2022 VERSION
Dark Fantasy • Post-Post-Apocalyptic • Political • Biotech
• WORLD GUIDE: THE MONSTERS OF KATAKOT (no spoilers) — dramatis personae, glossary
• SCHOLIA: THE MONSTERS OF KATAKOT (spoilers) — author’s thoughts and commentary
AKA “The Never-ending Novel.” I mean, whaaaat? 77 chapters is too many? My agent sent this version (I think it was this version … no, maybe she sent out the 2019 version…) out to editors, but they all said it was too long, and then I stalled out in discouragement. I am in the process of slowly rewriting it — it ain’t gonna get any shorter, but I might be able to break it into “books” — so I’m not putting the whole thing online here. I’m not sure how I’m going to handle it yet. I AM LOOKING FOR FEEDBACK/SUGGESTION READERS & SENSITIVITY READERS WITH KNOWLEDGE OF INDIA.
SETTING: Katakot, in the Clean Nation of si’Urai, about 200 years after the Teratogenic Wars and Halāhala Plague required a complete genetic reinscription of humanity to prevent it from dying out with all the other endothermic creatures.
POV CHARACTERS:
• Kurou Rukh: State executioner of Katakot
• Laile Tamrakar: Initiate in the Order of the Threefold Path
• Arihant Adhikari Iyer: Lord mayor of Katakot
• Cáo Ying: Professor of developmental biology & genetics, Sarnat University
• Nathapala: Caretaker of the Protectorate of Katakot (yakṣa)
• The Collective: The rest of the yakṣas across the world
Content Advisory: Executions, descriptions of gore and violence, body horror, biohorror
And yet all grandeur, all power, all subordination rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world, and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple, and society disappears.
— Joseph de Maistre, St. Petersburg Dialogues
SAMPLE CHAPTERS:
THE CHAPTERS I HAVEN’T PUT ONLINE
CHAPTER 6: No Need to Rush the Inevitable
CHAPTER 7: Our Illusions Are Our Reality
CHAPTER 8: Bloodthirsty Inspirations
CHAPTER 9: The Hell of Black Rope
CHAPTER 10: A Slow-Witted Old Man
CHAPTER 11: You’re Our Monster
CHAPTER 12: I Apologize for the Mess
CHAPTER 13: An Unfortunate Combination of Sun and Panic
CHAPTER 14: This Damage Is Irreparable
CHAPTER 15: Repairing an Injured Body Politic
CHAPTER 16: A Good Memory and a Slippery Way with Words
CHAPTER 17: You’re One of Us
CHAPTER 18: A Natural-Born Guardian
CHAPTER 19: I Think It’s Bad
CHAPTER 20: P-People Are P-Process
CHAPTER 21: That Amazing Machine
CHAPTER 22: Tangled Karma
CHAPTER 23: Rule by Fear
CHAPTER 24: Bodies That Aren’t Normal
CHAPTER 25: Queer Culinary Preferences
CHAPTER 26: Nāga-jī
CHAPTER 27: C-Contrary t-to the Normal Operations of Nature
CHAPTER 28: Who Cares About Teeth and Claws?
CHAPTER 29: Conspiracies and Bloodshed
CHAPTER 30: It Wasn’t a Controlled Experiment
CHAPTER 31: A Little Girl Who Never Deserved to Become a Guardian
CHAPTER 32: Gone and Turned Leech
CHAPTER 33: I Didn’t Kill Him For You
CHAPTER 34: Choose Your Own Damnation
CHAPTER 35: The Avatar-Yakṣa Symbiosis
CHAPTER 36: Useless Lot of Mother-Humpers
CHAPTER 37: The Stillness Sūtra
CHAPTER 38: Chaang For Breakfast
CHAPTER 39: Bloody Good Theater
CHAPTER 40: I Am Looking Forward to Working With You
CHAPTER 41: Not a Yakṣa Matter
CHAPTER 42: If I Go Down, I’m Taking Everyone With Me
CHAPTER 43: Ethically Complex and Troubling
CHAPTER 44: The Two Most Feared and Respected Monsters in Katakot
CHAPTER 45: Murder Isn’t a Good Foundation for a Stable Government
CHAPTER 46: Now Blood’s Been Drawn
CHAPTER 47: Would Everybody be Disappointed in Me?
CHAPTER 48: No Sense of Nuance or Proportion
CHAPTER 49: Not One of Your Ignorant Marks
CHAPTER 50: It Will Really, Really Piss Me Off if I Have to Kill You After All This
CHAPTER 51: Stay Quiet Or We Get Rough
CHAPTER 52: Killing’s In Their DNA
CHAPTER 53: What Did You Do This Time?
CHAPTER 54: An Absolutely Terrible Plan
CHAPTER 55: Am I Dead Again?
CHAPTER 56: People Will Listen to You
CHAPTER 57: I’ve Borne Witness to This Revolution
CHAPTER 58: Practical Constraints
CHAPTER 59: Playing the Yakṣa’s Game Won’t Change Anything
CHAPTER 60: Broadcast Law Is a Human Matter
CHAPTER 61: This Would Be a Good Time to Attack
CHAPTER 62: Predictions, Not Prophecies
CHAPTER 63: This Is a Manageable Outbreak
CHAPTER 64: It’s Not That Smart
CHAPTER 65: I Thought You Had This Under Control
CHAPTER 66: You Are Proscribed Technology
CHAPTER 67: Oh … That’s Interesting
CHAPTER 68: Significant and Possibly Fatal Physical Trauma
CHAPTER 69: I Had the Most Terrible Headache
CHAPTER 70: Other Times, Other Attacks
CHAPTER 71: This Ends Now
CHAPTER 72: Think For Yourself
CHAPTER 73: We’re Broken
CHAPTER 74: You C-cannot C-control The World Around You
CHAPTER 75: I Solemnly Bind Myself…
EPILOGUE: You Should be Thanking Me