An immortal tyrant, a criminal obsessed with cheese and a severed head with a drinking problem. Immortalis: The Jester and the Immoless brings grotesque British humour to extreme horror, launching free to read soon at www.immortalisverse.com. Horror and comedy have always made uncomfortable bedfellows. In Immortalis: The Jester and the Immoless, they share a room, insult each other and occasionally commit atrocities before breakfast. At the centre of this spectacularly dysfunctional arrangement stands Nicolas DeSilva, ruler of Corax Asylum, master of 216 physical manifestations of himself and a creature whose opinion of his own magnificence remains entirely unaffected by reality. Nicolas is theatrical, arrogant, manipulative and catastrophically convinced of his own romantic appeal. His other selves are just as objectionable.
A Monstrous Collective With No Professional Standards
The Nicolai possess extraordinary supernatural abilities, but their talents rarely translate into sensible behaviour. Pauley the Cheese, a criminal mastermind responsible for racketeering and financial enterprises, combines organised crime with an unhealthy enthusiasm for dairy products. His elaborate schemes frequently attract the destructive attention of Chester DeSilva, Nicolas’s primal Evro, whose preferred approach to other people’s carefully organised affairs involves making them considerably worse. Chester is a musician, seducer and walking disciplinary problem. His irreverence provides a relentless counterpoint to Nicolas’s obsession with authority and decorum. The resulting conflict is a particular variety of black comedy: an immortal criminal enterprise undermined by another manifestation of the very being who runs it. There are easier ways to manage a business.
A Severed Head With Strong Opinions
Among Corax’s more objectionable inhabitants is Demize, the decapitated former high priest of the DarkBadb. His head survives independently, mounted upon a gramophone and equipped with an apparently inexhaustible capacity for alcohol, cigars and verbal abuse. Demize specialises in criticising Nicolas, expressing contempt for Allyra and providing the sort of unsolicited commentary that makes family gatherings unbearable. His continued existence is an exercise in grotesque horror, but his personality transforms the anatomical impossibility into a source of macabre comedy. Elsewhere, the Professor delivers pompous instruction, Mr Dibble presides over circus entertainments and Nicolas Nachtvinsky pursues musical composition despite possessing a remarkable lack of musical ability. The collective contains enough professional expertise to operate a civilisation and enough spectacular incompetence to destroy one.
When Gothic Romance Becomes a Farce
The novel’s central love story provides another source of savage humour. Nicolas considers himself the ideal romantic partner for Allyra Cavidini, despite imprisoning her, regulating her movements and repeatedly disregarding her objections. His extravagant declarations of devotion sit alongside threats, elaborate punishments and an unshakeable belief that every romantic difficulty can be solved through further intervention. The comedy emerges from the enormous distance between Nicolas’s self-image and his conduct. He is a monstrous tyrant who believes he deserves congratulations for his generosity. Allyra has considerably less enthusiasm for his domestic arrangements. Their relationship turns familiar Gothic romance conventions into a prolonged collision of monstrous vanity, sarcasm and increasingly outrageous behaviour.
Read the Madness Free
Immortalis: The Jester and the Immoless combines extreme horror, supernatural absurdity, grotesque comedy and vicious British dark humour across a Gothic epic exceeding half a million words. Its humour is profane, its characters appalling and its romantic hero an immortal menace with an exceptionally high opinion of himself. Immortalis is launching FREE TO READ soon at http://www.immortalisverse.com. For readers who enjoy horror comedy, macabre fiction and funny horror stories populated by thoroughly reprehensible monsters, Corax Asylum is preparing to make a complete spectacle of itself. Extreme Horror | Extreme Dark Romance | Fuck Funny Fantasy