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Submission Synopsis
Mr.
Incan Empire
by Hunter Eden
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Length: 103,510
Genre: Ethnic, Experimental, Fantasy, Humor, Literary, Multicultural,
Occult, Psychological Drama, Stream-of-Consciousness.
Series: --"The Four Hundred Houses" (Provisional title of the forthcoming
sequel.)
Sentence: A young male model finds himself embroiled with ancient gods
and the Aztec mafia on the mean streets of an alternate world, twenty-first
century Incan Empire!
Blurb: In an alternate New World unconquered by Europe, Manco Puma is Mr.
Incan Empire--a trendy young model and actor with a handsome face, a bad boy
reputation, and a managing contract with notorious Aztec mob boss Moxex Pen Nama.
But when Moxex asks Manco to marry the leader of a deadly, all-female Iroquois
biker gang, it's the beginning of a descent into insane worlds of organized
crime, bloodthirsty gods, and a hallucinatory quest upon which the destiny of
all mankind may depend.
Synopsis: Manco Puma is a young, mob-owned supermodel in a twenty-first
century Incan Empire that never fell to the Spanish. One day, his manager, the
Aztec crime boss Moxex Pen Nama, asks Manco to marry Kateri Blacktree, a tough
Iroquois biker woman, in exchange for an ancient, mystic scroll that according
to legend is the Devil's commentary on God's creation. Despite Manco's
objections, the trade goes through and Moxex uses the scroll to restore life to
the taxidermized corpse of Charles Darwin, a relic he has owned for years but
never truly explained.
Although Manco grows to love Kateri, he never trusts the newly-living Darwin,
who alludes to Moxex's "imprisonment" of him in his old body. As Moxex pursues
various criminal schemes, Manco learns that his manager and Darwin are modern
incarnations of pagan deities worshipped in ancient Mexico, the powerful Jaguar
God and the ravenous Lord of Life.
Manco's delvings reveal that Moxex as the Jaguar God stole the Lord of Life's
(Darwin's) faculties of beauty, memory and transformational power to prevent him
from taking over the world and destroying humanity. Moxex hid these faculties in
various places, planting the Lord of Life's inhumanly beautiful appearance in
Manco at birth and then "discovering" him years later.
As Darwin grows in power, Manco realizes with Kateri's help that beings like the
Jaguar God and the Lord of Life are nourished and strengthened by human blood.
Overcoming his cowardice, Manco challenges Darwin to a bout of conching, a
pugilistic Mayan bloodsport. Dedicating his life essence to Moxex beforehand so
that humanity may be preserved, Manco squares off against Darwin in a televised
New Year's Eve event. As he dies in the ring, Manco's sacrifice strengthens
Moxex enough to keep Darwin imprisoned and forestall the world's destruction.
Book Opening:
You know me. I’m Manco Puma—Mr. Incan Empire. I’m a bad boy
warrior-model, a beast of the jungle, whether it’s the rainforest of the
western Amazon or the cracked blacktop of downtown Cusco. I’ve got abs
like a bas-relief and buttocks like muscular half moons. Watch them wax
and wane as I walk the runway. But I’m also a good, church-going boy. I
sing with the voice of a saint in my choir, praising our savior, Jezuz
Nose Lord, the Christ of the New World. It’s not just words, either. Mr.
Incan Empire knows how to help the needy. Look at him handing out meals
to starving children in Ireland, dressed in his best-quality Mayan peccary
leather jacket and rubber-soled, vicuña skin boots. Pick one of the kids
up, smile, say something in English for the camera. Show off your jade
tooth inlays, the ones that cost sixty thousand qoris to put in.
Sure, you could settle for cow leather and Italian
suits, but why be European? Pizarro returned in disgrace to Panama, the
lands of my people unconquered at his back. Cortes wept and begged the
Virgin for mercy when he saw the lukewarm death the Aztecs readied for him
on the grand altar of their capital, Tenochtitlan. Europe failed. In the
‘40's, Vietnam purged itself of its last French occupiers, wholeheartedly
embracing the rule of Buddhist fundamentalists. Rebellion in Cuba and the
Philippines in the 1960's reduced Spain to what it always has been, the
club foot of Europe. In the north, Inuit and Aleut freedom fighters
supplied with Iroquois weaponry and Aztec and Incan money drove the Czar’s
forces from Iqaluit in 1976.
Embrace Mr. Incan Empire, ladies. Girls from
Argentina to Nunavut lie in electric tanning coffins to get their skin the
precise tone of the women I date: a brown just dark enough to be healthy
without looking peasant. And come on, guys—you know you want to be me.
You want to say what I just said, meet who I just met, fuck who I just
fucked.
My Tata fought in the Brazilian War of the late
‘70’s. He slogged through the muck of the Amazon with a .223 Condor
automatic rifle, chewing good Andean coca when he wasn’t taking bullets
for God, Sapa Inca, and Empire. Tata settled down and married his
sweetheart after single-handedly saving a group of Brazilian soldiers from
ambush by democratist guerrillas in the lower Xingu river valley. My Mama
wrote him long letters and counted her rosary everyday, praying to Jezuz
that her man would come home safe so they could start the family they
wanted in Cusco. He came home just fine, and had a son who grew up strong
and sensitive, with a long black curtain of hair settling over high
cheekbones and eyes as brown and warm as adobe. Future model.
