-
The Erstwhile
- The Vorrh Trilogy, Book 2
- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $35.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Cloven
- The Vorrh (3)
- By: Brian Catling
- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the stunning conclusion to this endlessly imaginative saga, the young Afrikaner socialite Cyrena Lohr is mourning the death of her lover, the cyclops Ishmael, when she rekindles a relationship with famed naturalist Eugène Marais. Before departing down his own dark path, Marais presents her with a gift: an object of great power that grants her visions of a new world. Meanwhile, the threat of Germany’s Blitz looms over London, and only Nicholas the Erstwhile senses the danger to come. Will he be able to save the man who saved him?
-
-
Prepare to Get Lost
- By Joe Kraus on 09-11-19
By: Brian Catling
-
Hollow
- By: Brian Catling
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sheltering beneath Das Kagel, the cloud-scraping structure rumored to be the Tower of Babel, the sacred Monastery of the Eastern Gate descends into bedlam. Their ancient oracle, Quite Testiyont - whose prophesies helped protect the church - has died, leaving the monks vulnerable to the war raging between the living and the dead. Tasked by the High Church to deliver a new oracle, Barry Follett and his group of hired mercenaries are forced to confront wicked giants and dangerous sirens.
-
-
Excellent story, audio troubles
- By Amazon Customer on 08-04-21
By: Brian Catling
-
Perdido Street Station
- By: China Mieville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 24 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the center of the world. Humans and mutants and arcane races brood in the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the river is sluggish with unnatural effluent and foundries pound into the night. For a thousand years, the Parliament and its brutal militias have ruled over a vast economy of workers and artists, spies and soldiers, magicians, crooks, and junkies. Now a stranger has arrived, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand. And something unthinkable is released.
-
-
Stick with it
- By Steph on 01-31-13
By: China Mieville
-
The Power
- By: Naomi Alderman
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Power, the world is a recognizable place: There's a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family. But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power: They can cause agonizing pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets.
-
-
A necessary read
- By Grace on 11-22-17
By: Naomi Alderman
-
The Books of Jacob
- A Novel
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Jennifer Croft - translator
- Narrated by: Allen Lewis Rickman, Gilli Messer
- Length: 35 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the mid-18th century, as new ideas—and a new unrest—begin to sweep the Continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following.
-
-
A notorious false messiah and his followers
- By Shmuel M on 02-25-22
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Dracul
- By: Dacre Stoker, J.D. Barker
- Narrated by: Pete Bradbury, Vikas Adam, Saskia Maarleveld, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The prequel to Dracula, inspired by notes and texts left behind by the author of the classic novel, Dracul is a supernatural thriller that reveals not only Dracula's true origins but Bram Stoker's - and the tale of the enigmatic woman who connects them. It is 1868, and a 21-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here....
-
-
So Well Done
- By DobieChuck on 01-01-19
By: Dacre Stoker, and others
-
The Cloven
- The Vorrh (3)
- By: Brian Catling
- Narrated by: Allan Corduner
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the stunning conclusion to this endlessly imaginative saga, the young Afrikaner socialite Cyrena Lohr is mourning the death of her lover, the cyclops Ishmael, when she rekindles a relationship with famed naturalist Eugène Marais. Before departing down his own dark path, Marais presents her with a gift: an object of great power that grants her visions of a new world. Meanwhile, the threat of Germany’s Blitz looms over London, and only Nicholas the Erstwhile senses the danger to come. Will he be able to save the man who saved him?
-
-
Prepare to Get Lost
- By Joe Kraus on 09-11-19
By: Brian Catling
-
Hollow
- By: Brian Catling
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sheltering beneath Das Kagel, the cloud-scraping structure rumored to be the Tower of Babel, the sacred Monastery of the Eastern Gate descends into bedlam. Their ancient oracle, Quite Testiyont - whose prophesies helped protect the church - has died, leaving the monks vulnerable to the war raging between the living and the dead. Tasked by the High Church to deliver a new oracle, Barry Follett and his group of hired mercenaries are forced to confront wicked giants and dangerous sirens.
