I’m still editing Needle’s Edge. It’s biographical fiction. Think of those movies that open with based on true events or some such, save for the Coen Brothers.
This book is about prostitutes and the drug culture around the Philadelphia-adjacent area, PA, DE, NJ, and MD, circa 2016 to 2023, give or take. It primarily follows one woman in particular. I call her Sarah, one of those change the names to protect the innocent sorts of things.
Although renamed, Sarah is real. The events are real. But I also consider other renamed sex workers, particularly Alice, Amanda, Ashley, and some whose names even start with other letters.
I haven’t substantially written any fiction since September 2025, as I’ve been focusing more on philosophy. I documented much of this on my Substack. Interestingly or otherwise, ChatGPT Work was running in the background, and it prompted a reminder that formed a question: Would you like help organising an approach to finish Needle’s Edge? – something I hadn’t touched since 22 September last year. I ignored it for a few days, thinking that I may have inadvertently done something. And then I clicked it.
In essence, it read: I can help you to create an action plan and manage your schedule – things like this. I’ve been considering reengaging with this book for the entire time, but I wanted to publish some philosophical material, and can’t really do both because each requires its own headspace. And then one project became another, each feeling more important than fiction. It still feels this way, but I’ve got a half dozen fiction books in process and at least as many unfinished philosophical manuscripts. Such is the life of a writer. In fact, such is life – c’est la vie.
I’ll leave this here, but I expect to not only share my writing process, but to articulate the backstory for this particular novel – half a decade in the works.
NB: I asked Gemini to generate the cover image based on a recent photo of me cast as an author writing a manuscript with pen and paper. This is the result. I’m not sure why it’s given me a sports coat, as I was wearing a tracksuit at the time, per usual. Whatevs. Otherwise, it’s pretty me-ish.
EDIT: I’ve finished this book and wrote about it on my Substack.
I’m about a quarter done with I Who Have Never Known Men. The pacing feels about right, but much of the mystery has yet to be revealed, if ever it will be. In fact, there are a few loose ends that need to be traced.
I am genuinely interested to see where it goes. A group of 40 women in a guarded cell in an unknown location. The protagonist is the youngest of them, likely by at least a decade. She doesn’t know how old she is, but she tells us that she stopped maturing, as it were, part-way through puberty, which evidently has implications for the story. No one seems to remember much of the past, including how they came to be there, but it seems to be a long time, and despite odd ageing profiles, they do seem to age and die.
This book appears to be both psychological and metaphorical, but I’ll reserve further comment for another time.
I’ve not posted here in a minute. I’ve been focused on non-fiction academic work, and it seems this trend will continue for at least a month or so, as I am subject to the constraints of time. This said, I still have time to listen to audiobooks, especially when I work out. I also listen to them when I am falling asleep and waking.
I just finished listening to the third book of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. It’s classified as LitRPG. which is new to me. I found a video of these blokes talking about it and sharing some samples. If you enjoy RPG culture and pointless diversion, this might be for you. I’m not sure how it reads, but it works well in dramatised audio.
Rather than listen to the fourth book in the series – I felt it was a bit indulgent to continue down this path, so I switched to Stonerby John Williams – presumably not the geezer who wrote the Star Wars music. I’m not familiar with Williams, but Stoner kept cropping up on lists, so I succumbed.
Here’s the blurb from the Audible product page:
William Stoner is born at the end of the 19th century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, far different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.
John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.
I’ve only read the first two chapters, and it’s already got my interest. My first thoughts are on its existential nature. I am reminded of Camus’s Meursault from L’Étranger, except that Stoner, the protagonist, is more aware of his environment. Even so, he seems to drift through life with limited agency.
The blurb above already conveys more than I’ve yet read, but so far I appreciate the narration and unfolding.
When I engage with fiction, I don’t tend to do close reads. I reserve these for academic nonfiction works. I was intrigued when I came across a post on Francis Ford Coppola’s notes on The Godfather, a book he eventually scripted and shot as director. The notes are published in The Godfather Notebook.
