Queen Mab's Palace
An adventure into transhuman horror, and wonder, through the eyes of a Medieval scribe.
China Mieville...
..once said some nice things about one of our creators!For 'Fire on the Velvet Horizon' he said; "Superpositioning with strange panache, Velvet Horizon is an (outstanding) indie role-playing-game supplement, and an (outstanding) example of experimental quasi-/meta-/sur-/kata-fiction. Also a work of art. Easily one of my standout books of 2015."While for 'Veins of the Earth' he said; "They've knocked it out of the park. Hit it for six. Got it in an arm bar in the first round. Pick your sport, pick your metaphor, doesn’t matter: the point is clear – so soon after Fire on the Velvet Horizon, Patrick Stuart and Scrap Princess prove once again that something as unlikely as an RPG supplement can be art, of the most impressive kind. An amazing work."(Admittedly, this was about ten years ago, but it still counts.)
a quest
Seven Children Stolen in the Night
One cold morning on the borders of Autumn, a village wakes to find seven of its children stolen in the night. Men set out to rescue them, and come upon a strange knight slowly dying by the road; his helm of glass, his armour rimed with ice.
a gate
A Door within the Air
The Knight reveals that the children have been taken 'To Queen Mab', his spell opens a Door of Air, yet of all those present, the Scribe alone is brave enough to enter in.
a ruined realm
The Palace of Queen Mab
The Scribe finds himself in a midnight Otherland, filled with monsters, fae and curious knights.
A Science Fiction Novel of Transhuman Wonder..
..and Horror, for what we see, that the Scribe does not, is no fae realm but a ruined star-ship ruled by crazed transhumanist radicals and populated by their victims and experiments.To complete his quest, the Scribe must seek out seven courts and Seven Ladies; each the result of biological, technological and ontological alteration to produce something far beyond humanity, and bargain with each of them for a child's life.Should he succeed, neither he, nor any of the seven children, will return unchanged.
explore, survive escape
Adventure
At the essential level, 'Queen Mab's Palace' is an adventure; the Scribe must find a way to survive, seek out Seven Courts, encounter many strange entities and environments on the way, and scheme, or bargain, for each of the Seven children. Lastly, he must find a way home.
change and be changed
Metamorphosis
The Palace changes everyone, from corrupted 'skill injections' altering the psyche of the Scribe, to starvation, radiation, exposure to the Void ("the prison-cell of winter"), limb replacement, neural lace and abstraction from causality itself, so that he can no longer even tell his own tale, becoming only a witness to it, every alteration forces the question; "who are you now? and what will you become?"Likewise, each child the Scribe seeks out, is also changed.What happens when the quester, and the object of their quest, are both so altered that home is no longer home?
the scribes glass
Epistolary Fiction
'Queen Mab's Palace' is (initially) a direct first-person account; this is the Scribes own story, written by his glass hand, long after the event and, for him, a quest for memory, selfhood and understanding.But, even re-living these events in text re-echoes the Scribes strange changes and his abstraction from his tale. In the latter half, the Scribe must ask the very children he aimed to rescue, to fill in and complete his chronicle, (not without the occasional edit and remark).
a game within a game
Ludic Fiction
(Or even 'Ergodic Novel'). While 'Queen Mab's Palace' springs from the world of Old School Renaissance Dungeons &Dragons, adventure design and experimental fiction, the titular 'Queen Mab' herself is causally displaced, guarded by infinitely time-looped 'Knights of Grief' and simultaneously aware of every possible causality strand in which she plays a part.Slowly, the Scribe, the readers and a handful of the characters begin to understand that what they are involved in is not an adventure, or a history, but something like a game; that they may have performed actions like these many times, in different strands, and that they may be bound to keep repeating them, until, somehow, the impossible is accomplished and 'Queen Mab' free'd.
19K
words
80+
Original illustrations
223
Pages
427 backers came together on Kickstarter to fund the creation of 'Queen Mab's Palace'; an illustrated novel by Patrick Stuart with over 80 Black and White illustrations by artist August Lake Cartland.400+ people already paid for this!
The Creators
A pair of beautiful and frankly under-valued geniuses combined to bring you 'Queen Mab's Palace'
writer
Patrick Stuart
Microscopically and briefly famous for adventure design and writing amongst the 'Old School Renaissance', Patrick is probably best known for 'Deep Carbon Observatory', 'Veins of the Earth' and blogging at 'False Machine'.Below you can find his creative C.V., a link to the Substack, a linktree to his Socials and an email button.
Artist
August Lake Cartland
Games artist and illustrator August Lake Cartland specialises in creating art that is both appealing and unsettling.Queen Mab's Palace is August's first fully corporealized book project. But previous bits of online detritus can be found below.
Press, Agents and Reviews
For critics and reviewers interested in literary SF or the strange edges of fantasy fiction — review copies of Queen Mab's Palace are available on request at the button below.
false machine publishing
Available for Sale
The initial Kickstarter was enough to pay for 1,000 hardback copies of 'Queen Mab's Palace'. Unless we get a publisher, (or a Second printing), this is all there will ever be.You can pick up copies from the 'False Machine' webstore; False Parcels; https://falseparcels.bigcartel.com/ or you can buy the digital version (PDF and .EPUB) on its own for only £5.(Currently the only physical copies are held in the U.K. We are sorry about the postage for international customers.)
Hardcopy
£35
These come with a free digital package
Digital
£5
The bundle has a PDF and EPUB for your kindle
Thank You!
If you have any interest in further work by August Lake Cartland, Patrick Stuart, or any further releases by 'False Machine', then keep your eyes on the socials above!