-
-
Excellent story, audio troubles
- By Amazon Customer on 08-04-21
By: Brian Catling
-
Perdido Street Station
- By: China Mieville
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 24 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The metropolis of New Crobuzon sprawls at the center of the world. Humans and mutants and arcane races brood in the gloom beneath its chimneys, where the river is sluggish with unnatural effluent and foundries pound into the night. For a thousand years, the Parliament and its brutal militias have ruled over a vast economy of workers and artists, spies and soldiers, magicians, crooks, and junkies. Now a stranger has arrived, with a pocketful of gold and an impossible demand. And something unthinkable is released.
-
-
Stick with it
- By Steph on 01-31-13
By: China Mieville
-
The Power
- By: Naomi Alderman
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Power, the world is a recognizable place: There's a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family. But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power: They can cause agonizing pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets.
-
-
A necessary read
- By Grace on 11-22-17
By: Naomi Alderman
-
The Books of Jacob
- A Novel
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Jennifer Croft - translator
- Narrated by: Allen Lewis Rickman, Gilli Messer
- Length: 35 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the mid-18th century, as new ideas—and a new unrest—begin to sweep the Continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following.
-
-
A notorious false messiah and his followers
- By Shmuel M on 02-25-22
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
-
Dracul
- By: Dacre Stoker, J.D. Barker
- Narrated by: Pete Bradbury, Vikas Adam, Saskia Maarleveld, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The prequel to Dracula, inspired by notes and texts left behind by the author of the classic novel, Dracul is a supernatural thriller that reveals not only Dracula's true origins but Bram Stoker's - and the tale of the enigmatic woman who connects them. It is 1868, and a 21-year-old Bram Stoker waits in a desolate tower to face an indescribable evil. Armed only with crucifixes, holy water, and a rifle, he prays to survive a single night, the longest of his life. Desperate to record what he has witnessed, Bram scribbles down the events that led him here....
-
-
So Well Done
- By DobieChuck on 01-01-19
By: Dacre Stoker, and others
-
The Shadow of the Torturer
- The Book of the New Sun, Book 1
- By: Gene Wolfe
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Shadow of the Torturer is the first volume in the four-volume epic, the tale of a young Severian, an apprentice to the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession - showing mercy towards his victim.
Gene Wolfe's "The Book of the New Sun" is one of speculative fiction's most-honored series. In a 1998 poll, Locus Magazine rated the series behind only "The Lord of the Rings" and The Hobbit as the greatest fantasy work of all time.
-
-
"All of you are torturers, one way or another"
- By Jefferson on 10-21-12
By: Gene Wolfe
-
Stories of Your Life and Others
- By: Ted Chiang
- Narrated by: Abby Craden, Todd McLaren
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stories of Your Life and Others presents characters who must confront sudden change-the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens-while striving to maintain some sense of normalcy. In the amazing and much-lauded title story (the basis for the 2016 movie Arrival), a grieving mother copes with divorce and the death of her daughter by drawing on her knowledge of alien languages and non-linear memory recollection.
-
-
Odd stories except for the Arrival
- By Mark on 07-15-17
By: Ted Chiang
-
Mordew
- By: Alex Pheby
- Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
- Length: 18 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the slums of the sea-battered city, a young boy called Nathan Treeves lives with his parents, eking out a meagre existence by picking treasures from the Living Mud and the half-formed, short-lived creatures it spawns. Until one day his desperate mother sells him to the mysterious Master of Mordew.
-
-
Stunning
- By Billjonn on 01-10-22
By: Alex Pheby
-
Piranesi
- By: Susanna Clarke
- Narrated by: Chiwetel Ejiofor
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone.
-
-
Fascinating Social Study
- By Henry V on 02-26-21
By: Susanna Clarke
-
The Elementals
- By: Michael McDowell
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After a bizarre and disturbing incident at the funeral of matriarch Marian Savage, the McCray and Savage families look forward to a restful and relaxing summer at Beldame, on Alabama's Gulf Coast, where three Victorian houses loom over the shimmering beach. Two of the houses are habitable, while the third is slowly and mysteriously being buried beneath an enormous dune of blindingly white sand. But though long uninhabited, the third house is not empty. Inside, something deadly lies in wait.