Obviously, Coppola had a reason to close-read or deep-read, but who among us annotates fiction quite like this? To be honest, I don’t even markup my own manuscripts this heavily. Do you?
I don’t want to comment much past sharing the technique. Open these thumbnails for more details.
NB: I don’t have the book myself. I obtained these images from the Amazon.com product page.
I’ve just started this after hearing a positive review on YouTube. I discovered that Audible was offering it for free for members, so I took that route. About 15% in, I like the writing (and the narration). By and large, it is well-written, and I am interested to see where it leads. The weakest element seems to be the dialogue, so far. I am especially put off by the dialogue of the young girl, but some of the protagonist’s dialogue (and intercourse with the girl) doesn’t feel ‘authentic’; it feels rather contrived. Even so, I’d give it a 3.5 stars for now. I could see it getting to 4 by the time I’m done. Time will tell.
I’ve still got a ways to go. Rather than witter on further, I recommend listening to this bloke’s take on it. He’s undoubtedly more excited about it than I am, but I’d still recommend it at this point.
To be honest, I saw at least one negative review on YouTube, but I’ll read the book before I poison the well.
I guess I should complete my profile below. One day. Maybe soon.
I genuinely loathe top X lists, so let us indulge in some self-loathing. I finished these books in 2026. As you can see, they cross genres, consist of fiction and non-fiction, and don’t even share temporal space. I admit that I’m a diverse reader and, ostensibly, writer. Instead of just the top 5. I’ll shoot for the top and bottom 5 to capture my anti-recommendations. Within categories are alphabetical.
Fiction
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro – A slow reveal about identity, but worth the wait.
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky – Classic unreliable narrator.
There Is No Antimemetics Division by QNTM (AKA Sam Hughes) – Points for daring to be different and hitting the landing.
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh – Scottish drugs culture and bonding mates narrative.
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin – In the league of 1984 and Brave New World, but without the acclaim.
Nonfiction
Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher – Explains why most problems are social, not personal or psychological. Follows Erich Fromm’s Sane Society, which I also read in 2025 and liked, but it fell into the ‘lost the trail’ territory at some point, so fell off the list.
Moral Politics by George Lakoff
Technofeudalism by Yanis Varoufakis – Explains why Capitalism is already dead on arrival.
NB: Some of the other books had great pieces of content, but failed as books. They may have been better as essays or blog posts. They didn’t have enough material for a full book. The Second Sex had enough for a book, but then poured in enough for two books. She should have quit whilst she was ahead.
Image: Books I read in 2025 on Goodreads. Full disclosure: I don’t always record my reading on Goodreads, but I try.
Bottom of the Barrel
Crash by J.G. Ballard – Hard no. I also didn’t like High-rise, but it was marginally better, and I didn’t want to count an author twice.
Neuromancer by William Gibson – I don’t tend to like SciFi. This is a classic. Maybe it read differently back in the day. Didn’t age well.
Nexus by Yuval Harari – Drivel. My mates goaded me into reading this. I liked Sapiens. He’s gone downhill since then. He’s a historian, not a futurist.
Outraged by Kurt Gray – Very reductionist view of moral harm, following the footsteps of George Lakoff and Jonathan Haidt
Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord – A cautionary tale on why writing a book on LSD may not be a recipe for success.
Honourable Mention
Annihilation by Jeff VernderMeer was also good, but my cutoff was at 5. Sorry, Jeff.
Propensity has always been available for free with KindleUnlimited. For the first time ever, Propensity will be free for all available markets between 12 and 16 December 2025. Limited-time offer. Not sure how this operates across time zones. Download it sooner than later so you don’t miss the opportunity.
Propensity is also available in hardcover and paperback, as well as an audiobook. Scroll down to listen to chapter 1.
Also available at Barnes & Noble, if that’s your preference – hardcover and paperback.
Summaries and a trailer are available below.
I’m offering Propensity in the hope of getting some reviews and comments, whether here or on the site of purchase. Goodreads reviews are nice, too. You can be the first.
