The Vorrh by Brian Catling

In his debut novel, The Vorrh, Brian Catling offers readers a fantasy in the tradition of Mervyn Peake’s GORMENGHAST novels rather than Tolkien’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS. The characters do surprising and often incredible things, they explore an African wilderness rarely seen in fantasy, and they sometimes manage to inspire the reader to imagine what it would be like to live in such a fantastic setting.

There is a surreal quality to The Vorrh that rarely shows up in the fantasy we talk about when we talk about fantasy. The Vorrh is inspired by neither Camelot nor Beowulf; instead, Catling has chosen to set his story in central Africa during an Imperial Age. The Vorrh, a massive, ... Read More