeline of November 2026.
Side note that is very important: Project Tasman was not, in ANY capacity, created with generative AI or language learning models. We use our own brains and creativity here.
Project Tasman is a sapphic science fiction/dystopia novel. It is told from the point of view of Alana Quevedo, a sous chef from Seattle. She wakes up transported to a facility somewhere in the remote Pacific Northwest where she is part of a nefarious government experiment known as Project Tasman. As part of this experiment, she must choose who lives, who dies at the hands of the experiment, and who is stuck inside, forced to live through the horrors of Project Tasman again.
Project Tasman was originally conceived in mid-2019 as a choose-your-own-adventure style story and was, in part, told through a series of polls and posts on what was then Twitter. This version of Project Tasman not only completes the original story, but also reframes it from Alana's perspective to give the reader a more consistent and enjoyable experience.
Want to know more about the cast of Project Tasman? Here you go. All images here made using this Picrew because I am bad at art but also refuse to use AI because it's ethically wrong to do so.
Alana Quevedo
Full Name: Alana Marisol Quevedo Age: 26 Pronouns: She/Her Sexuality: Bisexual Bio: The POV character of our story, both in its original iteration and what will be the finished product. Alana works as a sous chef in a restaurant prior to her time in Project Tasman. She is a little more subdued as a person than some of the other characters in the story, but don't worry. She reacts with the appropriate amount of cursing for someone who is stuck in a psychological experiment.
Quinn Saberhagen
Full Name: Quinn Isabella Saberhagen Age: 31 Pronouns: She/Her Sexuality: Lesbian Bio: Quinn's fiancee. A concert musician with a dark past. But now she's chosen violins.
Brielle Horvath
Full Name: Cruz Ortega, though within Project Tasman she lives under the name Brielle Lindsay Horvath Age: 25 Pronouns: She/Her Sexuality: Queer (Non-Denominational) Bio: A total stranger who has been trapped in the Project Tasman experiment for years. She used to have a quiet life with her best friend while working as housekeeping in a hotel, but that's been uprooted for a while now.
Noel Meyer
Full Name: Noel Thomas Meyer Age: 34 Pronouns: He/Him Sexuality: Straight Bio: Alana's ex-boyfriend and Quinn's bandmate within Project Tasman. He also plays the violin and is objectively less good than Quinn at it. Jackass.
Arn Torrence
Full Name: Arn Jeremiah Torrence Age: 24 Pronouns: He/Him Sexuality: Straight Bio: Alana's younger half-brother. He works as an architect in a Very Important Firm that's part of a multinational conglomerate. He's flown up the corporate ladder in the past few years.
Sabrina Torrence
Full Name: Sabrina Hope Torrence Age: 18 Pronouns: She/Her Sexuality: Demisexual or Bitsexual. Depends on her mood. Bio: Alana's younger half-sister. Virtuoso guitarist, aspiring physics major, and wannabe paranormal scientist. Opens the story in a coma following a car accident.
Carrie Moulu
Full Name: Carrie Ann Moulu Age: 22 Pronouns: She/Her Sexuality: Straight, but questioning Bio: Quartet bandmate with Noel and Quinn. The spike necklace stays on.
Jeff Yeboah
Full Name: Jeffrey Allan Yeboah Age: 49 Pronouns: He/Him Sexuality: Pansexual Bio: Experiment conductor for this iteration of Project Tasman. Secretly snarkier than you would expect for a dude that works by himself in a lab most days.
Let's take a look and what I'll be able to do with each goal and stretch goal -- as well as what hitting them means for you, the backer. Shall we?
Main Goal - $1,500 - The Base Project Goal My goal of $1,500 funds Project Tasman's editing and cover art costs, as well as print costs for roughly 50 copies. This will allow Project Tasman to publish in the listed timeline of November 2026. Once this goal is hit, a hard release date will be announced publicly. I will also buy myself a burrito and a fountain drink at Chipotle to celebrate. This will come out of the funding. I'm hungry and if goal is met, there's reason to celebrate.
Stretch Goal #1 - $2,500 - Bonus Prints and A Bonus Short Story This will cover the remaining costs of anything else publishing related (sensitivity reading, additional ISBN purchases, ordering additional copies of the book to ship out), as well as a portion of the art I've commissioned specifically for this campaign. If we get to this goal, I will include a previously unpublished short story for all backers. This short story goes into Brielle's back story before the events of Project Tasman, back when she was known as Cruz. It was the story that started the whole notion of Project Tasman, so it'd be cool if it got its time in the sun despite being short.