Boy-next-door. Mr. Incan Empire.
I’m prowling on this warm, wet January night, sitting
on the passenger’s side of a big 2004 Charlemagne. Mr. Incan Empire
surveys his kingdom, dressed in authentic T. Xihuitl Company onyx ear
grommets and a black and white tie made of Cherokee silk with
diamond-pattern appliqué. Add on a designer single-breasted, cumbi cloth
suit jacket and sport pants bearing an Aztec eagle glyph motif. A black
fedora with spoonbill feathers in the band completes. I’m looking to get
a bite to eat, spend a little sunsweat, find some lonely girl and birth
her newsprint dreams of love and scandal on the glittering press of
reality.
Melquiotl “New Coyote” Ten Monkey is chauffeuring me
tonight. New Coyote’s with the Owl Men. If you know Mr. Incan Empire,
you know the Owl Men because you read the interviews. Like Inti!
Magazine, September of 2001:
Inti!: There’s been some
controversy in the past about your supposed ties with the Owl Men. Does
the mobbed-up image ever hurt you when it comes to business?
Manco Puma:
Sometimes I meet a designer who’s a little hesitant. Really, I think a lot
of it goes back to the fear of having this distinct, vibrant Aztec
minority in the middle of Cusco. I mean, these are people who come from
another continent. Some of them don’t even speak Runa Simi. Instead of
welcoming them, a lot of us would rather just turn them away. Personally,
I think that as long as they embrace the rule of our divinely-chosen Sapa
Inca, our society has everything to gain from an Aztec presence.
Or from Aclla: For Today’s Incan Woman, June
2004:
Aclla: Part of your
appeal is the sensitive gangster image, but do you ever worry that your
friendship with people like Moxex Pen Nama will send the wrong message?
Manco Puma: Now, you
know I’m from Cusco. I’m Incan, every drop. But what I think a lot of
people don’t realize is that the Empire isn’t just Incan anymore. We’ve
got Brazilians, we’ve got Aymaras, Turks, Argentines, Shuars,
Japanese, Chibchas, Mapuches, Chinese. . .there’s a lot of beautiful
diversity here. I don’t see why Aztecs shouldn’t be a part of that too.
A: But don’t you worry
that you’re providing a bad example in the company that you keep?
MP: I grew up
about a street over from Little Tenochtitlan. I can tell you that I never
heard anything about Moxex except the highest praise. But once he starts
doing well for himself, he’s suddenly a gangster. That’s not the Incan way
I’m used to.
New Coyote stops at a red light, reaches into the
breast pocket of his shirt and pulls out a quid of coca. He dresses like
Owl Men dress: three-piece jaguar-print suit with a long, double-breasted
jacket, Toltec-style pillbox hat, jade ear grommets and sunglasses fitted
with obsidian lenses. Pleated pants and high-backed sandals.
New Coyote flies to the Galapagos every month or so
to see his girlfriend, Eza. He flies coach because he’s cheap like that,
sitting among the immigrants who work at the hotels and resorts. New
Coyote hates flying, says every time he gets back that he’s going to dump
Eza and save some money. He doesn’t. Every other month, he crowds on
another Air Cusco flight back, gripping the sticky armrests in the midst
of a cacophony of languages. He sits there muttering to himself, just to
hear words he knows.
Bio: I am a recent graduate from Beloit College, majoring in creative
writing and devoting considerable study to anthropology on the side. My story "Caramula,"
a Mexican-themed horror piece, is due to appear in issue 11 of "City Slab"
magazine. Another story, "Selected Views of Mt. Fuji, With Dinosaurs," is
currently under review at "Weird Tales." In my life I have traveled extensively,
visiting places as diverse as Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Honduras, Thailand and
Egypt, all of which have influenced my writing in one way or another. I
currently live in Jacksonville, Illinois, with my girlfriend Beth and our five
cats.
Platform: I've worked on Mayan archaeological sites in Belize, done
volunteer journalism in Honduras, and traveled to Peru, Ecuador and rural
Mexico. I speak Spanish. I fought two bouts as an amateur boxer. I don't sit in
my parents' basement, daydreaming about dragons and elves and writing it down in
pseudo-Teutonic doggerel. I am the anti-fantasy writer.
Endorsements: None currently. Perhaps Gabriel Garcia Marquez (for the
magical realist, fantasy aspect) or David Chase (creator of "The Sopranos," for
the organized crime aspect)? On a more accessible level, I could see alternate
history author Harry Turtledove (of "How Few Remain" and "Worldwar" fame) or
Philip Roth ("The Plot Against America") as endorsers, though I am not
personally acquainted with any of the above-mentioned luminaries.
Film: Some of the biggest influences on "Mr. Incan Empire" have been
films--it was written with a gritty, Scorsesean voice and a visual style
somewhere between "The Godfather," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," and "Apocalypto."
With the rising volume of talented Native American actors entering Hollywood,
"Mr. Incan Empire" would make a great offbeat mob film filled with humor,
action, fantasy, exotic sets, distinctive characters and hardboiled dialogue. |
