The book is to be the first in his Iron Spires Trilogy.

The book is a military science fiction novella set in the near-future city of Iron Spires. The protagonist, Atoll, a young soldier, finds the course of his life changed after an assignment to the notorious, violence-wracked metropolis. Along the way, the terrible conditions of the war will take their toll not only on Atoll, but on the comrades he relies on, causing tensions to boil over and eventually ignite.

“Its a good almost character study about a small group of characters,” Ulland-Joy said, “and reflects on human nature a little bit as they are thrust into the forsaken city, Iron Spires, which is nasty climate, it’s a story about how they react to it. The main character is kind of finding his way I guess. He’s very new at his job which is a soldier, I’m not a soldier or anything but he’s finding his place in the military and in the world and that’s definitely something that I’ve been having to do as I’m becoming a writer.”

Ulland-Joy began writing novels in elementary school and was influenced by books like “Dune,” “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings.” He has been writing since he was in fifth grade, when he completed his first novel, called “Wraith Wars.”

He entered his first writing competition at the age of 13. Ulland-Joy won a silver national medal and Best-In-Grade Award for the eighth grade Midwest region in the 2019 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

“I have a great head start, I got access to a lot of great resources and information, I hope it grows from here, I have plans to write more books.”

“Forsaken City” was published by Fox Pointe Publishing, a Minnesota-based publishing company. The manuscript was completed in 2021 and recently published on July 20.

For more information on Ulland-Joy or to purchase “Forsaken City” visit liamullandjoy.com.

Brennan White can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 248. His email address is bwhite@miningjournal.net.