
by GrahamParke
Great news! Sky City has been liberated from its lawless administrators! The New Empire has moved in and restored order. All citizens rejoice! Probably. Because something mysterious is moving through the city and its surrounding communities. Strange events are unfolding and more and more citizens are beginning to wonder whether the Imperials really are the good guys. These are the stories that happened around the fall of the New Empire—the incidents that didn't make it into the history books because, frankly, nobody had the time to write them down. Here we find the awkward moments of not-quite heroism, when million-to-one shots didn’t necessarily work out and the guy didn’t get the girl, or her sister, or even her best friend’s cousin–you know, the one with the “interesting” teeth. Different people. Different disasters. One large mystery to unravel. [Updates twice a week] Prefer Kindle? An expanded edition is coming, with approximately 20,000 additional words and some cool extras :) [Pre-order An Optimist's Guide to Galactic Failure on Amazon] Get a Head Start on the second part: The Space Princess Diary on Amazon]
#3
9/17/2026
Peak #26
13d
#2
9/10/2026
Peak #21
21d
Current
9/10/2026
Peak #7
21d
Observed Royal Road ranks are authoritative for lists where the story is active. Other eligible lists retain their Shadow RS ranks.
Overall Rising Stars Shadow RS rank
#3576 of 12,235 · 3526 below RS #50
By genre
beats 99% of similar stories
beats 95% of similar stories
beats 77% of similar stories
Firing on all cylinders
Traffic and conversion are both strong for a story this size. Readers are finding it and sticking — if Rising Stars is the goal, this is the moment to push.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 20–49 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.