The Vorrh

By: Brian Catling

Narrated by: Allan Corduner

Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

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 and photographer Edward Muybridge. While fact and fictional blend, the hunter will become the hunted, and everyone's fate hangs in the balance under the will of the Vorrh.

©2015 Brian Catling (P)2015 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Catling's novel reads like a long-lost classic of Decadent or Symbolist literature, with that same sense of timelessness. It's peculiar, wildly imaginative, unafraid to transgress and get lost, and is unlike anything I've ever read." (Jeff VanderMeer, author of The Southern Reach Trilogy)

"A phosphorescent masterpiece.... Easily the current century's first landmark work of fantasy.... A brilliant and sustained piece of invention which establishes a benchmark not just for imaginative writing but for the human imagination in itself.... Read this book, and marvel." (Alan Moore, author of Watchmen and V for Vendetta)

"Brian Catling is simply a genius. His writing is so extraordinary it hurts, it makes me realize how little imagination I have." (Terry Gilliam)

Fantastic fiction with heavy religious inspiration

Surprised I’d never heard of this before. As someone who grew up heavily indoctrinated as an Independent Baptist with background in versions religions, this was an absolutely phenomenal read and very interesting glance into the “different bibles”. I’m very excited to read The Erstwhile to see where these familiar tales take me!

What the heck!

What a wild ride! Excellent narrator, and a wonderful writer. A possible good find for fans of Gene Wolfe.

Unusual

I finished this story but it was not what I was expecting. It was interesting in it own right, but I found it sometimes hard to follow. Maybe that's just me however. It did catch me enough that I will listen to the rest, but it is very different from what I was thinking.

Skillfully written and superbly narrated

No one else writes like Calling. I think his writing is beautiful, weird, and completely original. I got goosebumps from the way he described a tear moving down an old man's face. This trilogy feels like a fever dream and I loved it.

The narrator is tied with Simon Vance and Steven Pacey for my favorite narrator of all time. I think a big part of why the story works is because of his expert delivery.

Incredibly complex but imaginative

This book, both its performance and its story, take some time to warm up to, but in the end an absolutely worthwhile read. Though fantasy, it is without a doubt a literary feat. The language borders on the poetic and the plot meanders and pulls together an almost impossible web of characters, locations, and events. Initially I tried to listen to the book and had to put it down. It required too much concentration to follow the story, and the narrator’s tone was more grandiloquent than I prefer. However, much later (after continually hearing about the book’s merit) I gave it another shot. Again it took a LONG time to warm up to the book, but ultimately I grew to enjoy the author’s style and storytelling, and the narrator’s skill shone through as more characters developed. I’m only giving it a 4 because of the difficulty of the read, some of which I felt was distracting to the plot itself. For lovers of fantasy or literature, this is a must read.

Hallucinatory and utterly unique

I was lucky enough to have come into this without any mental model of what to expect, and wow.

Mind blowing.

I feel like this work has given birth to a new genre impossible to name.

Intriguing but ultimately aimless story, spectacular reading performance

Incredible reading performance - the best audio book performance I've heard with splendid accents, voices and pronunciations. Beautiful and ambitious descriptive language. But the story....huh? More like 15 stories none of which ever really develop, connect or resolve. Do we need to read the entire series to get anything coherent? Mood is set beautifully and the magical-surrealist setting in colonial Africa is brilliantly evoked...but what the hell is going on? We never get any real delivery of plot, explanation of the (many) ideas and stories hinted at, or even what the story dances around the whole time - a deeper understanding of the Vorrh itself. It's all confusing and nothing seems to fit together as far as the plot lines...so enticing...and therefore, ultimately, very frustrating.

Required Reading for school became one of my favorites.

This started out as a required reading for my college class, British Literature Post 1800 and quickly became one of my new favorites. The voices for all the characters line up beautifully with the story and makes it really hard to step away from. Allan Corduner is one of my favorite narrators and I look forward to the rest of the series being read by him.

Struggled to finish.

Parallel stories, poorly ended. Maybe it's all about the journey, not how it ends. Disappointed

Totally bizarre, brutally dark, would recommend

Unlike anything I have ever read. I will be thinking about this novel for a long time, and absolutely intend to read the final two in this trilogy.

I will say, I ended up reading my paperback way more often than listening to the audiobook - I often reread sentences and paused to contemplate Catling's meaning, though I think Corduner was terrific whenever I did listen to the book.