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9 Deaths in Peacetime
In the past 16 months, 9 servicemen in the Singapore Armed Forces have passed away. The latest death occurred on 23rd January, when Corporal First Class (NS) Aloysius Pang was struck by a moving howitzer barrel during a maintenance operation. The following are my thoughts, first penned on Facebook. — The purpose of the military…
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Between Tradecraft and Thrills: Johnny Wylde
It is accepted wisdom in the thriller community that highly-trained characters must display excellent tradecraft to thrill the reader. Yet this isn’t always so. In my first post in this series, I explored the Orphan X series, in which the protagonist’s poor tradecraft sets up superior scenes; in my previous post, I showed how taking…
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Between Tradecraft and Thrills: The Brilliance Trilogy
Previously, I discussed Gregg Hurwitz’s Orphan X series and how the protagonist’s poor tradecraft set up superior scenes. The series demonstrates that you don’t need perfect tradecraft to create a superior story. However, if you throw authenticity out the window altogether, you won’t have a believable story. Case in point: Marcus Sakey’s Brilliance trilogy. In…
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Between Tradecraft and Thrills: Orphan X
New York Times bestseller Gregg Hurwitz blew into the writing scene with his debut Minutes to Burn. With his Timothy Rackley series, Hurwitz hit his stride, solidifying his position as a top-shelf thriller author. In his latest series, Orphan X, he has reached new heights, producing a magnificent blend of pulse-pounding action, complex characterisation, powerful imagery,…
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Looking Back on 2018, Planning for 2019
2018 was my most productive year yet. My focus on Pulp Speed has paid off, allowing me to write and publish more stories than I thought possible. Unfortunately, not everything went according to plan. In 2018, I published a novel and 14 short stories. If the short stories were compiled by theme, there is probably…
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PulpRev’s Wicked Problem
A couple of weeks ago over dinner, Troy Tang and I discussed some of the fundamental problems facing PulpRev. PulpRev makes for a fine umbrella term for writers to rally around, but every writer has different ideas about the direction of their own writing. This makes it hard for people to define what, exactly, is…