-
-
Solid Haunted House Book - and that's rare!
- By Deziderata on 06-28-18
By: Michael McDowell
-
Devils
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 28 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Exiled to four years in Siberia, but hailed by the end of his life as a saint, prophet, and genius, Fyodor Dostoevsky holds an exalted place among the best of the great Russian authors. One of Dostoevsky’s five major novels, Devils follows the travails of a small provincial town beset by a band of modish radicals - and in so doing presents a devastating depiction of life and politics in late 19th-century Imperial Russia.
-
-
Excellent translation and narration
- By L. Kerr on 09-06-13
-
The Rise of Endymion
- By: Dan Simmons
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 29 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the stunning continuation of the epic adventure begun in Hyperion, Simmons returns us to a far future resplendent with drama and invention. On the world of Hyperion, the mysterious Time Tombs are opening. And the secrets they contain mean that nothing - nothing anywhere in the universe - will ever be the same.
-
-
Well written and narrated
- By Chaim on 06-26-09
By: Dan Simmons
-
The Savage Detectives
- A Novel
- By: Roberto Bolaño
- Narrated by: Eddie Lopez, Armando Durán
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The late Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño has been called the García Marquez of his generation. The Savage Detectives is a hilarious and sexy, meandering and melancholy, companionable and complicated road trip through Mexico City, Barcelona, Israel, Liberia, and finally the desert of northern Mexico. It is the first of Bolaño's two giant works, with 2666, to be translated into English and is already being hailed as a masterpiece.
-
-
Great listen
- By P. Bowen on 01-15-14
By: Roberto Bolaño
-
Rendezvous with Rama
- By: Arthur C. Clarke
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim, Robert J. Sawyer - introduction
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredibly, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind's first encounter with alien intelligence.
-
-
Mixed feelings
- By Tricia on 01-07-10
By: Arthur C. Clarke
-
The Stone Sky
- By: N. K. Jemisin
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women. Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe. For Nassun, her mother's mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: That sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.
-
-
Dragged Out
- By Audra Lorton on 07-29-19
By: N. K. Jemisin
-
Elric of Melniboné
- Volume 1: Elric of Melnibone, The Fortress of the Pearl, The Sailor on the Seas of Fate, and The Weird of the White Wolf
- By: Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman
- Narrated by: Samuel Roukin
- Length: 24 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Moorcock began chronicling the adventures of the albino sorcerer Elric, last king of decadent Melniboné, and his sentient vampiric sword, Stormbringer, he set out to create a new kind of fantasy adventure, one that broke with tradition and reflected a more up-to-date sophistication of theme and style. The result was a bold and unique hero: a rock-and-roll antihero who would channel all the violent excesses of the '60s into one enduring archetype.
-
-
First reviewer ignorant there's a forward. Ignore.
- By Paul Black on 02-15-22
By: Michael Moorcock, and others
-
City of Golden Shadow
- Otherland, Book 1
- By: Tad Williams
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 28 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Surrounded by secrecy, it is home to the wildest dreams and darkest nightmares. Incredible amounts of money have been lavished on it. The best minds of two generations have labored to build it. And somehow, bit by bit, it is claiming the Earth's most valuable resource - its children.
-
-
Weird. Seriously weird.
- By Townsend on 05-15-15
By: Tad Williams
Publisher's Summary
The Erstwhile brings listeners back to the singular world and mind of B. Catling, continuing the groundbreaking storytelling of his hit The Vorrh.
In London and Germany, strange beings are reanimating themselves. They are the Erstwhile, the angels that failed to protect the Tree of Knowledge, and their reawakening will have major consequences.
In Africa, the colonial town of Essenwald has fallen into disarray because the timber workforce has disappeared into the Vorrh. Now a team of specialists are dispatched to find them. Led by Ishmael, the former cyclops, they enter the forest, but the Vorrh will not give them back so easily. To make matters worse, an ancient guardian of the forest has plans for Ishmael and his crew. Meanwhile a child of mixed race has been found abandoned in a remote cottage. Her origins are unknown, but she has powers beyond her own understanding. Conflict is coming, as the old and new, human and inhuman are set on a collision course.