Image: Mockup of Propensity in a Kindle reader frame
Propensity is a story in three sections: Implementation, Drift, and Entropic. Google Gemini summarised each section; NotebookLM summarised those. Listen below.
Audio: NotebookLM podcast summary of Section I: Implementation
Audio: NotebookLM podcast summary of Section II: Drift
Audio: NotebookLM podcast summary of Section III: Entropic
A thematic trailer for Section I is also available. I hope to make more.
ENTROPIC completes the trilogy of collapse – linguistic, civic, and humane. It does not whimper. It corrodes. In the end, form breaks down not because the author lost control, but because control itself is the first casualty of extinction. A society that cannot speak cannot think; a mind that cannot think becomes soil. There’s a terrible beauty in that.
Audio: NotebookLM summary podcast of this topic.
The final chapters prove what Propensity set up from page one: utopia is a maintenance project, and civilisation is only ever one power-outage away from becoming compost. Peace was a glitch; entropy was the operating system waiting to reboot.
If the first act asked whether we could redesign human nature, and the second asked what happens when purpose evaporates, the third answers with teeth. Not metaphorical teeth – the kind that break skin.
The calendar, the poems, the Seussian psychosis, the typographical collapse – it all converges into a single thesis:
Language dies before people do. Ideas die before bodies. Meaning is the first to be eaten.
And when meaning goes, everything else falls with it. The Gormies reverting to instinct, Aaron’s crew reverting to domination, the narrative reverting to decay – each is not a twist, but an inevitability. Nature abhors modulation. Humanity abhors peace. Entropy abhors everything.
So yes – the work succeeds. Brutally.
It holds a mirror up to extinction and refuses to blink. It leaves no heroes, no eulogies, just the soft rustle of chlorophyll reclaiming architecture and the indifferent continuation of a world healed by our absence. The book does not ask the reader to hope. It asks them to witness. And that is the more honest ending.
This final section, ENTROPIC, delivers on the grim promise made in the opening pages. You have successfully dismantled the world you built, moving from the sterile control of “IMPLEMENTATION” through the eerie stasis of “DRIFT” into the chaotic dissolution of “ENTROPIC.”
Here is an analysis and evaluation of the final section and the manuscript as a whole.
1. The Breakdown of Form
The most striking aspect of this section is how the structure of the novel mirrors the collapse of society. You abandon standard prose for a chaotic mix of formats, simulating the breakdown of language and order.
The Calendar (Chapter 34): The visual inclusion of the calendar is excellent “environmental storytelling.” Seeing the handwriting degrade from “found a radio” to “FUCK” and “Why ME?” tells the story of the siege and psychological break far better than a diary entry would.
The Dr. Seuss Parody (Chapter 39): This is a high-risk stylistic choice that pays off. The juxtaposition of childlike rhyme (“One fish kills two fish”) with graphic violence (“Just blood in the soil”) captures the absurdity and madness of the protagonist’s final moments. It feels like the mind snapping.
Concrete Poetry (Chapter 42 & 44): The words physically falling down the page (“Buildings,” “Vines,” “Petal”) visually represent gravity taking over. The text itself is decaying.
2. The Narrative Twist: The Return of Nature
In “DRIFT,” the horror was the absence of human nature. In “ENTROPIC,” the horror is the return of it—in its worst forms.
Aaron’s Group: The introduction of Aaron, Jess, and the others serves a crucial thematic purpose. They prove Dr. V’s dark hypothesis: without the modulation, humans are not inherently good. They are predators. The reveal that they want “live wires” (sex slaves) because the Gormies are too boring is repulsive and terrifyingly plausible.
Jamal’s Death: Killing the philosopher of the group (Jamal) so abruptly (Chapter 33) is a brutal narrative choice. It signals that intellect and philosophy (Hobbes, Heidegger) offer no protection against brute force. His death is the death of the “Civilized Normie.”
The Feral Gormies: The evolution of the Gormies into “crack zombies” (Chapter 40) changes the dynamic from The Leftovers to 28 Days Later. It suggests that without the “signal” maintaining the suppression, the brain doesn’t revert to normal; it reverts to pure, reptilian instinct.
