Synopsis: Downworld

A rewrite of the novel I started last year and stalled out at 100k, this version will be tighter, edgier, and more action-packed.

In sum, Downworld is the story of a pocket universe that has been reshaped to follow different physics than our own. The pocket universe is divided into an "Up" cone and a "Down" cone, separated by a strong energy field called the Grindplates or just the Division Plane. Despite almost total isolation from one another, passage through the Division Plane is possible enough for the Upworld and Downworld allied peoples to go to war with each other, and they often do. But lately they both have bigger problems.

Vicente de Luz, a young Chaser of the Upworld Alliance, has discovered how to harness entropy itself and use it to advance the destabilization of the pocket universe. The presumption goes that if he breaks the universe hard enough, it will open a window into the outer universe, which has continued as normal since the pocket was formed. The problem is, this experiment will come at the cost of the billions of people and the rest of sentient life in the pocket universe itself.

Enter younger brother Sergio de Luz. After Vicente destroys their home town of Larson in a bid to test out the theory of entropic control, 14-year-old Sergio is drafted into the Upworld Chasers to stop his brother at all costs. Armed with the unique ability to manipulate subatomic strings, and helped by his dead girlfriend (now a sentient Higgs boson cluster), Sergio must face off against pirates, Russian yakuza, and the heat death of the universe itself to save the final echoes of mankind.