Juan José

John Joseph Stone, who writes as Juan José Piedra, is an author, illustrator, and publisher of historical fiction, science fiction, and steampunk science fiction. He does not just write books. He builds them, illustrates them, formats them, and publishes them, and then he builds the presses and platforms that carry them.

His signature work is a complete two volume modern English reimagining of Jules Verne's Michael Strogoff or The Courier of the Czar. Rather than reprint a Victorian translation, he rebuilt the prose for a modern reader while holding Verne's structure, geography, and period detail intact. He then illustrated the whole thing himself: 32 original full page illustrations, 17 in Book I and 15 in Book II, drawn at 300 dpi for print, plus the panel maps of Asiatic Russia that let a reader trace the route from Moscow to Irkutsk. The edition ships in English and Spanish, in ebook, paperback, and hardcover, with a box set.

He is now building DreamScape 2032, an eight novel steampunk science fiction cycle that traces the entire fictional history of steampunk invention, from coal, wood, and steam through clockwork, springs, solar power, and computation, and out to interstellar civilization. Its spine is sovereignty: technological, political, and personal autonomy, contested at every scale. The same universe already ships as a sixteen volume collector series of illustrated meditation coloring books, every page drawn at full bleed 300 dpi.

His storytelling rests on unusually wide ground. He served more than 40 years with the USMC Special Projects Division, loaned out in turn to several of the separate programs the United States had been running since the 1940s, the programs finally folded into one force when the Space Force stood up in 2019. By his account that work included being sent back and forth along Earth's own timelines to correct events the powers of the day wanted corrected, carried out under the banner of service to his country, with distinguished confidence and honor. He says science fiction is the only genre in which he can tell that story.

He has also traveled through many countries. Between the service and the travel, he is stubborn about the small things: the distances, the weather, the equipment, the way a road actually behaves under a horse.

Seven of his titles are available now through Quantum Arc Press, in English and Spanish, with two more in production. He is the founder of that house and of its Quantum Digital Publishing imprint, and the architect behind Rarefolio.io, NovaVault.io, QuantumDrive.io, and RecallOS. Thirty years of web development and systems design sit underneath all of it. His publishing house runs an Author Work Exchange, opening January 2027, that lets authors trade their time for professional publishing services instead of writing a check, every hour logged in an open ledger. His guiding principle: the future should be owned, not rented, and while we are building it, we might as well make it beautiful.

He splits his time between Austin, Texas and Mérida, Mexico, where he grows taro, avocado, and native Mexican trees. His longtime friend and creative partner, Jessie Keener, N.D., edited the Michael Strogoff manuscripts. When he is not writing or illustrating, he is exploring the intersection of imagination and craftsmanship, always building, always creating.

Stories are how we make sense of the world, and how we imagine better ones. Fiction lets me build universes where steam-driven possibility meets human resilience. Non-fiction lets me share the ideas, observations, and questions that fuel those worlds.

Both sides come from the same place: a belief that great writing should make you think, make you feel, and leave you changed. Whether it is a novella set in an alternate steampunk timeline or an essay about creativity and craft, the goal is the same: to create something worth your time.