SYNOPSIS:
This novel satirises the desperate social, economic, and
political situation that has been created by our world-wide Austerity
and Eugenics programs; it is largely set in a parallel universe
during the early twenty-fifth century. Various practical
difficulties are highlighted in a situation where revolutionary
forces attempt to replace an oligarchy-controlled, capitalist society
with a people's 'grass roots' democracy.
Our
psychiatrists are, by
implication, taken to task
for their harsh methods, which currently
include physically damaging medications, electro-convulsive therapy,
and various surgical alternatives to lobotomy. The C.I.A.
are castigated from the
future for the various
attempts by MK Ultra to brutalise thousands of children and adults
during their
mind control programs, which
began during the
mid-twentieth
century, and our religious institutions are parodied
for the way some
deceive and influence
their congregations.
The decadence of our
oligarchs is satirised
by the outrageous
behaviour of the younger
members of the royal family
on the Planet Qinsatorix, who manipulate and exploit everybody around
them. The Crown Princess Natasha is referred to as the 'Great Whore
of Trivoli'.
A generation after
leading a popular revolution against the British colonialists, the
Emperor Fleance
and Empress Susan
of
Qinsatorix are
confined, demented and in
steel straightjackets, to the
Convent of St. Drusilla, while their three
cantankerous children
vie for power. The princess
and her brothers
are members of the
Council of Grand Oligarchs
which
controls
Qinsatorix, and
indirectly
the Planets Earth and Remus Gamma,
while
orchestrating
a barbaric Eugenics program
around the three
planets.
The grand
oligarchs also include
several exploitative
'pillars of the population' who
epitomize the evils of
Capitalism, and Admiral
Sporus McSporran of the Imperial Battle-Fleet.
The Anglo-Icarian Prince
Infante,
Adam of Eden, who suffers from highly desperate ADHD, enters into a
'Cupidian' marriage with the sugary
blue, mouse-like Trinkon
slaves
Akira and her brother Osamu (with
the Empress Susan, the truly good people in the story).
However, the happy trio
are seduced during by
Saint Naomi Magdalene, a divine Izon from the Space Station
Castellos.
Princess Natasha's obnoxious
twin brother Prince Caleb is sent through the Wittgenstein Wormhole
with the Imperial Icarian Army to attack
and decimate
Britain.
He
usurps the British crown,
and brutally
enslaves the
children and the relatively few adults who survive the genocide.
Meanwhile, Prince Adam
combines forces
with Hamlet, the highly devious prince
consort,
who is regularly whipped like a dog by his sadistic,
cannibalistic wife Natasha.
Hamlet and Adam
orchestrate a people's
revolution on Qinsatorix, though Hamlet plans
to become
Emperor himself. Natasha
is overthrown, after eating
Akira, and
killed by locusts
with scorpion-like tails, and
a fragile 'Karpovian'
democracy is achieved. The
talking thraxhund Antoinette becomes Speaker of the Assembly of
Delegates, followed later by the imp-like Roddy Alpha-Beta-Gamma.
A total of fifteen
grand
oligarchs
are gruesomely murdered,
one by one. Hamlet is assassinated when he attempts to restore
Capitalism, and Lord
Trithagoras, a camp, cat-like
felixian, is slain by his erstwhile paramour Osamu after rising to
the rank of Great Dictator.
The Imperial Icarian
commander-in-chief General Spunk Spitfire invades
Qinsatorix from Planet Earth on
behalf of Prince Caleb, but is killed in battle by Adam. Access
through the wormhole
is blocked by the scheming
Izon leader Tacitus on behalf of
the divine entities on Castellos. The
King Emperor Fleance is persuaded
to abdicate, and Adam is invited
to restore
the monarchy. However,
Fleance decapitates Adam
with the coronation sword in
a fit of insanity.
Saint Naomi's daughter
Lizzie-Jane
is born on Castellos. As Lizzie-Jane's
father is Adam's 'brotherly
wife'
Osamu, she is the next in line to
the throne according to an
ancient tradition known as 'Post Auto'.
Osamu is appointed King
Regent of Qinsatorix on
an interim basis,
Adam and Akira are made
saints, and the deities
on Castellos subsequently
attempt to control
the
so-called 'grass roots
democracy'
from above. As
Dowager Queen Empress, Susan moves in with Osamu in Beowulf Hall.
In Britain, the Icarians and
freed British slaves create a potentially
highly successful
grass roots democracy, largely because most of the capitalist
politicians are already stone cold dead. King
Caleb of
the Britons, the last of the
Grand Oligarchs of Qinsatorix, is apprehended
in Berwick while
attempting to flee to Scotland. He is confined to an abandoned
psychiatric ward in Kelso with an excellent view of the Tweed, and
survives to tell his story.
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