A powerful, unsettling, and fiercely original work…
In a future where flesh and circuitry fuse, belief is hand-copied like scripture, and a machine-born prophet stalks the shadowed edge of reality, one homunculus dreams of utopia while another prepares to burn it all down in Domowitz’s second installment in The Mechanic’s Diary series. Hanzi Boss isn’t like other boys. A homunculus, he escapes a Transylvanian prison and lands in a crumbling, toxic world on the Eastern Seaboard, carrying the cryptic Synodal Chronicles. He dreams of building a sanctuary shaped by logic and ritual. But his vision is threatened by Alois, a more feral homunculus drawn to chaos, their opposing ideals destined to collide.
Domowitz’s world is at once brutal and alchemical, cyberpunk in aesthetics but medieval in soul. The language is dense, cerebral, often fragmented, mirroring Hanzi’s own fractured sense of purpose, as he struggles to forge meaning in a world where even memory is suspect and reality folds in on itself. The characters, such as Zayra, Hanzi’s maternal figure; Ariadne, the rebellious daughter of a biker gang leader, who plays provocateur and potential future catalyst; and Alois, magnetic and terrifying, a feral prophet whose gospel is ruin, ground the narrative in authenticity. Scenes alternate between grotesque spectacle and meditative passages that explore the metaphysics of virtual space. The Void, a liminal realm where reality and simulation collide, is both a setting and a metaphor: for grief, for hope, and for the in-between places where identity is rewritten.
This is not an easy read. But for readers drawn to the margins, it is deeply rewarding.
Publisher Casa Muerte
Pub date June 24, 2025
ASIN B0F6YPH81R
Price $2.99 Kindle book