NORTHING - Start Here
If this is your first stop, welcome. Here's everything you need in about ninety seconds.
What this is
This site is home to my serial fiction, published free, chapter by chapter, as I write and edit it. Right now that means the True North series, a three-book Coast Guard thriller trilogy that opens with NORTHING.
A national security cutter. A first-of-her-class Arctic patrol. A crew who thinks they know exactly what they signed up for. They don't, and neither, yet, do you.
How to read
New chapters post free every Friday, two chapters a week. You never have to pay a cent to read the whole thing, start to finish, on schedule.
If you don't want to wait, a paid membership puts you two chapters ahead of the free schedule for $5 a month or $50 a year, and unlocks the Operations Annex: recovered in-world documents, dossiers on the people working against the crew, a working chart of the patrol, and chapter-by-chapter notes on the actual decisions behind the writing.
Members also get the finished ebook (Shipmate Edition) once NORTHING’s run wraps and it moves to Kindle: automatic if you’re an annual member, or once you’ve paid in for 10 months if you’re monthly. No separate purchase either way.
Where to start
Start with Chapter One. That's it. That's the only rule.
[Begin NORTHING, Chapter 1] (available on September 4, 2026, sign up to get notified below)
Who's writing this
I'm Ryan Erickson. Before any of this, I spent time in the 75th Ranger Regiment (1995-1998), and most of my career since has been in search and rescue with the Coast Guard (1999-2019), currently as Chief Data Officer for the International Association of Search and Rescue Controllers (IASARC). I also publish SAR Times, a weekly SAR intelligence brief, and write here because the fiction needed somewhere to live too.
None of that makes the book true. It just means the ship, the watch schedules, and the cold all come from somewhere real. More about me here.
Stay with it
Sign up for free for every chapter as it posts, or become a member to read ahead and get the extras (or click below!). Either way, welcome aboard.
