As ancient horrors come to unmake reality, a political radical with strange abilities—a modern-day twist on John Brown—sets out to find some way he might deny them a foothold in our world. But of all the monsters he faces, he fears himself the most.
Dark contemporary SFF • 130K words • Elements of psychological and cosmic horror • Character-driven • Apocalyptic stakes • Informed, visceral portrayal of depression • Deeply humanitarian • Irish humour, grim and absurd • Single timeline, aside from that one guy • Autistic-coded protagonist
What’s the plot?
Darren Green learned much as a child. That shadows can come for you. That adults don’t like it when you tell them what they’re thinking. That you can’t let people see who you are because they will fear and walk away instead of stay and understand, because there’s something inscrutably wrong about you. That maybe you don’t deserve to exist.
At 32, he has grown into near god-like telekinetic abilities of unknown provenance, and begun a mission to free those pinned beneath the boots of despots, and end crimes against humanity. Something to keep living for. But to those powerful who crave order over justice, he must be stopped. Be discredited. If possible, be killed.
While preventing a massacre, he finds something deep in the woods: a sickening presence, overflowing with hate, that vanishes as he nears. Worse, it felt strangely familiar. As he investigates this unsettling connection, he discovers a nightmarish threat: an ancient evil is coming to unmake reality itself. They’ve already found someone here to help them, and time is running out.
Darren is a broken man, facing a hatred from beyond, as the world turns against him. But the monster he fears most is himself.
Sure, but what is it about?
Neurodivergent people often grow up thinking they are broken. I certainly did. We see the differences between us and most others, have difficulties interacting with our peers, and believe these are signs we must be defective.
Over decades, these thoughts can fester. I thought I was not just broken, but something anathema to society if not reality itself. Others picked up on it. How else to explain my life? In time, I became certain I was a monster, and didn’t deserve to exist.
In reality, I was neurodivergent and had severe depression. It nearly killed me but, with a great deal of help, I came to terms with being different, and accept that I am a person more good than not.
A Weapon Undone takes that emotional journey and cranks it up to eleven. It uses the tools of genre fiction to explore what it means to be different and to hate yourself for it… and to show there is such a thing as a good monster.
Comparative titles
The Library at Mount Char
The Library contains an intricately arranged series of events that, it is revealed, have been orchestrated by the protagonist to further her goals. In Weapon…, there is also a hidden hand at work. It is built to be enjoyed in new ways on second and subsequent reads, with certain events and characters recast in the light of later information.
Darkness Visible
Darkness Visible shows Styron’s descent into extremes of clinical depression, culminating in his near-suicide. Styron describes his experiences (along with notes on the experiences of others), whereas with Weapon…, I hope to give the reader not a description but a visceral sense of the disease.
Between Two Fires
Between Two Fires frequently slips into displays of the brutal and the ethereal. In Weapon…, Darren has set himself against the tyranny, cruelty, and oppression of our world—and therefore finds himself in many nightmarish situations. He is tormented by a being that comes in the form of a preacher, who forces him to forget, and his experience of events is not always in order.
Use of Weapons
Like Use of Weapons, Weapon… is character-driven genre fiction. Both are structurally inventive, and end in a way that dramatically reframes the text. The similarity in their titles is, however, unintentional.
More about the book
Set in the here and now
The world of the book is a fictionalised version of our own. But this world exists inside a bubble of blissful ignorance, which is about to be popped.
Structurally inventive
Even-numbered chapters are third-person past-tense. Odd-numbered chapters are first-person present-tense. The protagonist is (intentionally) almost never the POV character in the third-person chapters.
Strong series potential
There are two planned follow-ups, both plotted out, and for the immediate sequel the opening 20K words are at final draft stage.
Social justice nightmare fuel
Imagine something from beyond dreamt himself into reality as a man, and took on our world’s tyrants, because to him humans matter and you don’t get to mistreat them, and you do NOT want to piss the eldritch abomination off. Darren can be terrifying, and his presence has led people to fall catatonic, have seizures, soil themselves, or fall into unhinged religious fervour—absolutely none of which was intentional on his part.
Plays with time
Though everything happens in linear order for the reader (aside from a handful of flashbacks), some of the characters do not experience things in that order. One character meets past and future versions of themselves, and another doesn’t even start to exist until after the novel has ended.
Deeply humanitarian
To quote Darren: ‘Every damn place I look, I see people with boots on their necks, because some small-minded man treats them as grist for the mill. As if others people’s lives are a resource to which they are entitled. And the excuses… O I’ve heard so many, for how things are, and why it must stay this way. But they’re so fucking hollow. If I can stop any of this, I have to. I don’t have a choice. Because they are people and they fucking matter!’
Irish sense of humour
One big difference I’ve noticed between the United States and Ireland is that, in the US, people expect jokes in limited contexts, whereas in Ireland, your whole life is a joke, because life is fucking ridiculous. In the face of pain and suffering, you might as well laugh.
Contact me
Email me at david.barrett@gmail.com, or use the form below.
About me
I was born and lived most of my life in Ireland, but have made a home in Connecticut with my wife and two children, and about a month ago welcomed two cats of whom I remain deeply suspicious.
I am recovering from a successful career in the tech industry. The company I co-founded, Fin (née Intercom), recently sold to Salesforce.