Dark themes, and Pi. Carlie Martece returns with a second novel, ‘Deragon Hex: The Vipdile Key’ on October 10.
An artist in every sense, Martece deals with the darker elements of human nature, throughout her work; relationships, death and fear run through the narrative of this, her first science fiction effort, a work that takes aim at those who insist on staring at their screens above all else for nourishment, and unleashes a monster to purge them.
As a reader, you will be taken on a journey, guided, and linked together by numbers, led by central characters – an identifiable anti-hero of sorts in Ash, the complex (and totally vexing) Estana, who are united (and equally divided) in their quest against those vultures of this fame-hungry universe, and an overly sinister presence fuelled by ego and greed, Damon Repper, to free their friend, Leah.
Martece comments on the world she crafted with Hex: “On 1st November 2014 I realised there aren’t enough novels where the main characters are a gender neutral vigilante killer, a dominatrix, and a poisoned girl in a coma, the first 666 digits of pi are integrated into the narrative, and a metric fu**tonne of bizarre violence takes place in a dystopian underground metropolis with hexagonal buildings, legalised narcotics and flying robot cameras that shoot lasers. Something needed to be done about this. Nearly two years later, in the autumn of 2016, Deragon Hex: The Vipdile Key was born.”
The story unfolds inside a six-sided dystopian setting of Deragon Hex, and builds a tale that recalls the diversity of William Gibson’s work, and the forethought and emotional depth of Neil Gaiman.
The book will be launched online on Monday 10th October to coincide with World Mental Health Day. Writing and art are a form of survival for me, and I’ve always recommended artistic outlets as a useful method of dealing with psychological crisis. The book is dedicated to anyone who’s found themselves torn down by the vultures of this world. It is a story about learning to see through society’s delusions and deciding to fight back against oppression.
More about the author:
Carlie Martece is an artist and writer who resides in a dark but hilarious dreamworld. She is eternally grateful to everybody who has defended her from vulture attacks and supported her career so far, particularly those who helped with the editing of this novel. Martece wrote her first book, the semi-autobiographical Toxic Nursery, as a response to people wanting to know the story behind her unusual artwork.
Deragon Hex is her first work of science fiction. Both books are part of the Constructed Sanity Sequence, a planned series of autobiographies and novels that will become increasingly entangled as the overall story progresses.
The writer is now living in a rather interesting sequel and continues to share her creations with the world via her website at www.carliemartece.com.
Image by Derrick Foster