Synopsis:
A broke vampire’s last ditch effort to escape the blood sucking monster of capitalism through an ill-conceived multi-level marketing scheme.
James Sugre has never been this broke before in his centuries of living. Down and out, he’s had a terrible string of luck investing in companies crippled by fraud and always late to the next crypto-fad. He spends most of his time in his coffin, too broke to go out in public.
As the video game industry reaches record-breaking heights, Sugre tries his luck one more time with his own game studio. When he encounters a game developer and self-professed fan of vampire lore named Lauren, Sugre becomes hopeful that his luck might finally be on the up-and-up.
But the market is rocky, and nothing is as stable as “un-death.” Sugre learns the hard way that a dollar is worth more than a drop of blood. Trading immortality for cash, Sugre and Lauren create a—not entirely legal—business of turning humans into vampires for a fee. The business expands, but Vampire Nation has to protect their own investments, and Sugre learns the hard truth of the system he can’t escape.
Review:
In Seidlinger’s short and sharp vampire satire “Brokeula,” the cost of living meets eternal life- which it turns out is not all it’s cracked up to be if you can’t afford the overheads. A pacy, fang-forward piece of horror comedy that takes a generous bite out of late-stage capitalism and sinks its teeth into the circus of bullshittery that accompanies it, this one is deliciously nihilistic but also rather funny and very easy to read in a sitting. I never know what I’m going to get from Seidlinger, I’ve stopped guessing, but continue to enjoy whatever the hell it ends up being. This one is out July 7th from Clash.
James Sugre has invested in just about everything over the centuries- he’s dabbled in bitcoin, flirted with crypto, and now, as strapped for cash as he has ever been, his latest venture is more unique. He tries to break into the video game industry, and it’s through this he meets Lauren, a game developer and vampire enthusiast who sees through him just about straight away. They brain-storm and come up with a business plan, a rather sketchy multilevel marketing scheme in which, explicitly not allowed by the Vampire Nation, they turn willing humans into vampires for a fee.
Vampirism has been used to critique capitalism before, but never, in my experience, quite so bluntly as in “Brokeula.” You can’t miss it. This novella places an immortal in a system that is all about short-term gain and perpetual scarcity- it does a great job of showing just how volatile capitalism is. The images we have in our heads of the vampire- apex predators or wealthy, sexy Counts, are subverted entirely, with James Sugre being fed upon and sucked dry himself. Capitalism is beyond vampiric, because it’s a hell of a lot more efficient than our protagonist.
Straddling the line between gimmicky and grimly appropriate, “Brokeula,” is a dead quick and dead easy read with something important to say.
Leave a Reply