His work generally concerns
space exploration and
climate change. In 2016, he signed a publishing contract with
HarperCollins to write a book titled ''The Mission, or: How a Disciple of Carl Sagan, an Ex-Motocross Racer, a Texas Tea Party Congressman, the World's Worst Typewriter Saleswoman, California Mountain People, and an Anonymous NASA Functionary Went to War with Mars, Survived an Insurgency at Saturn, Traded Blows with Washington, and Stole a Ride on an Alabama Moon Rocket to Send a Space Robot to Jupiter in Search of the Second Garden of Eden at the Bottom of an Alien Ocean Inside of an Ice World Called Europa (A True Story)'', about NASA's
Europa exploration program. It is categorized as
creative nonfiction, and was published in 2021. Previously, he co-authored
Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry and ''The Command: Deep Inside the President's Secret Army
with The Atlantic'' editor
Marc Ambinder. Both books were published by
John Wiley & Sons. His first book,
Red Planet Noir, won the 2010
Next Generation Indie Book Award for Science Fiction. In 2019, he signed a second publishing contract with HarperCollins to write a memoir titled
The Outside Cats, about two expeditions to
Antarctica that he joined. He described the second expedition, to
Thwaites Glacier, in an essay published in the November 28, 2022 issue of
The New Yorker. Brown is a former U.S. Army paratrooper and a veteran of Afghanistan. He holds a
Master of Fine Arts in
Creative Writing from
University of Arkansas at Monticello and a
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from
Louisiana State University. == Published works ==