Craig Morgan recently answered a reader question at AZ Hockey Insider about what reporters actually mean when they say they are “hearing” something. The reader wanted to know where those rumors come from. Agents? General managers? League personnel? Some secret Discord channel populated by insiders who apparently spend their evenings leaking NHL transactions? Morgan’s answer…
One of the best and scariest tropes in dystopian fiction is when a face that the protagonist is least expecting pops up and is working for the regime. Yui Kikuchi doesn’t only meet Theodore Lannister’s network through guards, vans, chips, rooms, records, and donor-backed filth. She crosses it through someone who should’ve belonged to another…
Every so often, an Internet Karen wanders into your online world and proves they have no idea what they are looking at. Last week, it was the guy who somehow decided I was a Ducks fan after reading an article about possible trade packages between Detroit and Vegas. The article centered on the Red Wings,…
Female protagonists work for TC Marti’s brand of writing on multiple fronts. There’s zero pro-woman or pro-DEI bias, but something deeper than virtue signaling. I get this question more than you’d think: Why so many female protagonists? And, yeah, it’s a fair question. Other than Sion Zona, Quinn Cozens, Braden Hawk, Tage Ras-Svendson, and a…
I’ve been thinking a lot about where books live, not just where they’re listed. For years, authors were trained to believe the answer was obvious: Amazon. Put the book there, feed the beast, hope the algorithm notices, that the right readers stumble across it, the rankings move, the reviews land, the platform doesn’t change the rules,…
There’s a version of dystopian fiction that drives me up the wall. You know the one: where dystopian heroes love playing the waiting game. The cities crumble, elites posture, citizens obey, neighbors report one another, and the hero still somehow waits for an invitation to matter. Somebody has to explain the stakes, some underground group…
Trusting the government is one of the absolute worst concepts in dystopian fiction. And we’re not talking about the tyrannical government in charge. Some dystopian stories want credit for noticing that authoritarianism sucks. That’s fine, but it’s the low bar. Most readers already know jackboots, censorship, surveillance, propaganda, and forced obedience also suck. You don’t…
A lot of dystopian and dystopian survival fiction loves the big moments. They follow a similar pattern, and one you’re familiar with. Dystopian fiction loves the big moments. One minute, the attack hits. Then comes the collapse, the tyrant’s speech, the resistance banner, and the dramatic settlement where everyone suddenly has a role, a cabin,…
Books too scared to say anything real are written by sell-out authors. That’s the cold, hard, and offensive truth some readers want them to hear. There’s a particular kind of disappointment that hits after finishing a dystopian novel. Not because the book was awful. Sometimes the premise had serious juice, the setting worked, the hero…
Dystopian fiction contains few, if any, fearless authors. Most either stop short or are fine with spewing a prevailing narrative. Some dystopian fiction walks into the room wearing combat boots, a black jacket, and a scowl like it just escaped a government lab. Then, two chapters later, it’s asking permission to use the sharp scissors….
Most authors write fiction to reinforce their worldview. Screw that. I’d rather challenge my worldview before I reinforce it. I became Rothbardian in 2024 after reading Chaos Theory by Bob Murphy. The short read answered my biggest question: How do you fund defense without a government-funded military? Murphy had the answer. I won’t dive deep into the subject in…
My greatest writing advantage didn’t come from following the rules. It came from having the courage to break rules the gatekeepers set. If I followed the rules and wrote mass market fiction, chances are I’d have been lost in cyber dust. Writing to market may give authors the largest pool of prospective readers, but there’s…