Broken Eye Books is publishing The Dying Empire by Remy Nakamura as an ongoing serial of weird fiction short stories. This is a fungal dieselpunk setting centered in 19th-century Japan. It's a world in which the British fuel their rise to power on fungal biotech instead of on coal, steam, and steel.
"Steampunk makes it easy to glorify the British Empire and to gloss over its abuses," says Remy, "but in The Dying Empire, its fungal-fueled might brings its reliance on plunder and decay to the surface. (Her Majesty’s giant puffball airships and zombie soldiers need to feed, or they won’t last long. China fights back with gunpowder and petroleum-based weapons. And caught in between are the isolationist Japanese.)
"The Dying Empire will follow the adventures of an outcaste woman with forbidden fungal powers, a young secret agent caught between love and country, an aging Kabuki actor turned private investigator, and an intelligent idealistic octopus. They find one another and form an unusual alliance. The story starts close and personal but expands as this team of misfits unwinds the tangle of intrigue within Edo and discovers the secrets that fuel Britain’s technological supremacy.
"On a more personal level, this novella gives me the opportunity to explore the relationship of the living to the dying and the dead. This obsession started when I was younger, after I dressed the cold body of one relative in ritual clothing and carefully picked out the cremated bones of another to place into an ornate urn. Mushrooms and mold abound in this world, and they represent a bridge of sorts between life and death, feeding on decay as they do and clearing the way for new life. "
The Dying Empire will be exclusively offered on the Broken Eye Books Patreon with new chapters released regularly to patrons (every other month or so). The first installment will be released to patrons in August/September. Once the first season of The Dying Empire is complete (in 2018), it will be collected and made available to everyone in print and ebook format.
"Steampunk makes it easy to glorify the British Empire and to gloss over its abuses," says Remy, "but in The Dying Empire, its fungal-fueled might brings its reliance on plunder and decay to the surface. (Her Majesty’s giant puffball airships and zombie soldiers need to feed, or they won’t last long. China fights back with gunpowder and petroleum-based weapons. And caught in between are the isolationist Japanese.)
"The Dying Empire will follow the adventures of an outcaste woman with forbidden fungal powers, a young secret agent caught between love and country, an aging Kabuki actor turned private investigator, and an intelligent idealistic octopus. They find one another and form an unusual alliance. The story starts close and personal but expands as this team of misfits unwinds the tangle of intrigue within Edo and discovers the secrets that fuel Britain’s technological supremacy.
"On a more personal level, this novella gives me the opportunity to explore the relationship of the living to the dying and the dead. This obsession started when I was younger, after I dressed the cold body of one relative in ritual clothing and carefully picked out the cremated bones of another to place into an ornate urn. Mushrooms and mold abound in this world, and they represent a bridge of sorts between life and death, feeding on decay as they do and clearing the way for new life. "
The Dying Empire will be exclusively offered on the Broken Eye Books Patreon with new chapters released regularly to patrons (every other month or so). The first installment will be released to patrons in August/September. Once the first season of The Dying Empire is complete (in 2018), it will be collected and made available to everyone in print and ebook format.
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