Book reviews: The Vorrh, The Book of Speculation, Tales of the Brothers Grimm

By Reviewer: Colin Steele
Updated August 13 2015 - 10:14am, first published August 1 2015 - 11:45pm
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THE VORRH
​By Brian Catling. Coronet. $29.99.

Brian Catling is professor of fine art at Oxford University. The first volume of his complex, dark, surreal fantasy trilogy, The Vorrh, echoes the  artistic and literary exuberance of Mervyn Peake. The Vorrh is a possibly sentient African forest, predating mankind and fluid in its time and space. It contains, for example, the Garden of Eden, bizarre native races, various monsters, angels and, on its edge, a strange middle European city. The various dense narratives interweave in a Pynchon-like structure.  The Vorrh is not an easily accessible novel, but those who enter its fictional vortex will uncover what may become recognised as one of the best fantasy novels of the decade.

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