Abstract
For the completion of my Master's Degree in Creative Writing, I have written the novel Song of the Subcontinent, a YA fantasy adventure in the Silkpunk genre. The book is meant to appeal to fans of light-weight, Asian-inspired fantasy such as Jy Yang's Tensorate series, as well as animal-fantasies like Brian Jacques' Redwall books. Working aboard a ship assigned to the Pacific, I had the extreme pleasure of spending time in Japan, China, Korea and Singapore, countries whose histories and mythologies I fell in love with and seek to honor through my fiction. The novel concerns the struggles of rival factions in the realm of the Four Lands. Unified by a messianic sorceress known as the White Ape, the yeti tribes of the Northern Steppe have torn a bloody swathe through the ancient kingdom of Samhan, decadent nobles ripped from their stagnant thrones and forced into servitude. With her royal father dead and the last city loyal to her family put to the torch, shaman and princess Misun O-Kong flees into the grand rainforests of the south, seeking a legendary hero sworn to serve her family in their time of greatest need; just as her kingdom's poisonous allies, the kitsune, had intended. Unknown to the exiled princess, the White Ape has troubles of her own: A reckless son who thinks only of personal glory, a daughter enamored with their conquered servants at the expense of her own people, and the very kitsune who had once advised her enemies now trying to ingratiate themselves to her. The freshly-widowed White Ape finds herself desperately short on people she can rely on, and what she had seen as the end of her legend instead seems only the beginning of her problems.
Notes
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Graduation Date
2020
Semester
Spring
Advisor
Hicks, Micah
Degree
Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)
College
College of Arts and Humanities
Department
English
Degree Program
Creative Writing
Format
application/pdf
Identifier
CFE0007982; DP0023123
URL
https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0023123
Language
English
Release Date
May 2025
Length of Campus-only Access
5 years
Access Status
Masters Thesis (Campus-only Access)
STARS Citation
Kiely, Dylan, "Song of the Subcontinent" (2020). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023. 76.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd2020/76
Restricted to the UCF community until May 2025; it will then be open access.