The Vorrh

February 9, 2015
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.

March 1, 2015
A darkly imaginative story of magical realism set in and around a forest with mystical powers. The Vorrh is a timeless, trackless forest haunted by deformed creatures that might once have been angels, or demons. Humans can't spend much time in it without losing their memories, possibly even their souls, but one man is setting out to walk across it. Another has been hired to kill him. Meanwhile, a world-weary Frenchman hopes to find some true magic inside the forest's vastness; a photographer tries to use his science to capture mysteries like time and passion; a slave driver and a surgeon work to harness the forest's power through dark experiments; and, in the heart of the city that sits uneasily next to the forest, a cyclops raised by Bakelite robots waits to meet the outside world. The book is packed with striking images, and there are many moments of real beauty and power. But the plot wanders, and the image-rich language balances on the edge of being overwritten. The characters are memorable grotesques, but as original as this book is, it still uses Africa, and black women in particular, as metaphorical stand-ins for wildness and sensuality in a way that feels wearyingly familiar. Certainly unusual, sometimes powerful, this book nevertheless doesn't quite succeed thanks to its murky, roundabout plot and over-rich language.

March 15, 2015
Catling offers a tip of the hat to early-twentieth-century surrealists in his first book in a projected trilogy. In the beginning, readers may be a bit bewildered by the formidable array of characters: an unnamed man with a bow crafted from a human corpse, an African assassin with almost preternatural prowess, a one-eyed boy living alone in a house with automaton caretakers, the real-life photographer Eadweard Muybridgethe list goes on. The setting plays as important a role as the characters; the Vorrh is an ancient and seemingly sentient forest that steals humans' memories, is home to strange and ancient creatures, and may even hold the Garden of Eden. Essenwald, a colonial city imported brick-by-brick from Europe, nips at the resources of the forest, but most residents know not to venture too close. Catling brings together the disparate story lines with a dazzling display of storytelling, though some may recoil at the graphic violence and explicit sex scenes. Readers who enjoy the genre-blending novels of Felix Gilman (The Half-Made World, 2010) and David Mitchell (The Bone Clocks, 2014)and are comfortable with the violence of Jesse Bullington's The Enterprise of Death (2011)will find themselves right at home here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)