The Vorrh

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Prepare to lose yourself in the heady, mythical expanse of The Vorrh, a daring debut that Alan Moore has called a phosphorescent masterpiece and the current century s first landmark work of fantasy Next to the colonial town of Essenwald sits the Vorrh, a vast perhaps endless forest It is a place of demons and angels, of warriors and priests Sentient and magical, the Vorrh bends time and wipes memory Legend has it that the Garden of Eden still exists at its heart Now, a renegade English soldier aims to be the first human to traverse its expanse Armed with only a strange bow, he begins his journey, but some fear the consequences of his mission, and a native marksman has been chosen to stop him Around them swirl a remarkable cast of characters, including a Cyclops raised by robots and a young girl with tragic curiosity, as well as historical figures, such as writer Raymond Roussel, heiress Sarah Winchester, and photographer Edward Muybridge While fact and fiction blend, the hunter will become the hunted, and everyone s fate hangs in the balance under the will of the Vorrh. Read The Vorrh by Brian Catling – kino-fada.fr I think I was really prepping myself up for this one just a little too much I wanted to expect lyrical language, and I did get a lot of lyrical language, and I wanted to expect some rather interesting ideas and concepts put together in a poetic way, all the while getting immersed in fantasy and science fiction and a truly heaping helping of the dark stuff, enough to consider the novel as a true horror.What I did get was quite a few truly beautiful and evocative scenes of robots in a time and I think I was really prepping myself up for this one just a little too much I wanted to expect ...The Heart of Darkness meets Borges meets something that might have crawled out of Guillermo del Toro s Pan s Labyrinth Brian Catling s The Vorrh or as editor Tim O Connell likes to put it, VVVOOORRRRRHHH is an intoxicating novel that defies easy summary A slippery, twisty book, it always seemed to be squirming out of reach The blurb that accompanies it is woefully inadequate, though of no fault to the blurber, because how can a book like this be summed up in a few lines I d love to hear The Heart of Darkness meets Borges meets something that might have cr...In my teens a novel I loved was Mervyn Peake s Gormenghast I ve never reread it for fear of spoiling my memory of the magic it weaved into my imagination It was like the perfect transition from the otherworldly bewitchments of children s books to thesober worlds of adult literature The Vorrh is an imaginatively bizarre romp of a novel in the spirit of Gormenghast with a generous dose of the glorious controlled insanity of Thomas Pynchon thrown in The characters in the Vorrh include a In my teens a novel I loved was Mervyn Peake s Gormenghast I ve never reread it for fear of spoiling my memory of the magic it weaved into my imagination It was like the perfect transition from the otherworldly bewitchments of children s books to thesober worlds of adult literature The Vorrh is an imaginatively bizarre romp of a novel in the spirit of Gormenghast with a generous dose of the glorious controlled insanity of Thomas Pynchon thrown in The characters in the Vorrh include a one eyed cyclops with three Bakelite robot guardians, a male wanderer armed with a sentient bow and arrow made of the body parts of a beloved female mentor, a blind woman miraculously healed by a sexual union, a pioneer photographer who is commissioned to photogra...Reads like an old white dude s psychoanalytic sessions.B Catling is a poet, sculptor, painter and performance artist Hmm Henceforth I may stick to books by authors Terry Gilliam and Tom Waits liked this book Jeff Vandermeer says it reads like a long lost classic of Decadent or Symbolist literature No doubt someone else says Catling s sensibilities are informed by a contempt for post something, deconstructionalism and a desire to bring a new structure to fantasy unencumbered by such things as a coherent plot.There are large chunks here that B Catling is a poet, sculptor, painter and performance artist Hmm Henceforth I may stick to books by authors Terry Gilliam and Tom Waits liked this book Jeff Vandermeer says it reads like a long lost classic of Decadent or Symbolist literature No doubt someone else says Catling s sensibilities are informed by a contempt for post something, deconstructionalism and a desire to...I started a bare bones blog to force myself to write better longer reviews Moore loves this book His praise is all over the front and back covers and it begins with a few page introduction where he raves about how fantastic the Vorrh is how it is the best fantasy novel of this century thus far, how it enlivens a stale genre full of wizards and dragons, how superbly written it is, etc etc These sort of introductions are always problematic, especially for I started a bare bones blog to force myself to write better longer reviews Moore loves this book His praise is all over the front and back covers and it begins with a few page introduction where he raves about how fantastic the Vorrh is how it is the best fantasy novel of this century thus far, how it enlivens a stale genre full of wizards and dragons, how superbly written it is, etc etc These sort of introductions are always problematic, especially for unproven novels, as they heighten expectations and when they don t live up to them, you feel let down rather than surprised a book y...Closer to a 2.5.I finished reading this close to two weeks ago and I m only writing a review now This is emblematic of my frustration with The Vorrh, a book that came with a lot of buzz in some circles and, in the first 80 or so pages, really established something I thought I was falling in love with.This is, at its heart, a sort of Weird fantasy tale There s a small town bordering a forest that is believed to be magical or haunted or dangerous or some combination of all of those things One Closer to a 2.5.I finished reading this close to two weeks ago and I m only writing a review now This is emblematic of my frustration with The Vorrh, a book that came with a lot of buzz in some circles and, in the first 80 or so pages, really established something I thought I was falling in love with.This is, at its heart, a sort of Weird fantasy tale There s a small town bordering a forest that is believed to be magical or haunted or dangerous or some combination of all of those things One man seeks to explore the Vorrh, others are trying to stop him, and just the strange character of the town in general ends up dominating everything.It s a book that suffers from the same thing we see a lot of the New Weird doing even if this is not explicitly categorized as such , in that the setting and mood of the book overwhelmingly take precedence over the plot, and what ends up happenin...There is a dark place in the world.Essentially this place has been captured by Brian Catling in his novel The Vorrh, an alternative history of a soul sucking forest in the midst of Africa in the early 20th century I finished this somewhat plotless book that readsas a descent into madness than a traditional novel while questioning myself the whole time, Why are you going on In the end, I probably shouldn t have, and you probably shouldn t either.There seems to be a lot to explain as to There is a dark place in the world.Essentially this place has ...Reading The Vorrh Reading The Vorrh reminds me of the first time I read Gene Wolfe Catling offers a very similar combination of mystery, allusion, tricky plots, some beautiful sentences, unpredictability, touches of horror, and a powerful sense of meaning just beneath the surface The Vorrh is like Shadow of the Torturer in that it s a standalone book which is also, apparently, the start of a series This is also my way of offering very high praise.If the Hugo awards matter ever again, this Reading The Vorrh Reading The Vorrh reminds me of the first time I read Gene Wolfe Catling offers a very similar combination of mystery, allusion, tricky plots, some beautiful sentences, unpredictability, touches of horror, and a powerful sense of meaning just beneath the surface The Vorrh is like Shadow of the Torturer in that it s a standalone book which is also, apparently, the start of a series This is also my way of offering very high praise.If the Hugo awards matter ever again, this is now my second nomination for the year s best novel.It s the kind of book you reread parts of while...A complete pile of flaming arse gravy.

The Vorrh
  • English
  • 19 December 2018
  • Paperback
  • 485 pages
  • 0957142714
  • Brian Catling
  • The Vorrh