This week on the Munn Avenue Muse, Charlie Levin sat down with author John Kuendig to discuss his new technothriller, The Good Club, a novel built around a question that refuses to go away:
What if some of the things dismissed as conspiracy theories turned out to be true?
For John, that question wasn’t born in a writer’s room. It started during heated debates with his brother, who followed QAnon and other fringe theories. After one particularly spirited exchange, John found himself walking along the San Francisco shoreline wrestling with a thought he couldn’t shake.
“What if he’s right?”
That single question became the foundation for The Good Club, a story set thirty years in the future where power, technology, and control intersect in unsettling ways.
Building Fiction on a Foundation of Fact
One of the reasons the novel feels so believable is the amount of research behind it.
John spent countless hours investigating emerging technologies, studying scientific papers, and testing whether some of the book’s more alarming concepts could actually work. He used Google Earth to map streets in Taiwan so that action scenes would unfold exactly as they would in real life.
It’s the kind of attention to detail that separates a good thriller from one that keeps readers awake at night.
The Unexpected Writing Secret
Like most authors, John battled writer’s block.
His solution wasn’t forcing words onto the page. Instead, he stepped away. A movie, a walk, another book, or simply giving his brain room to work often sparked the breakthroughs he needed.
Ironically, his biggest burst of productivity came after hip replacement surgery. With four weeks of forced downtime, he finally pushed the manuscript across the finish line.
Not a writing strategy most of us are eager to try, but effective nonetheless.
Learning to Trust the Reader
One of the biggest lessons John learned during the publishing process was a familiar one: show, don’t tell.
Rather than telling readers a character is embarrassed, show the flushed face. Show the hesitation. Show the reaction.
He also discovered the importance of raising questions immediately. Munn’s early editorial feedback led him to completely rethink his opening chapter, creating a stronger sense of mystery and urgency from the very first pages.
More Than a Thriller
At the heart of the novel, The Good Club explores a timeless danger: what happens when people become so convinced they’re right that they begin viewing anyone who disagrees as a problem to be eliminated.
History offers plenty of examples of where that road can lead.
What makes the novel resonate beyond the thriller genre is the question it leaves readers with:
What happens when good intentions become justification for control?
The answer may be fiction.
For now…
🎧 Listen to the full episode of The Munn Avenue Muse featuring John Kuendig wherever you get your podcasts.
📘 The Good Club is available now at:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Bookshop.org
✍️ ✍️ If you are working through your own story, whether it is personal, professional, or somewhere in between, Munn Avenue Press can help you shape it into something lasting. If you are ready to publish your book or audiobook, or are just beginning to explore the idea, visit MunnAvenuePress.com to learn more.
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Happy Writing,
Charlie Levin
Publisher & Founder