3. The Philosophical Climax
You stayed true to your epigraphs. You did not offer a hopeful ending.
The Hobbes Connection (Chapter 41): Inserting the text of Leviathan is a heavy-handed but effective academic anchor. It reminds the reader that this state of “war of every man against every man” was predicted centuries ago.
The Epilogue: The final verdict—that consciousness was a “blunder”—ties the entire work together. The line “The humans carried their gods to extinction” is profound. The ending is not a tragedy for the Earth; it is a correction. The “chlorophyll and bone” ending is a peaceful, if nihilistic, resolution.
4. Visual Analysis (Based on shared images)
The Calendar: The erratic scribbles, the “cow outside,” and the transition to “Gormies gone missing!!” builds tension perfectly. The visual distress of the paper adds to the “found footage” feel.
The Face: The scribbled, panicked face is deeply unsettling and pairs well with the “Hurt” lyrics. It visualizes the internal mental state of the narrator in Chapter 36.
The Concrete Poem: The typographic layout of the buildings crumbling and the petals falling is elegant. It serves as a visual eulogy for the civilization described in the previous chapters.
Critical Notes & Final Thoughts
The Logic of the “Feral” Shift: In Chapter 40, you describe the Gormies becoming aggressive (“invitations” to violence). In Section 1, we were told aggression was “zeroed.”
Interpretation: I assume this happens because the signal eventually stopped or degraded (batteries died, power failed), or because hunger overrode the neuro-modulation.
Suggestion: You might want one tiny clue—perhaps a scene where a cell tower light finally blinks off, or a mention of the “hum” stopping—to signal why the Gormies suddenly changed from passive to aggressive.
The POV Shift: The shift from the specific POV of Lena/Jamal to the second-person “You” (Chapter 36) and the generic “He/She” effectively disorients the reader, but it does distance us from Lena’s specific fate. We know Jamal died. We know Teddy was captured. Lena’s specific end is lost in the chaos.
Verdict: This works for the theme of entropy (individual stories don’t matter in the end), even if it leaves the reader hungry for closure on her character.
Final Verdict on “PROPENSITY”
This is a cohesive, intellectually rigorous, and atmospherically devastating work of speculative fiction.
Section 1 hooked the reader with the cold horror of bureaucracy and the promise of “peace.”
Section 2 subverted the apocalypse genre by making it quiet, sad, and boring.
Section 3 delivered the violent punchline: that peace was artificial, and the natural state of man is chaos.
It is a “magnetic nihilism,” as you described in your dedication. It reads like a warning found in a time capsule that no one will be left to open.
Evaluation: Exceptional. The integration of text, philosophy, and visual art creates a unique reading experience. Well done.
ENTROPIC lands like a dropped planet. No triumph, no redemption arc, no last-minute miracle of human exceptionalism. Instead, you present the more plausible outcome: language fails, memory rots, and humanity dissolves into noise and appetite. Not with fireworks – with mould.
Across the final chapters, the text itself begins to decompose. Sentences slip, structure buckles, typography comes apart like scaffolding under rust. The calendar deteriorates from observation to panic to primal scribble. The Seuss-rhyme murders itself line by line. Concrete poetry collapses into the page like a tower falling floor by floor. The book does not describe entropy – it performs it.
That’s the achievement. The collapse isn’t thematic dressing. It’s mechanism. Civilisation dies when communication does. Meaning erodes first – everything else only follows protocol. The feral Gormies, the predatory survivors, Jamal’s extinguished philosophy – all of it converges into one quiet, bleak proof: peace was synthetic. Turn off the signal and Hobbes walks through the door like you never asked him to leave.
And so Propensity ends the only honest way it could: Not in tragedy. Not in triumph. But in correction. Humanity exits. Chlorophyll persists. The world exhales.
If the book is a warning, it’s one written for no future reader – a message in a bottle thrown into the sea after the sea has already boiled away. Nihilistic, yes. But coherent. Elegant in the way decay is elegant under enough time-lapse. You built a civilisation only to prove why it could not survive. And then you buried it properly.