Bonus items at This Stretch Goal: All backers who have pledged at a level that gets an art print will receive two art prints instead. Additionally, backers who pledged at ANY level will get a .epub copy of the aforementioned short story that goes into Brielle's back story. The bonus short story will be sent out with Project Tasman regular project rewards.
Stretch Goal #2 - $4,000 - Alternate Cover Version, Bonus Prints Again, and Backlist EPUBs Okay. Everything would be covered and a bit more here. Let's start doing cool things, shall we? At this level, I will commission an alternate version of Project Tasman's cover to be made. This alternate cover will be exclusive to hardcovers...until we hit the next stretch goal. Any backers who pledge at a level that gets a hardcover will get their choice of cover if we hit this level.
Bonus Items at This Stretch Goal: All backers who have pledged at a level that gets an art print will receive all three art prints instead. Additionally, all backers who have pledge at a level that gets an ebook will automatically get .epub copies of all of my backlist books for free. Backers who got hardcover copies of Project Tasman will have a choice of covers (this will be handled in a post-crowdfunding survey). Note that alternate cover versions may be delayed in shipping.
Stretch Goal #3 - $5,500 - Mass Market Paperbacks and a Bonus Novella Time to get into the real pie in the sky items. If we hit $5,500, I will also release a mass market paperback version of Project Tasman. It will feature the alternate version cover that was hit at the $4,000 level. This will be the first time any of my books will be in mass market paperback format. Additionally, if we hit this level I will release a bonus novella I am currently drafting focusing on some events that happen to Alana, Brielle, and Quinn post-Project Tasman. Please note that this novella will be spicy (grapefruit level for those of you who citrus scale) and backers can opt out of receiving that if they wish.
Bonus Items at This Stretch Goal: All backers who pledged at a level that gets a paperback or hardcover book will receive a mass market paperback of Project Tasman as well. All backers who have pledged at a level that gets an ebook will automatically receive a .epub copy of the aforementioned bonus novella. Bonus novella delivery currently estimated as occurring by March 2027.
Stretch Goal #3.5 - $6,969 - lolfunnynumber..but also a bonus art print! Yes, yes. We got to funny number. And to celebrate, I'm doing to commission a FOURTH art print. I will have to find an artist for this, so it will take time.
Bonus Items at This Stretch Goal: A fourth art print will be commissioned at this level. All backers who have pledged at a level to get an art print will receive this fourth art print too. Bonus art delivery currently estimated as occurring by March 2027.
Stretch Goal #4 - $10,000 - Audiobook As I've learned recently, an audiobook is a significant endeavor. It's a pricey one too. That said, if somehow this project hits a total of $10,000 -- which, to be clear, is a LOT of money -- there will be an audiobook of Project Tasman. I already have a couple of voices in mind for it. But I want to pay them what they deserve.
Bonus Items at This Stretch Goal: All backers who pledged at ANY level will get a copy of the audiobook. Audiobook delivery will occur by November 2027 (yes, that's a year later...it takes time to do correctly).
Stretch Goal #5 - $250,000 - I Quit My Job This will never happen. But if it does, I will quit my job and write full time. Really. I will give six months notice (for sake of making sure other items are lined up to support my family). The notice I give will decrease by one month for every $50,000 above this level down to two weeks notice if we hit $500,000 somehow.
There are no bonus items associated with this tier. I will literally just quit my day job and become a full-time author and editor.
Hi. I'm Morgan (they/them/she). I write as S. Morgan Burbank. I've been writing fiction ever since I first wrote a short story to process emotions when I couldn't afford therapy in 2010. Sixteen years later, I've written four books, served as editor for almost a dozen others, and have generally come to accept that writing has become part of my life.
I'm a trans feminine author from Ohio who loves hockey, video games, and cats. I'm staunchly anti-AI (especially ones that steal authors' books to train their LLMs), pro-paying artists what they deserve, and am just generally loud online as that's where my friends are. If you want to follow me somewhere after this campaign, I recommend you follow my BlueSky or sign up for my newsletter, as I'm not a ton of places otherwise.
