Category: Narrative Audits / Legal Thriller Content note: The Amateur addresses addiction, the sexual exploitation of a minor, and suicidal ideation. These themes are handled with care and intention — but they are present, and they are heavy. There is a specific kind of prosecutorial decision that every criminal defense investigator eventually learns to recognize….
I recently closed the final page of Ann Leckie’s upcoming standalone, Radiant Star (releasing May 12 via Orbit). As a newcomer to the Imperial Radch universe, I walked into this expecting the sprawling space opera I’d seen on bookshop shelves for years. What I found instead was a hyper-localized, sociological “slow burn” that functions more…
In my own work, I often explore the “invisible cages” built by ideology. Naomi Kritzer’s Obstetrix provides a front-row seat to a very visible one. The Specialist in the Machine The protagonist is a classic “Misfit Specialist.” She is brought against her will into the cult not for her beliefs, but for her utility. The…
I recently closed the back cover of Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War by P.W. Singer and August Cole, and I’ve been sitting with a specific realization: The more “perfect” we make our systems, the easier they are to break. I’d give it a solid 4-star rating. It’s a book that feels…
In my writing, I often discuss the Architecture of Control—the invisible systems we build to manage the messiness of life. Love is an Algorithm tackles the most chaotic system of all: human romance. The Pivot from Heart to Hard-Drive The book takes a brilliant turn about 45% in. It lures you with a beautifully written…
I’ve spent the last few weeks wandering the desert, the radioactive ruins, and the star-bound abbeys of Walter M. Miller Jr.’s 1959 masterpiece, A Canticle for Leibowitz. After closing the final page, I had to sit in the silence for a while—the same way I did after finishing Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow. It’s a…
I recently turned the final page of Percival Everett’s The Trees, and I’m still sitting with the weight of it. As an author who explores the friction between institutional culture and individual identity, I found this novel to be a profound masterclass in tone, purpose, and the “codes” of justice. The Anatomy of a Reckoning…
I recently revisited a titan of the genre: Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress. While many categorize this strictly as “Hardboiled Noir,” reading it through the lens of my own work—specifically the themes of institutional control and hidden “limps in the code”—revealed something much deeper than a standard detective story. The Architecture of the…
The Two Sides of the Same Coin If you’ve read Protocol Heresy, you know what happens when a system demands perfection. It was a story about tragedy: the emotional cost of repression, the horrifying logic of an AI, and the struggle to maintain one’s true identity within the DUSC military machine. But the real world,…