Counterfeit Books Limited proudly presents: Yoo-ni-korn the debut novella by Andy Blood. Unicorn is pronounced yoo-ni-korn and its collective noun is a blessing of unicorns. Which raises the question: Is it a blessing to be born a unicorn? It's a little-known fact that one in a billion people is born a unicorn. It happens entirely at random, and a unicorn is just as likely to be born into a family that lives in a slum, a tenement or a project as they are to be born into a privileged middle-class family.
We can't be certain - because the family will often go to great lengths to hide their precious baby unicorn - but right now, there are probably about half a dozen real live unicorns on the planet.
Yoo-ni-korn tells their tales. Which are anything but fairy tales.
However, at its heart, Yoo-ni-korn is a meditation on otherness and examines what it's like to be born different. With a very visible 'impediment'. Stigmatised by some and fetishised by others. Objectified, patronised, worshipped, exploited, cherished, or despised. Ostracised and celebrated in equal measure. Stared at and shunned. The subject of suspicion. The object of much finger pointing. Part of one tribe, and very clearly part of another.
Yoo-ni-korn was conceived to celebrate others. Other people, and other cultures not normally celebrated by the mainstream. It will suit people with a thirst for something different and a fascination for stories that play out off the beaten track. It begins in Greenland then unfolds across Siberia, Mongolia, and the near and far east where the old silk road meets the new silk road via the online dark web and the onionlands of TOR (the onion router) populated by anonymous traders who will buy and sell any body part imaginable.
Yoo-ni-korn weaves its magic by weaving all of this together.