Once again blending the real and the imagined, The Erstwhile brings historical figures such as William Blake and places such as the Bedlam Asylum, as well as ingenious creations such as The Kin (a family of robots) together to create unforgettable novel of births and burials, excavations and disappearances.
Critic Reviews
“Epic...emotionally gripping...dreamlike.... Catling weaves alternate history and retroactive mythmaking into a stunning whole.... He’s succeeded at writing a more balanced - and if this can be believed, slightly more conventional - novel this time around, which also bodes well for the trilogy’s upcoming finale, The Cloven. At the same time, The Erstwhile doesn’t depart radically from the devastating scope and dark spectacle that made The Vorrh one of the most arresting fantasy debuts in years - or Catling one of contemporary speculative fiction’s most imaginative writers.” (NPR.org)
“A dazzling psychedelic quest...viciously surreal.... The Erstwhile almost revels in its status as the hiatus between Genesis and Apocalypse. It applies the sleight of hand that many of the best middle-books do, for a shift of focus.... William Blake makes an appearance, as do Yiddish theatre, guillotines, radios that transmit from the future, premonitions of Shoah on Brick Lane, and a Ripper rumour. Some of this is part of a shared mythology of English esoterica. It’s no wonder that Sinclair, Alan Moore and Michael Moorcock have enthused over these books: Catling is using the same raw materials they do, but in a different manner.... Even in the most extreme moments Catling has an eye to the wry, to the momentous absurdity of just being a thing made of flesh in a world that is not.” (The Guardian)
“Brian Catling’s The Erstwhile, like the work of Mervyn Peake, is outside genre. The stand-alone centre novel in a three-decker, it is even better than The Vorrh, the volume that preceded it.... Again we meet a variety of wonderful, often bizarre characters.... The plot is complex, monumental, engrossing and crammed with original images. If you like Peake’s Titus Groan, Catling’s splendid novel is probably for you.” (Michael Moorcock, The New Statesman)
More from the same
Author
Narrator
What listeners say about The Erstwhile
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joe Kraus
- 09-06-19
More of Something That's Never the Same
In retrospect, it’s easy to see that the first volume of Brian Catling’s trilogy begins with a transformation of the feminine into the masculine. In the first, amazing scene, a dying priestess is transformed into a living bow – the very essence of the male symbol, derived as it is from Apollo as archer.
This second volume begins with the reverse. One of our male characters, discovering an abandoned infant, suddenly grows breasts in order to feed it. And we have, as well, our bow disintegrating itself into a cradle, reversing the gender implications of the original transformation.
Those opening chapters set a different tone, which changes things for a while. Then, like the first volume, this one is so magically bewildering that the tone changes throughout. We get some of the same characters back, some transformed, and we get some new ones.
I don’t think I could adequately summarize what takes place, but that’s the ultimate art of this work. Catling’s imagination is so broad, his concerns so varied, that it never settles into anything predictable. To that, I say, thank goodness. No single part of this is ever boring, and none seems entirely detached from the whole. Reading it as a perpetually unsettling experience, though, because it never hardens into something predictable and “finished.”
(In a review for locusmag – a review I’ve only started since it has spoilers for the final volume of the trilogy, Katharine Coldiron speaks of Catling making “rookie mistakes” in not answering all the questions he asks. With apologies for not yet having read all she has to say, I think she’s the one missing the point: this is fantasy unfettered. It’s fantasy that denies the fundamental mistake of the post-Tolkien genre. We’re seeing an imagination unfold into ever-new, ever newly possible alternatives. If this somehow ends with everything resolved, I’ll think it a deep betrayal. One of the major points of this is to remind us of the power of the weird. It’s not retelling some “high fantasy” kingdom’s escape from Armageddon with nothing changed but the names.)
