Swarm 700: Behind the Scenes

First, a promise: this essay is spoiler-free. I won't discuss the plot, the characters, or any specific scenes from Swarm 700. If you haven't read the book, you can read this without anything being given away. If you have, I hope it adds a layer to what you already know.

What I want to talk about instead is the thinking behind it. Why a physician would write a techno-thriller at all, what questions kept me interested, and how habits I picked up in medicine ended up shaping the way the book is built.

Why a techno-thriller

I've always liked stories that move. Thrillers make a promise to the reader: something is at stake, time is short, and you'll want to know what happens next. I find that promise satisfying to read and challenging to keep as a writer.

The "techno" part matters to me just as much. Technology is now woven into almost everything we do, from how we communicate to how we receive medical care. Most of the time it works so smoothly that we stop noticing it. The techno-thriller is one of the few genres built to make us notice again. It asks what happens when the tools we rely on behave in ways we didn't plan for.

That question is exciting on the page. It is also a genuinely important one off the page.

Technology and human judgment

The questions that interest me most aren't really about machines. They're about people. Who decides how a technology is used? Who is accountable when it goes wrong? How do we balance the speed and power of a system against the slower, messier work of human judgment?

Those questions don't have tidy answers, which is exactly why fiction is a good place to explore them. A story lets you put people under pressure and watch how they choose. It lets you hold competing values side by side without forcing a neat resolution. I wanted Swarm 700 to be fun to read, but I also wanted it to leave readers turning those questions over afterward.

What a clinician brings to a thriller

I didn't set out to write a "doctor's thriller." But the way medicine trains you to think leaks into everything, and fiction is no exception.

Paying attention to systems that fail

Clinical work makes you very aware of how complex systems break down. Problems are rarely caused by one dramatic mistake. More often, small issues line up in the wrong order, and the safeguards that usually catch them don't. That pattern is the engine of good suspense. Readers feel tension when they can see the pieces sliding toward trouble before the characters do.

Taking consequences seriously

In medicine, decisions have real effects on real people. That habit makes me impatient with stories where actions don't seem to cost anything. In a thriller, I want choices to matter. If a character takes a risk, there should be a price, and the reader should feel it.

Living with ethical gray areas

Clinicians regularly face situations without a perfect option, only better and worse ones. That experience makes me want to write characters who wrestle with tradeoffs rather than characters who are simply right or wrong. The most interesting conflict, to me, is between people who each have a reasonable point.

Craft notes

Pacing

A thriller lives or dies on pacing. I think of it as a rhythm of pressure and release. Readers need moments to catch their breath, but those moments should still carry a sense that something is coming. I try to end chapters with a reason to keep going and to cut anything that only slows the momentum without adding meaning.

A research mindset

Medicine teaches you to respect what you don't know and to check before you assume. I brought that attitude to the writing. Even in fiction, I want the technical side to feel plausible to someone who knows the territory. Readers can tell when a writer hasn't done the homework, and once that trust breaks, the tension goes with it.

Keeping technical detail readable

This is the same problem I face when writing plain-language books for patients: how do you explain something complicated without losing the reader? My rule is that technical detail should serve the story, never the other way around. If a reader needs to understand something to feel the stakes, I explain it simply and move on. If they don't, it probably belongs in my notes, not on the page.

Writing for patients and writing thrillers turned out to sharpen each other. Both demand clarity. Both punish the urge to show off what you know.

Who might enjoy it

I wrote Swarm 700 for readers who like their suspense with some ideas underneath it. If you enjoy techno-thrillers, stories about technology with real-world stakes, or fiction that raises ethical questions without lecturing, it may be your kind of book. You don't need a technical or medical background to follow along. That was one of my main goals.

If you prefer slow, quiet literary fiction, this probably isn't the book for you, and that's fine. Every story has its readers.

A connection to the rest of my work

The same instincts that drive Swarm 700 show up in the games we're building at Mirrorshard Studios: interest in systems, attention to how people experience them, and a love of worlds with clear rules. I write about that side in building worlds at Mirrorshard Studios.

If you'd like to read the book, you can find it on the Swarm 700 page. And if you've already read it, thank you. Writing a book is a long, solitary process, and knowing that someone spent time with it means a great deal.