SHANEGORMLEY
Novels
NEW BY
SHANE GORMLEY
As many of you may know I am not a published author so the title of this page may be somewhat misleading. However, I am working on several novels. Initially I started to write a fantasy novel but I then got distracted with university and work and the novel got put on hold. I have also been collaborating on a novel with Edward Harvey for the past two or three years, however my moving to America has dramatically slowed down the process. We have finished the first draft of the novel and are in the process of editing it and starting the second.
Finally, I come to the novel I am currently working on. I first thought of the concept at the beginning of 2013. I spent a long time mulling over the basic premise and working out a rough idea for a plot. I was in my final year at university and was also preparing to move to America and planning for the birth of my first child so the novel was once again on a back burner. It is not until recently that I have been able to really knuckle down and get into writing it on a daily basis. For the first time in many years I have free time in which to be creative.
The premise of this (as yet unnamed) novel is exploring the afterlife. The protagonist of the novel, Oscar, dies and wakes up to find himself in a strange new world and his family and friends are gone. The novel explores the importance of memories in shaping who you are and also picks at the scab of human insecurity. Memories of loved ones become haunting nightmares and hellish demons prowl the wilds praying on human souls. The unknown story of what happens to us after we die is daunting and often, as children gave us restless nights. This novel manipulates our fear of the unknown to create an unsettling world, yet also challenges the readers’ notion of the afterlife and makes us wonder once more what might be waiting for us.
Click the image to open the novel.
The notion for this story came to me because I studied psychology. I was intrigued with mental illness and my interest slowly formed into the idea for a story. The final piece of the puzzle came to me when studying English literature at university as I was introduced to the term aporia. Aporia is an irresolvable internal contradiction or logical disjunction in a text, argument, or theory. In other terms it is a state of uncertainty within the text where the reader, and often the protagonists, are unsure what is actually happening.
The ultimate aim of this novel is to create two parallel stories: one in a realistic world; one in a fantasy world. The protagonist, Douglas, has a predisposition for mental illness and so we cannot determine whether the corresponding fantasy element of the story is actually happening or if it is a figment of Douglas’ imagination. His potential mental illness also acts to blur and confuse the story that takes place in the real world as he is as an unreliable narrator. Follow Douglas and Solugad as they journey through two parallel universes or one man’s head, battling foes, escaping insane asylums and discovering unlikely links between the two men who never knew each other existed.
Click the image to open the novel.
My collaboration with Edward Harvey is a grand fantasy narrative that details Damius’ journey through a war torn kingdom. It is entirely Ed’s brain child, a story that he has developed and honed over many years. Along the way I was recruited to his team and together we have written the first novel and planned the next two.
The winds of fate (blown unknowingly by the mysterious immortal Morgan) weave together an unlikely travelling party whose quest it becomes to retrieve the fragmented remnants of the shadow blade and return them to the Dorjan realm before more unsavoury hands can. Damius, a great warrior in his prime who has now slipped into a drunken melancholy, leads the unskilled Kallis, the beautiful succubus Millennia and a buxom wench he saved from a pig pen across many continents, fighting elves, dorjans, humans and demons along the way all in the name of lost honour. Can Damius beat his foes and defeat his own demons or will this rag tag team of adventurers meet their demise?
Click the image to open the novel.
