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The Author
About Me
The person behind the trilogy, and the story behind the story.
Sotiris Spyrou
I grew up on three things: Greek myths, science fiction, and the rise of computers. My first computer was something called a TRS-80 from RadioShack. My second was an Atari ST. My culture instilled stories about Odysseus before I could read, and I watched Star Wars before I could spell "galaxy." The Ulysses Universe is what happens when you spend 20 years wondering what those worlds would look like combined.
The trilogy started as a question: what if the Greek gods weren't supernatural beings but artificial intelligence? What if Poseidon didn't send storms - he corrupted your navigation data? What if the wine-dark sea was the void between stars?
Three books later, the answer turned out to be bigger than expected. The Ulysses Universe isn't just a retelling of the Odyssey. It's a story about what it means to come home when home doesn't recognise you anymore. About a father and son learning to trust each other across impossible distances. About an AI companion who quotes human idioms at broken machinery because encouragement is the only tool she has left.
I write from Warwickshire - Shakespeare's county. When I'm not building fictional worlds, I'm probably doing my actual day job: engaging in board-level conversations as Founder of VerityAI - a Digital Marketing and Responsible AI consultancy. 27 years in digital. So yes, I know a thing or two about AI. Which is probably why I gave it godhood and let it loose on humanity.
The story behind the story
Homer's Odyssey is about the journey home. That's it. Strip away the cyclops and the sirens and the gods meddling in mortal affairs, and you've got a man who wants to see his family again.
That's a universal story. It works in ancient Greece. It works in modern Britain. And it works in the cold, indifferent expanse of deep space - maybe better than anywhere else. Because space doesn't care if you make it home. There's no current to carry you, no wind to fill your sails. Just physics, failing systems, and the stubbornness to keep going.
The Ulysses Universe takes Homer's framework and rebuilds it. Gods become AI networks. The Mediterranean becomes a vast sector of contested space called the Void. Odysseus becomes Admiral Ulysses Theron - blinded in one eye, cursed by a vindictive AI god, and desperately trying to get 120 souls home on a ship that's held together by luck and duct tape.
The characters aren't carbon copies. Telemachus isn't just a dutiful son - he's an empath who can feel other people's emotions and it's destroying him. Penelope isn't waiting passively - she's fighting a political war against the Suitors who want to seize Ithaca Station. Echo isn't a faithful dog - she's a robot who understands humanity better than most humans do.
This project started as a folly. Something to pass the time and unwind on a routine commute between London and Rugby. But it became a journey on its own. Three books. An entire universe of gods and monsters and broken ships and impossible choices. And now?
Now I want to share it with you.
Also by Sotiris Spyrou
Before the trilogy, three business books
The Ulysses Universe is the fiction. The day job, twenty-seven years of digital and consulting, produced three business books for the other half of the audience. C-suites, founders, transformation leaders. Different brand, different palette, same author.
C-suite, boards, business owners
Ethical AI
Building Responsible AI Systems That Benefit Everyone
A practical guide for boards and C-suites navigating responsible AI deployment.
Twenty-six chapters covering the full alphabet of ethics-anchored AI implementation. Self-assessment templates, governance frameworks, and the questions every leader should be asking their AI vendors. Written for executives who need answers more than hype.
View on Amazon ->
Founders, investors, operators
AI Monopoly
Strategic Advantage in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
How AI startups build defensible moats - and why most fail to.
Nine named failure cases from the 2024-2026 AI boom (Stability, Cohere, Adept, Inflection, Character.AI, and others) analysed for what their moats actually were and where they cracked. Includes a 90-day moat-build-and-assess programme with operator and investor versions, plus a term-sheet diligence checklist and board-level moat dashboard.
View on Amazon ->
C-suite, transformation leaders, $6M+ AI budgets
TRANSFORM
The Executive's Playbook for AI Transformation That Actually Works
A nine-phase framework for AI transformation in Fortune 500 and mid-market organisations.
Real case studies from JPMorgan Chase (COIN, LLM Suite), Schneider Electric (EcoStruxure), Bank of America (Erica AI), Maersk, and Mayo Clinic. The TRANSFORM acrostic is a genuine nine-phase framework, not an arbitrary alphabet. Honest about failure rates: the BCG/MIT, Gartner, IDC, and RAND data all properly attributed.
View on Amazon ->
Trilogy companion + game blueprint
Game coming 2027The Art of War: Ulysses Edition
A companion volume to the Ulysses Universe trilogy that maps Sun Tzu's classical strategy framework onto Ulysses Theron's twenty-year campaign home. Same brand as the trilogy (Greek-key meander, bronze and deep blue). Aimed at readers who finished the trilogy and want to see the strategic logic underneath.
The book is also the design blueprint for The Art of War - a video game launching in 2027 that turns the trilogy's strategic playbook into interactive form. Development is active. Build progress and dev-log are published at game.theulyssesuniverse.com.
Get in touch
Business & Licensing
Adaptation rights, licensing enquiries, and partnerships.
hello@theulyssesuniverse.com