The Vorrh
Book One in the Vorrh Trilogy
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- €3.99
Publisher Description
'A benchmark not just for imaginative writing but for the human imagination in itself...Read this book, and marvel.' Alan Moore
'A work of genius.' Iain Sinclair
'Brian Catling is simply a genius. His writing is so extraordinary it hurts.' Terry Gilliam
In the tradition of China Miéville, Michael Moorcock and Alasdair Gray, B. Catling's The Vorrh is literary dark fantasy which wilfully ignores boundaries, crossing over into surrealism, magic-realism, horror and steampunk.
In B. Catling's twisting, poetic narrative, Bakelite robots lie broken - their hard shells cracked by human desire - and an inquisitive Cyclops waits for his keeper and guardian, growing in all directions. Beyond the colonial city of Essenwald lies the Vorrh, the forest which sucks souls and wipes minds. There, a writer heads out on a giddy mission to experience otherness, fallen angels observe humanity from afar, and two hunters - one carrying a bow carved from his lover, the other a charmed Lee-Enfield rifle - fight to the end.
Thousands of miles away, famed photographer Eadweard Muybridge attempts to capture the ultimate truth, as rifle heiress Sarah Winchester erects a house to protect her from the spirits of her gun's victims.
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Catling's richly textured and enigmatic fantasy trilogy opener (first published in the U.K. in 2012) is centered on a legendary African forest, known as the Vorrh, that's rumored to be "older than humankind." As no person has returned from attempting to reach its center, "nothing was known of its interior, except myth and fear." According to some, the Vorrh is populated by cannibals and monsters, while others believe that "God walks there" in "his garden on Earth." Against this mid-19th-century backdrop, reminiscent of Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood, Catling weaves an intricate story with a diverse cast of characters. They include Eadweard Muybridge, a real-life photographer best known for proving that all four legs of a running horse leave the ground while the animal is in motion, and Ishmael, a cyclops raised by automatons. It's not easy to keep all the plots and subplots straight, but even those who struggle to navigate the labyrinth will still find the twisted journey thought provoking, full of memorable imagery and language.
