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A review by bigcheese
The Vorrh by Brian Catling
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Undoubtedly original. This is the first time I’m reading some out-there-Fantasy - out of the mainstream, non-household name type sh*t (Hobbit, Harry Potter etc.), and mature too. There is imagination running wild amongst the living pages of ‘The Vorrh.’ Maybe it is original because of all the picking and choosing Catling has done with the world’s available technologies and science, but also the supernatural and magic that exist alongside each other chapter to chapter quite seamlessly.
In my first two attempts at reading this beast I couldn’t get past the first two chapters. It was so bizarre and foreign a thing to be reading that I couldn’t comprehend what I read. I have had an attempt at another such fantasy in the past, ‘Chung Kuo: Middle Kingdom.’ ‘The Vorrh’ has a poetic, and sometimes hard to understand quality about it’s style, whereas ‘Chung Kuo’ was very straightforward - when you’ve taken in the landscape. For more than the first half of ‘The Vorrh’ the tale manifested in a hazy fever-dream vision which was hardly stimulating in the long term, only some sequences sticking easily, but in this last couple hundred pages from the past week or two have moulded into a normal lens view of the dramas of a fantasy narrative - I understand! Most notably vivid and fun was a sequence between a character named Sidrus and a character named Nebsuel that felt like something right out of the film version of ‘The Princess Bride.’
With my newfound comprehension of “The Fantasy” I just re read a couple chapters worth of stuff and fixed some loose connections and man, this is a good book. Totally interesting stuff going on - the least interesting being the stuff with the babies and Maclish. I have the plot, pray it sticks. On to the next one.
In my first two attempts at reading this beast I couldn’t get past the first two chapters. It was so bizarre and foreign a thing to be reading that I couldn’t comprehend what I read. I have had an attempt at another such fantasy in the past, ‘Chung Kuo: Middle Kingdom.’ ‘The Vorrh’ has a poetic, and sometimes hard to understand quality about it’s style, whereas ‘Chung Kuo’ was very straightforward - when you’ve taken in the landscape. For more than the first half of ‘The Vorrh’ the tale manifested in a hazy fever-dream vision which was hardly stimulating in the long term, only some sequences sticking easily, but in this last couple hundred pages from the past week or two have moulded into a normal lens view of the dramas of a fantasy narrative - I understand! Most notably vivid and fun was a sequence between a character named Sidrus and a character named Nebsuel that felt like something right out of the film version of ‘The Princess Bride.’
With my newfound comprehension of “The Fantasy” I just re read a couple chapters worth of stuff and fixed some loose connections and man, this is a good book. Totally interesting stuff going on - the least interesting being the stuff with the babies and Maclish. I have the plot, pray it sticks. On to the next one.
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual assault, Violence, and Body horror