Christopher G. Moore · Essays
Essays
These essays are where I think out loud between novels, about crime and its fictions, about Thailand and the wider world I have written from since 1988, and about the writing life itself. They appear first on my Substack, and this page keeps pace with them, refreshing each time a new piece goes out. Read a few here, then follow on Substack to have them arrive in your inbox.
THE COLLECTIONS
Four books of essays
Published by Heaven Lake Press. Each cover opens the book on Amazon.
2011
The Cultural Detective
My first collection of essays. A behind-the-scenes look at the writing life in Thailand, drawing on anthropology, psychology, history, and crime.
2012
Faking It in Bangkok
Welcome to the world of Gangsters, gamblers, ghosts, and fortune tellers. The noir world of the Calvino novels, this time in essay form.
Latest Essays
New from the Substack
November 10, 2026
The Third Warning
The terms of service are becoming the terms of government
November 1, 2026
Who Do You Trust?
On Eisenhower’s forgotten second warning, a complex with no author, and what becomes of trust when a country is run like a corporation
October 27, 2026
The Time Capsule
On cave paintings, the quarrel over whether reading is dying, and what the future will think we were
September 29, 2026
Einstein’s Desk
On what AI removes, and the will you forgot to make
September 15, 2026
The Writer’s Battle to Be Recognised
The Master and Servant Dilemma
September 8, 2026
The Person Behind the Words
Logos, ethos, and pathos in human and AI writing
September 1, 2026
The Substack Hunger Game
Excluded elites, a flooded market, and your one asset AI cannot counterfeit
August 25, 2026
Nothing in Here Cost You Anything
The Critic, the Creator, and the Question the AI Roundtable Cannot Escape
August 18, 2026
The Gesture That Needs No Speech
Three Gestures That Changed How I Write
August 11, 2026
“What do you mean when you say that you love me?”
Doubt, naming, and the books that take us outside ourselves
August 4, 2026
The Consent You Already Gave
How the Technology Inside a 2036 Novel Is Already Shipping in 2026
July 28, 2026
No Telephones in Neuromancer
Why Novelists Get the Future Wrong in One Direction
July 18, 2026
The Shameless Class
What the crime novel taught us to see, and what it taught us to miss
July 14, 2026
Thinking in Systems
A response to “What Systems Actually Are” by The Observatory on Substack
July 7, 2026
The Claim That Cannot Be Answered
On culture as one system among many, and what happens when a claim can no longer be corrected
June 30, 2026
Locating the Orwellian Puddle
On the unspoken detail that moves a conscience, and whether it still can