My Next Book: The Lasting Lands

I’m a linguist and software developer obsessed with “dreampunk,” the weird hippie cousin of cyberpunk. Among other projects—notably Mirrormaze (2020), Dreck (2023), and Somniscope (2024)—I’ve spent the past decade crafting a 106,000-word science fantasy novel to live in the space between Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books and the animated miniseries Over the Garden Wall, with just a touch of Jeff-VanderMeer-style weird SF thrown in.

THE LASTING LANDS is a story about stories, how they come to life and grow into something beyond their authors’ understanding or control. In the novel, we follow ten-year-old Adelaide Batiste—as well as her “sister” Ada, who lives inside her head—down a rabbit hole into an ancient Martian civilization. The tale starts off strongly reminiscent of both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but over the course of three distinct “books,” its point of view fractures into multiple threads, and we gradually find ourselves in a collection of connected tales spanning multiple centuries and layers of reality. Through it all, Adelaide struggles to find peace and reunite with her family while Ada’s true identity and eerie abilities call everything into question.

So what do you think, folks? Do I have a shot at finding a literary agent for this? I’d really like to go all out on this one with a big release and an audiobook and translations and everything. Please let me know if you have any agent recommendations because the hunt is on.