The Duke In His Castle
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Synopsis:
The Duke In His Castle by Nebula Award-nominated author and award-winning artist Vera Nazarian is a dark, lush, erotic fantasy novella in the vein of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, with interior illustrations by the author.
Rossian, the young Duke of Violet, wastes away in mad solitude, unable to leave the confines of his decadent castle grounds because of a mysterious invisible barrier...until a strange female intruder arrives at the castle bearing a box of bones.
"Vera Nazarian combines the wry and poignant charm of Hans Christian Andersen with the subversive wallop of Angela Carter in crafting this gem of a fairy tale. No longer merely a promising writer, Nazarian has arrived." —Paul Witcover
"Vera Nazarian is a writer seemingly so full of story that it just comes bubbling uncontrollably out of her... The Duke in his Castle shows her at the peak of her form in a deceptively simple tale that probes the nature of life and death, of power and succumbing, and ultimately of good and both the evils—active evil and the evil born from apathy." —John Grant, Co-Editor of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
"The Duke in His Castle is philosophy couched in a fairy tale couched in a murder mystery tinged with children's games. It's a kaleidoscope of thought and emotion, the howling winds of despair, and the sometimes soft, sometimes fierce flow of life. Not only is it quickly absorbing and a quick read, but it sits up and begs for repeat visits..." —TheGreenManReview
Book Excerpt:
| It is three past midnight. The Mad Queens Tower stands on the northernmost end of the castle grounds, as thick and squat a cylinder as any, one of the many rounded turrets that protrude in ancient tumescence from the baseline of the castle foundation. The top of the tower does not narrow into a point. Rather, it has a flat roof which serves as an observation point, with thick crenellated parapets rising in a brim of protection. Wind hums through the crenels between the merlons and disappears into the gaping absolute darkness of the descending stairwell, in a twister, a whirlpool of aerial force. There it races down, down, down, falling without end, like a nightmare-dream. Until it hits bottom, full force. If wind were a man, it might be expected to die, as such things be told in the proverbial way of things. They say, always wake up before you hit bottom. Only, the bottom is no end, and the end is not the bottom. The base of the stairwell opens like a curling snake into a courtyard area, and here the wind and the clamoring air currents have the chance to continue their mad rush, onward and out into the world. The sky of the world is wrought of only a few degrees lesser darkness than the interior of the stairwell and other places hidden by stone walls, on account of a sprinkling of stars that lend a diffused glow to the heavens—throw a spoon of milk into a cauldron of pitch, stir to smoothness, and the dark remains, yet its nature has been altered just a degree beyond overt perception. On such a night as this, with no moon, it is said that in the ancient days the noblewomen who reside in the tower would receive lovers. If the lover does not come, the high-born woman walks out onto the roof and waits for him, sometimes with a single flickering candle to signify her presence; its light can be seen for miles, a cry in the void. She waits, standing in the chill air of many nights, and eventually she becomes unbalanced... |
Author Comment:
I started writing this one in the mid-80s, when in college, and could neither properly finish nor set it aside. Over the years the ideas and characters and storyline haunted me, mutated and grew in complexity, and the compounding of meanings became more layered than an onion. As with any obsession, you must first understand it before you can let go. I think I finally can.
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Original Publish Date:
June 1, 2008
Formats and associated ISBNs:
1934648426 1934648434
Formats:
Hardcover Trade Paperback
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