Melting Worlds

Book excerpt: In the distant future, a drug smuggler disappears after meeting with a vicious dealer, and his lover, Jess Ichikawa, a young, emotionally unstable swordswoman, sets out to find him. Accompanied by her sole friend, a singing, genetically modified toad, she finds herself in the middle of a brutal, complex struggle between interstellar criminal gangs that takes her from one strange world to another and brings her into conflict with various deadly mobsters and deviants. Drawing on story-telling conventions from India, Melting Worlds is an absurd, poetic, grotesque, and unclassifiable tale enlivened with wild, impossible action, byzantine plots, ornate descriptions, outlandish technologies, introspective moments, bizarre occurrences, and philosophical allusions. Also available for a discounted price at Dorian Pratt's store on Lulu.