• Yes. I released Praxeology volume 3 in December

• Yes. I released The Dog Walker in February

• Yes. Both are doing work, tons of you guys have enjoyed both.

• Yes. I’m also starting a new book, and

• Yes. I have a second book of Field Reports coming this summer

If you haven’t grabbed a copy, I guarantee you that you’ll enjoy it.

For the red pill in here, a readers digest of field reports from guys unplugging.

For the avid readers, a story thats written by men, for men, and doesn’t force itself into military sci fi or fantasy. I like the genres, but when you read older books from guys like Hemmingway, Bukowski, or others, you see that men did some great slice of life fiction that was fun, engaging, if not a bit crass.

Buy Dog Walker

Buy Praxeology

I want the next book to be something new. Something different.

I’ve done contemporary fiction. It had a moral message driving the story, themes, symbols, and characters all acting in service of the narrative. It knew when to add levity, paced itself well, never bored you with exposition or world-building masturbation, and—thank God—it wasn’t woke.

This new one? Cyberpunk.

I’ve always loved cyberpunk. Ever since Dennis Hopper starred in Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller on CD, or Blade Runner hit theaters, or Shadowrun dropped on the SNES. Sci-fi, but better. High tech, low life. And unlike fantasy, it didn’t have a Tolkien knockoff that everyone copied for 80 years straight.

So what is cyberpunk?

I’d argue it was the 1980s answer to science fiction.

The ’60s and ’70s made sci-fi philosophical. Dune, based on a Portland land study, was Herbert treating machines as the devil, replacing them with drugs, sending people across the universe, and regressing into feudal states to explore the human mind. Asimov wrote ten thousand books dissecting philosophical ideas about the universe and the human condition.

Then came the ’80s. No more galaxy-spanning manifestos. This was cyberpunk. The Unabomber’s manifesto, but jazzed up. Punks taking stims, getting implants, jacking into a network of computers like some new human brain. Nation-states replaced by megacorporation’s. Judge Dredd, Robocop, all of it. High tech, low life.

Then Neuromancer happened. The best and worst thing for the genre.

Best, because it was fresh, tackling post-boomer problems.
Worst, because nobody actually read Neuromancer, they just copied it.

It revived the 1940s noir aesthetic, but the tech is outdated now.

We’re in an insane place, and no one’s doing anything with it.

So I’m writing the book I want to read. A deep dive into a slightly exaggerated version of the tech we have now and how it’s shaping our quality of life.

There’s so much to work with.

• Children on hormone replacement therapy—a perversion of freedom. Forced to pick their gender by law at six years old.

• A flattening of gendered differences. A feminine-primary social order controlling a nanny-state, pretending to be benevolent.

• Tech so commercialized, your bathroom won’t work unless you watch a 50-second ad.

• IVF for all births. Natural conception? Banned.

• A forever war fought with drones (I call them buzzers), so no one has to die, except the people on the other side.

• Prisons for men who commit thought crimes.

• Phones that don’t just monitor us, they’re as addicted to us as we are to them, plugged directly into corporate HR.

Our world is already a dystopia. We just haven’t framed it that way.

I’m halfway through the first draft, and I’m loving it. You will too.

A man who just wants the freedom to have a coffee and a Zyn without some woman in his ear micromanaging his life. A man meant for war, stuck programming at a desk. The most advanced implants in the world—that don’t even work.

A civilized man, going west.

Cowboys—but in Kowloon.

It’s going to be awesome. And as my marketing for the current books wraps up, I’ll be going full tilt on this. You’re gonna want to be here for it.

When drones have AI detection and full lethality, not looking like a warrior will be the new camouflaged. Absurdity never looked so cool

It’s set for six chapters, a quick, punchy 50-60k story about a man who wants to be free, and what that even means today, wrapped in the story of tomorrow.

The setup: Jake Long. A fake name for Jackov Luonghaus: a timid, civilized man under the thumb of his pregnant wife. He chose freedom over the tyranny that passed for fatherhood.

He left it all behind for Fatahl, a femme fatale who, in the end, used her own freedom to fuck the man who got them a trip to Ukraine, a trip to stop a prefab factory from churning out a deadly vaccine for a fake pandemic, one that could spell the end of humanity.

Jake wants to be the hero, to do the right thing, but something inside him fractured from jacking into the Gopher net too long. A ghost lingers in his head, clinging to a childlike vision of freedom and masculinity.

Does he listen? Sabotage the team to win back Fatahl?

Or does he let her go, focus on saving the world, and stop obsessing over a woman?

They’re about to hit Ukraine, running a gauntlet of drone patrols en route to New Kowloon. A VLAN city sealed inside corporate dystopia. A Faraday cage of freedom, hidden in every major metropolis.

Excerpt, nothing is as it seems in New Kowloon

Jake wanted the freedom to choose. Today, he chose to take back what was his. She was his, and that man will pay.

The ship handlers barked out orders that made no sense to him. That was fine. Ever since he’d fallen in with the Kowboys of New Kowloon, nothing had made sense. Crew members ran around yelling:

“Line one, secure!”

“Line six, steady!”

“Prepare the brow!”

Buck, Fatahl, and the rest of the mercs were gathered on the forecastle, a few heavily worn duffle bags full of tech sitting in front of them. Buck looked at Jake and said,

“You best be right about this. Did you jack back in to the gopher, double check your code?”

It was funny. Buck couldn’t stop calling Jake a softbone, yet was willing to bet his life on him. Was this how men in the Analogue acted?

“I was in there so long, I came out with a ghost,” Jake muttered. “I’m half crazy, but fully sure. You need to have no signs of tactical gear. If you stick to that, it’ll delay the drones long enough to laz them. You better be as quick on the draw as you claim to be. Once we hit HQ in Odessa, I can work on creating a virus to take out the buzzers.”

“Don’t worry about me, softbone. I’ve been through hell on earth. I’m running point, but you’re right behind me, got it?”

So, maybe not that much trust.

The ghost in Jake’s head whispered,

It’s fine. I’ve done the math. The delays will cut it close, but Buck has to win every single time. The buzzers only have to win once.

You get to take what’s yours, and no one gets to mess with you, Jake.

Jake exhaled. “I gotta hit the heads. I’ll be back in time for disembark.”

He walked across the breezeway, mumbling to himself.

“I’m not sure about this. Buck’s my only chance of staying alive. I’ve never fired a laz gun before. I don’t know how to get around Ukraine. I’ve never had to kill anyone. I’m just not sure about this.”

The ghost purred.

He doesn’t care about you. He just wants what’s in your head. He wants me, not you. He wants Fatahl.

I can see in here, you still have that image.

It’s burned into your wetware, friend. Bouncing on that Kowloon dick.

The moment he can get rid of you and take your virus, you’re done for. This is the only way. You have to strike first. Just play it cool.

“I don’t know if I can.”

Then you just listen to me. I’ll tell you what to do, every step of the way.

Jake walked back to the forecastle. The cranes were attaching the brow to the ship. Fatahl glanced at him.

“Jake. You OK? You’re sweating.”

“Yeah. I’m fine. I think I’m getting land sickness.”

That wasn’t a lie. After two weeks in rough waters, his cochlear implants had stabilized him. Now that the ship had stopped rocking, they needed time to recalibrate for solid ground.