About
Meet the scientist-engineer crafting cinematic science fiction about survival, family, and the search for belonging.
Joseph Rhea is a scientist, engineer, and science fiction author whose work bridges technical realism with deeply human storytelling. Advised early in life to pursue writing, he instead chose a career in engineering and scientific research, driven by a desire to explore the physical world and help build emerging technologies. That professional foundation now informs his fiction, giving his worlds structural authenticity and technological plausibility.
Yet despite his scientific background, Joseph’s stories are not about hardware, they are about heart. Across his novels and screenplays, he returns to recurring human themes: the fragile bond between parent and child, the formation of found families under pressure, and the struggle to discover one’s place in a vast and indifferent world.
His debut novel, Cyberdrome, is a near-future science fiction thriller in which rogue programmer Alek Grey enters an immersive virtual world to rescue his father as well as the woman he loves. Beneath the technological spectacle lies a deeply personal story of loyalty, loss, and sacrifice.
He later created the Novum Chronicles, a sweeping five-book undersea saga that serves as the emotional and thematic anchor of his body of work. In a future where the Earth has become uninhabitable, survival moves beneath surface a hostile ocean planet. Young cargo-sub captain Jacob Stone must assemble an untested crew to confront an enemy capable of extinguishing what remains of humanity. As the pressure mounts, alliances form, not only through necessity, but through shared vulnerability and chosen family.
Expanding the universe further, Joseph adapted the first Novum installment into a feature screenplay that advanced to the Second Round (Top 20%) of the Austin Film Festival. He later developed an original screenplay which then became the foundation for his newest Novum Origins series, Rogue Wave, broadening the mythology and long-term franchise potential of the world.
His creative thesis remains consistent across mediums: When advanced technology meets human limitation, survival becomes personal. Not because humanity deserves to endure — but because someone we love does.
David Rhea was a lifelong creative collaborator, technologist, and artist whose imagination helped shape many of the worlds explored here.
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