CHARLES R. COOKE

Underground is a long-burn, high-velocity crime saga set on Terrus, a world close enough to recognize and cruel enough to enjoy. Drugs are banned. Firearms are outlawed. Violence, of course, found a workaround.

The series follows thirteen intersecting lives: professionals paid to burn drug fields from the map, veterans who traded uniforms for criminal crowns, operatives pretending to sell narcotics while quietly collapsing networks from the inside, and ambitious crime families convinced this will be their generation’s breakthrough.

You’ll meet border runners smuggling chemicals and people through forgotten corridors, Chasers who make their living catching the worst humans alive, arms dealers who treat legality as a suggestion, counterfeit artists who fall sideways into ancient tombs, hackers who turn wars into code, and people sold into trafficking rings who refuse to stay owned.

Eight of them are good people doing bad things to survive.
Five are professionals hunting those bad things down.

All of them are convinced they’re right.

Their paths collide. Their loyalties blur. And more than once, you’ll find yourself cheering for the wrong side and hoping the right one survives.

Morality doesn’t behave here.
It slips. It bargains. It lies.

Underground doesn’t follow tidy genre rules or reward loyalty with safety. Characters cross borders, reappear changed, and collide in ways that make choosing sides deeply uncomfortable. You will cheer for the criminal and curse the hero, sometimes in the same chapter, and you will not always be sure which outcome you wanted more.

These are origin stories, but not excuses. This is the foundation of a sprawling saga built for long memory and short tempers. Action drives everything. Humor keeps it human. Consequences do not reset.

Behind the scenes, Underground lived in Charles R. Cooke’s head for decades before he made the mistake of letting Christopher X. Ryan inside it. Ryan pulled the threads harder, widened the world, and turned a private obsession into a shared one. What followed was years of collaboration, escalation, restraint, laughter, and mutual agreement that this probably shouldn’t be safe or polite.

Together, they’re building something designed to last: novels, audiobooks, graphic novels, comics, recurring characters, hidden connections, and enough easter eggs to reward the dangerously curious.

Welcome to Underground.
Pick a favorite.

You’ll betray them eventually.

Explore the site for dossiers, backstories, and secrets.
We’ll take you deeper.