Announcing the
release of a spooky festive satire: THE MADNESS OF IORIALUS BÓRO,
now available to everyone, free of charge at
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In a cabin in the
woods of the Republic of Wisconsin dwells a harmless old man. Listen at his
door and you might hear the odd splash of paint, the chomp of chisel on stone,
and perhaps the occasional grumble about his homeland’s occupation by the
Canadian Army.
Or so the rumours
say. Because who can distinguish fact from popular fantasy in the case of so
legendary an artist as Iorialus Bóro, renowned the world over as the most
remarkable creative genius of his generation?
But for all his
brilliance, old Bóro has one peculiar quirk: a insistence that reality and
imagination are totally separate things. And on this he takes no prisoners: the
wrath that rushes down his beard when that line is crossed has left a long
trail of devastated friends and supporters driven remorselessly from his fan
club, the Bórolites.
Yet what if his
paintings and sculptures turn out so sublime as to trouble that boundary more
than he realises? When his own original characters come calling over those
festivals when the veils between worlds are thinnest – from Halloween, to
Christmas, to the Lunar New Year – will he stand to defend that barrier even if
to do so puts his life, his livelihood, even the entire world in danger?
This is a short satirical
novel which emerged in reaction to a deeply destructive experience of Normalist violence from
yet another human community. The episode in question was so ruinously absurd as to finally and fundamentally shatter my stake in humankind – which is why this
blog is nowadays far less active.
I shall refrain from
disclosing details for now, given there are relationships concerned whose
future has yet to be resolved. Suffice to say that this story, wherein I
venture the effrontery to participate in that ancient and hallowed tradition of
satire, was the only recourse left to me to challenge an unjust, abusive and heart-shatteringly
cruel set of social circumstances.
Even if it fails in
this, I hope that as a darkly humorous exploration of reality, realities,
and the clash of different ways to see and know them, and still more as a
tribute to some genuinely marvellous otherworld friends, The Madness of
Iorialus Bóro manages to grind some small improvement for this world from
the terrible cost I have borne on its account.
The Madness of
Iorialus Bóro now available here:
