The novel

I am seeking representation for INCURSION, my contemporary dark speculative novel, complete at about 140,000 words. It blends the intricacy of Scott Hawkin’s The Library at Mount Char with the brutality of Christopher Buehlman’s Between Two Fires. For its protagonist, imagine a mix of John Brown, Louis Penny’s Inspector Gamache, and an eldritch abomination; make him Irish; then give him severe depression. In that last regard he is informed by my own experiences with mental illness, though fortunately my depression was never personified in the form of a thinking, plotting carcass of a would-be god.

One must, I know, be grateful for the little things.

As for the story…

Our world is a nightmare of violence and oppression for many. It may seem like crimes against humanity are an inevitability, some immutable law of the universe, something we are powerless to prevent. A lie with which we comfort ourselves. When Darren Green, a man with near-godlike telekinetic abilities, makes himself known and begins to intervene, our civilisation is thrown into turmoil and hope burns anew in the dark. He must, therefore, be stopped.

But Darren discovers there is something worse than all the tyrants of Earth. The murderers of the first universe strain against the walls of their prison beneath reality. They come to unmake everything, including the past, so nothing will have ever been. And one of us has been convinced to help them.

Now, Darren must find this agent, and figure out how to stop them, before they can break these Unmakers free. He will find allies, some hidden for millennia, others right under his nose. He will be told lies and half-truths about where he comes from. And the powerful of our world will continue their attempts to kill him, in pursuit of stability at the expense of justice.

But Darren fears an even greater threat, a monster he has fought against his entire life, and the only thing he truly hates: himself. Will the black hole of his own depression finally destroy his crumbling psyche and, with it, our only chance to survive, or will he at last be able to accept what he truly is?

I am recovering from a successful career in the tech industry. I was born and lived most of my life in Ireland, but have made a home in Connecticut with my wife and two children. This will be my debut.

If you are a literary agent, you can request the full manuscript below.

Blog posts about Incursion:

• The politics of the protagonist

• Destruction versus unmaking

• Improving a deleted scene series:

  1. Deleted scene

  2. A question of character

  3. An improved scene

• Short story:

  • Can’t even go for a walk