“We” will never go to Mars. Well, I won’t.
Matthew Porges
All articles by this author
February 13, 2025
Mission Drift
What would an authentic spy novel be authentic about?
It hardly matters for this purpose whether the new spy writers, late of their intelligence agencies, can produce basically competent thrillers; they all can. The question is what else they can do, what new spin they can put on the established library of espionage tropes. What value can their past intelligence careers confer? And if that value is bound up, in whatever way, with authenticity, then what is authenticity doing that makes it valuable?