In this case, Catling is concerned, among other things, with the warping effect of colonialism on the colonizers. The Limboia, the zombie-like figures needed to harvest the timber on which the city of Essenwald depends for its wealth, have been lost. A major thread here concerns our “healed” cyclops, Ishmael, as he sets out to help find them. In the harsh caste system of the place, he’s in-between. He isn’t fully “white,” but he’s been accepted by them as a lover and a servant, and he has hopes of achieving more.
We also have Gertrude, who has thought herself fully born of the timber barons’ caste. It turns out that her history is deeper, though. A bit like Ishmael, she is the product of a different genealogy – though fully accepted by her new family – which makes her encounters with the mechanical Kin all the more bewildering. She may be someone/something they’ve produced, and her daughter – eventually kidnapped – may have a powerful role to play in the forest of the Vorrh.
There’s also a newly introduced priest who, in a thread that’s haunting and still unfinished, is compelled by the young girl of the beginning to write a message with his own blood and flesh. As he writes, the letters draw a seething group of ants who bring them to life as they pass back and forth in the contours he has drawn. (Modest spoiler from the first few pages of the final volume that I have just begun: we meet the real-life intellectual Eugene Marais who’s book, Soul of the White Ant, may offer an explanation for ant behavior.)
And then there’s the new character, Hector Schumann, a Jew who’s come from Germany to interview various institutionalized figures whom he comes to think of as fallen angels, the Erstwhiles of the title who were supposedly called upon to guard the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Having failed in their duty, they’re a kind of abandoned group. They have nothing to do but fade slowly from the world.
One of those characters, Nicholas, has found a way to become something closer to human, though, and he and Hector become allies for inscrutable reasons. Eventually Hector has to hide out from an increasingly anti-Semitic German government, and he takes shelter with a Jewish gangster, “Rabbi” (an ironic title) Solly Diamond. And this whole plot-piece takes place a decade or more after the events in Essenwald without, so far, a clear connection between them.
I’m moving sideways with all that, recounting what happens but not effectively describing how it feels to experience it happening. That’s the joy of all this and, in the case of Nicholas, a clue to the origins and ambitions of Catling’s project.
Nicholas speaks often of his “Old Man,” the poet William Blake who was the first to encounter him after he awoke from almost two millennia sleeping below the Thames. (Does any of that quite make sense? Of course not. And that’s the magic.) In fact, the opening scene of the novel – and apparently the cover image – involve Blake interviewing and sketching Nicholas for his work.
Even before such an overt reference, I found myself tracing the Blakean influence here. Like Allan Moore’s Jerusalem (and, though we forget, like Tolkien himself) Catling is a kind of neo-Blake, someone intent on seeing beyond the world as it presents itself. As Blake put it famously, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, man would see things as they truly are: infinite.
That’s ultimately what this project strikes me as being about. Like Moore’s Jerusalem, it’s about consciously imagining an extra dimension to the world, about dreaming that we what we see is only the beginning of what our minds might apprehend. Katharine Coldiron – and Orson Scott Card and so many others who have big sales in the genre – want to imagine a world that, looking different from our own, ultimately answers to the same trajectory of narrative. Catling and Moore deliver something much more, something that leaves us feeling smaller for the glimpse we get of an imagined space so much larger than the world we know.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Chuck P.
- 01-17-19
Brilliant
Picks up right where The Vorrh left off and is the perfect bridge to The Cloven, the final book in the trilogy. This series is one of the most beautifully written that I've ever read. B. Catling is like David Lynch, Frank Herbert and Samuel Beckett rolled into one. If you love the english language, this book is for you. The narration is second to none. I'll be searching out more books read by Allan Corduner.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Andrew
- 06-03-19
Decent Narration.
I enjoyed Vandermeer's exploration of "Area X." I attribute this to my early life in a estuary. I spent alot of time alone in the natural environment. "The Vorrh" was recommended to me. I read it. There was alot to work with for the remaining two books of the trilogy. I would have preferred it if the book never ventured to London and the story remained at ground zero. I would have preferred a greater emphasis on biology than religion. This just isn't something that appeals to me. If you are fond of alternate genesis stories, or historical fiction or "Our angels are different than yours" this may be what you are looking for. best luck.
1 person found this helpful