Blog

This is where I write for readers who haven’t found The Ashen Flame yet: reading guides for alternate history and fantasy, and craft pieces on building fictional religions and institutions that can survive scrutiny. I’m the author of The Ashen Flame, and I say so plainly wherever it’s relevant — these aren’t disguised landing pages, they’re genuinely useful lists and essays that happen to also point toward the book.

Reading guides

Best Alternate-History Books for Readers Who Want More Than Changed Battles

A curated list of the genre’s strongest novels, chosen for how seriously they take the consequences of a changed history rather than just the change itself.

Alternate-History Books: A Reader’s Guide to the Genre

What separates alternate history from time travel, secret history and generic historical fantasy, with reading paths depending on what pulled you toward the genre in the first place.

Craft and worldbuilding

How to Build a Fictional Religion That Can Disagree With Itself

Notes from building Ateshism for The Ashen Flame: why a fictional faith needs real internal disputes, not just a tidy pantheon and a creation myth.