Kai Wai Cheah Books in Order

Kai Wai Cheah is the pen name Singapore writer Benjamin Cheah uses for some of his science fiction and fantasy. He was born in Singapore and still lives there, and a lot of his work carries the feel of a writer who has watched technology, politics, and city life change fast. As a child, he has said he wanted to be an astronaut, an inventor, and a magician. Writing turned out to be the job that let him borrow a little from all three.

He started early.

Cheah wrote his first novel at thirteen, and by his own account he had been making up stories since about age twelve. He later described himself as largely self-taught, with interests that range from science and technology to philosophy, religion, and the art of war. He has also served in the Singapore Army and practiced martial arts, which helps explain why his action scenes tend to feel technical, physical, and exact without losing momentum.

His first big break came in 2015, when Flashpoint: Titan appeared in There Will Be War Vol. X. The story, a hard military science fiction piece set near Saturn's moon Titan, went on to earn a 2016 Hugo Award nomination. That put his name in front of a wider science fiction readership and marked him out as a writer comfortable with both big ideas and combat pressure.

In 2017 he published No Gods, Only Daimons, the opening novel in The Covenant Chronicles. That series follows black ops operator Luke Langdon through a war shaped by terrorism, magic, faith, and supernatural power. The later books Hammer of the Witches and Prince of Shadows keep widening the scale, moving from covert missions and assassins to a larger clash between human factions and older powers. Readers who like military thrillers but want stranger metaphysics usually start here.

He likes pressure-cooker stories.

That also shows up in Hollow City and Unmasked, his entries in the shared-universe superhero line Heroes Unleashed. Those books center on Adam Song, also known as Amp, a superpowered cop trying to hold onto duty, family, and a moral line in a city that keeps pushing him toward vigilantism. Cheah's version of superhero fiction is less about bright costumes and big speeches, and more about raids, courtroom pressure, gang wars, and what force does to the people asked to use it.

Across both pen names, some patterns keep returning. He writes about soldiers, cops, operators, and damaged people who still believe choice matters. His stories often bring together myth, religion, espionage, and technology, but the thread running through them is usually simpler: what violence costs, what duty demands, and whether a person can come back from the things they have done. He has also published other work as Kit Sun Cheah, and he continues to write from Singapore.