Projection

by Alan Boyce

What would it be like to leave your body behind when you fall asleep? Shaun Strong knows. He’s been doing it since he was a boy. Unfortunately, Shaun is also a doormat who goes along with whatever his self-proclaimed genius friend Keith suggests. Two losers and a special power (even one with significant restrictions…) make for a volatile combination. Setting up as small-time blackmailers, they stumble upon a plot hatched by a Surrey tech entrepreneur who pictures himself as a Nietzschean superman. When blackmail turns to murder, Shaun discovers that even if you're an astral traveller, sometimes there's nowhere to hide... And now he’s dead. Not for the first time… PROJECTION is a hilarious mind-bending, body-swapping, (sub) urban fantasy/thriller; a magical realist satire that addresses voyeurism, the nature of identity, contemporary masculinity, and taxidermy. Having accidentally manifested himself at a murder scene, Shaun and the killer race to hunt one another down. Captured, held prisoner in an empty office building and forced to serve as a psychic spy, Shaun's attempts to escape lead him into the first of several fatal accidents... But then he comes back. Different from before. And with some unlikely assistance, he goes looking for revenge.  PROJECTION is the debut novel by Alan Boyce.

372 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 16, 2020

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Marriott, deputy books editor of The Times, tweeted today: "If I ever describe a book as “darkly comic” please take me to the vet and have me put down. It would be for my own good." So my challenge today is to describe Projection without using this phrase, even though it's dark, SO dark (Shaun, our anti-hero, dies not once but three times), and also extremely comical.

Shaun really is quite a useless not-that-young-anymore man. What he lacks in ambition he fails to make up for in social graces. He is, happily, blessed with the rather unusual skill of astral projection. Like anyone with too much time on their hands and the capacity to fly through the fifth dimension, he spends most of his time seeking out opportunities to watch people having sex. But when he meets Keith, the twosome work out that money can be made, mostly through blackmail and coercion.

So far, so bleak. When they happen upon the more menacing side of blackmail, which involves a red-trousered Surrey businessman and his grim Russian henchman with a penchant for engineering, things get bleaker still.

It would not be a spoiler to describe 'Projection' as Alesteir Crowley meets Breaking Bad. It's wonderfully quirky, funny, brilliantly paced (I read the whole thing in two days and have been chuckling about it every since), and extremely British. Dare I say darkly comic?

[Sarah Bowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a debut novel, this turned out to be both interesting and compelling. Whilst the plot was a little difficult to follow at times, the humour used to engage the reader meant I didn’t want to put it down until I finished it. An unusual take on an unusual subject, I would highly recommend giving this a go. At times, I chuckled out loud at some the descriptive language used and the intricate plot twists at times were both shocking and intriguing.
A great debut from Alan Boyce!

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good.