J.M. Burke writes geopolitical and technological fiction about systems under pressure, institutions confronting uncertainty, and the consequences that follow when confident predictions collide with human behavior. Burke is the author of The Unmodeled War series from Iron & Shell Press.
The fiction explores emerging technology, intelligence, strategy, power, institutional failure, and the widening gap between what complex systems are designed to predict and what actually happens. Burke is particularly interested in moments when decision-makers have abundant information, sophisticated models, and no reliable way to know whether either is telling them the truth.
The machinery matters, but the human decision remains at the center. These stories ask what governments, institutions, adversaries, and individuals do when the systems built to reduce uncertainty become part of the uncertainty themselves.
Burke’s novels begin where certainty ends.