The Silverhand Saga
The Silver Hand of Tara
After a brutal crash, teen Finn O’Reilly wakes with a sentient silver arm Nuada’s ancient weapon. Haunted by gods, hunted by Fomorians, and barely holding onto sanity, he must wield a legacy he doesn’t understand while searching for his missing sister Orla. Myth collides with madness as Ireland’s oldest prophecies begin to bleed into the modern world.
Publisher/Lit agency needed · Completed
The Bird King’s Promise
Finn dives into the truth of his ancestry and faces the weight of becoming something more than human. His bond with Barnibus deepens as they unravel family legacies and realize the god Nuada’s bloodline never died, it just changed. Orla’s magic grows darker. The world shifts. And no one is ready.
Work in Progress
The Cailleach’s Hunger
Orla’s root magic begins to freeze, not, ice roots, frozen trees, and terrifying whispers of something older than Danu. She’s no longer just heir to power. She’s being hunted by something colder than death. As winter spreads, the Cailleach awakens.
Coming Soon
The Drowned Throne
Beneath Galway Bay, Finn and Brigid descend into Bres’s sunken kingdom. The ocean doesn’t forget, and Orla remembers everything. Why? That’s the mystery. Ancient forces converge undersea, and the war for Ireland’s future starts with what lies beneath.
Coming Soon
The Crow’s Gambit
The Morrígan’s prophecy fractures and blood stains the board. Finn must choose between saving Orla, or saving Ireland. Secrets unravel, gods play their final hands, and the board is set. The blood is real.
Coming Soon
Small-Town Nonfiction
Small Town, No Filter
Not fiction. Not satire. Just what actually goes down in a small town—money, rumors, church politics, football heroes, quiet kindness, petty power plays, and the stuff nobody writes down. Names masked, truth intact.
Work in Progress
Satire
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Sharper than a parish newsletter after two pints. A comedic swing at small-town archetypes: the committee lifer, the WhatsApp warrior, the “concerned citizen,” and the man who’s chaired everything since ’98.
In Development
[Satire Title #2]
Short, viciously accurate sketches of meetings that should’ve been emails and emails that started wars. Laugh first, then recognize your neighbor.
Concept Stage
Leadership Series
Invisible Bias
Generational tensions and cultural microaggressions are often invisible, but their impact is not. This book explores how stereotypes, outdated assumptions, and unconscious behaviors erode collaboration and inclusion, and offers strategies to dismantle those hidden barriers.
Mentor Without a Title
Leadership is behavior, not a job description. Presence, consistency, and courage matter more than rank, this field guide equips professionals at any level to influence culture, set standards, and build trust across generations.
Old School Professionalism
Professionalism is not optional, it is the foundation of trust and performance. From clarity in communication to visible ownership and accountability, these standards rebuild credibility in teams and organizations.
“Old school Professionalism is not a Boomer playbook. It is a modern guide to driving efficiency, strengthening accountability, and streamlining communication so teams can optimize outputs and build trust faster.” — Kenneth Lanewood, 25-year Global IT Professional
Servant Leadership (Coming Soon)
A field guide for building environments where people succeed. It reframes servant leadership not as softness, but as clarity, protection, and multiplying trust across teams.
Coming Soon
Self Help
Leaving the US
This book is a practical and honest guide for those considering building a life outside the United States. It covers planning, relocation, cultural adjustment, and the legal realities of emigration. It is not a fantasy or an escape plan, but a roadmap that helps readers make informed decisions about one of the biggest moves of their lives.
Speculative Nonfiction
Generational Impact
A sharp, scenario-driven examination of what happens when policy is drafted by digital immigrants for a nation of digital natives. Part analysis, part forecast, this book models near-future crises—AI misfires, privacy theatre, cybersecurity blind spots—and maps practical reforms that close the competence gap between lawmakers and the people they serve.
Work in Progress
Historical Fiction
Maps and Misfits
A lyrical family chronicle told as bedtime stories to grandkids—tracking the Dunn paternal line from windswept history all the way back to Zeus (with a wink). Tales of sailors, saints, rebels, and unreliable gods braid myth with memory, until the final chapter flips the frame: great-grandchildren keeping vigil at the narrator’s bedside, finishing the map he started.
In Development
Essays & Articles
Ambiguity Is a Joke—But the System’s Laughing at Us
From Equifax’s “sophisticated actors” to vague AI ethics theatre, leaders across tech and policy deploy strategic vagueness to dodge accountability. This essay exposes how ambiguity has become a deliberate shield used to mask failure and hoard power.
Available for publishing
Code. Cut. Repeat. (Series)
A three‑part series exploring how AI‑driven “efficiency” is gutting white‑collar work. Part I chronicles mass layoffs disguised as innovation, Part II charts an accelerating projection of displacement through 2035, and Part III offers survival strategies for a collapsing employment model.
Available for publishing
The Effortless Mind: How AI Is Training a Generation to Unlearn Everything
Generative AI promises instant answers but erodes the cognitive effort at the heart of learning. Drawing on psychological research and Irish education data, this piece argues that outsourcing thinking to chatbots creates overconfidence, dependency, and intellectual fragility—and calls for a reevaluation of how we teach and work with AI.
Available for publishing
Ignorance by Design: How U.S. Tech Policy Became a Political Punchline
From gag‑order clauses hidden in infrastructure bills to vapid age‑verification laws and contradictory drone regulation, U.S. lawmakers are crafting tech legislation for optics rather than oversight. This essay dissects the stunning techno‑illiteracy and political theatre shaping AI, privacy, and data policy.
Available for publishing
Return to Office: A Power Grab Masquerading as Policy
Mandating butts‑in‑seats isn’t about collaboration—it’s about control. With evidence from big tech layoffs and Irish housing data, this essay argues that RTO demands are a cultural counterattack from executives clinging to relevance, and it highlights the growing “Irish Exit” as workers quietly plan their way out.
Available for publishing
The New Gatekeepers
Big Tech once celebrated meritocracy, but AI‑driven restructuring now locks out the average engineer. Layoffs, inflated credential requirements, role creep, and opaque metrics have created an industry built on exclusion. This piece explores how algorithms and leadership rhetoric are hollowing out the profession.
Available for publishing
Irish Examiner Feature
A published profile on Michael Dunn, exploring how his Silverhand Saga blends myth with modernity and how his career as a technologist and father of five informs his storytelling.
Remote Work & Creativity
In this published piece, Michael discusses how remote work reshapes creativity and productivity, drawing from his own life in Kenmare and observations of the global tech industry.
About Michael
Michael Dunn is an American‑born author living in Kenmare, Ireland. A father of five, technologist, and PhD researcher in memory and communication, he writes stories that crack open myth and bleed it into modern life. His work has been featured in the Irish Examiner, and his nonfiction includes the book Exit Strategy. When not writing, he’s making tea or dodging questions from sentient children.