Brian Connolly is a dystopian fiction author from Skibbereen in West Cork, now living in Whitegate with his wife and three children. His love of storytelling began in primary school, and he was writing screenplays and had completed his first novel by fifth year of secondary school. He studied at Ballyfermot College of Further Education and worked on film sets, including the 2001 production of Disco Pigs in Kerry alongside actor Cillian Murphy. A self-described "unapologetic fan of the dystopian genre," he is the author of the debut novel Warstate, in which an officer attempts to desert a brutal, conscription-driven war to save his younger brother, and its follow-up Annihilation Theory, about an ex-police officer who confronts the leader of a doomsday cult.