The Vorrh, by Brian Catling

There really is no accounting for taste

June 22, 2025, 2:53 p.m. by Droop

Ok, so I confess, I haven’t actually yet finished *The Vorrh*, by Brian Catling. I have like, 43 minutes left in the audiobook. Somehow, though, I don’t foresee those 43 minutes changing anything about this review, or how I feel about the book.

# The Story

*The Vorrh* is a rich, complicated, and exhausting book. It is set in a “dark historical fantasy” version of Africa (per Wikipedia) where magic, rituals, and demons exist right alongside one-shot muskets and British colonialism. The book follows a dizzying array of separate people and storylines which eventually begin to weave together. The namesake of the book is revealed to be a dark, magical forest, where the Garden of Eden is said to reside. So of course, someone has to go inside, and that’s when things start to get really strange.

Colonialism is a big part of the book. Like, a really big part of the book. This makes a lot of sense for a book that takes place in Africa - it would be weird if there was a novel set in Germany in 1939 and somehow ignored Nazism. However, and I’m sure my readers can relate to this, colonialism really sucked. I, and most people alive in the first world, cannot and will not ever comprehend what is was like to be a slave, and that’s great for us! That doesn't mean that it's fun to read about.

Outside of outright colonialism (read: slavery), the theme of *possessing* people runs deeply throughout the book. Characters keep others locked in their basement. They keep trinkets or mementos of others as if they are owning the physical person. They are "doctors" keeping "patients" locked in a laboratory, or husbands dismissively stowing wives at home. I wish I could elaborate more on this but it would spoil a lot.

The story is slow. There’s no kinder way to describe it. At the beginning, besides one major hiccup (keep reading…), I found myself gently hooked, but still a little bored. By a few hours in, the hook was starting to lose its momentum and I was slipping off. There was an escalation as the plot continued to rise, and the world-building and prose got sticky enough to keep hanging on for a while.

# Body Horror

I would say I generally “like” body horror. As a young adult, stories such as *The Thing*, *The Fly*, and *Bioshock* had a huge impact on my imagination. *Gleipnir* is my 'guilty pleasure' manga.

I write “like” in quotes because, if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t really like body horror sometimes. I think these themes are special to me because they *really* get under my skin. A light dusting of body horror is, for me, very engaging, but sometimes it escalates too quickly.

I don’t consider myself squeamish. I’ve seen plenty of violent movies and games. I don’t think I have the highest CON stat in the world, but it’s respectable. Considering this, one of the opening scenes of *The Vorrh* made me feel legitimately sick. My stomach was churning reading about what a certain character was doing. The feeling was so oppressive I paused the novel for five minutes to calm down.

The gory parts of *The Vorrh* are not so much body horror per technical definition, and better described as "horrible and disgusting things involving the human body". Body parts, body fluids, horrible wounds, corpses, and physical deformities all feature prominently. The *fluids* part is what gets me; I never want to hear the word "discharge" ever again...

(As an aside, the front cover on Audible is a simple black-and-white graphic of the moon or something. The front cover given by Wikipedia, which is the thumbnail for this post, matches the vibe of the book infinitely better.)

# The Characters

As is typical for me, what really killed *The Vorrh* is the characters. I want to read about characters that I emotionally connect to in some way. Either because they are likeable, or because they are like me, or because the author is coaxing me into empathizing with them in a way I didn’t think possible.

*The Vorrh* is devoid of such characters. Everyone, with maybe two exceptions, is despicable. Those that aren’t despicable are downright evil. Those that aren’t despicable or evil are completely detached from the story and the reader, as if they were just concepts. There’s nothing to emotionally latch onto, it’s just scene after scene of people you really don’t like talking to each other about uncomfortable things.

# The Prose

So, is there anything actually... good?... about *The Vorrh*? Yes. It's the writing. The writing is top-notch. Good pacing, intricate descriptions without being boring, and a captivating style that sounds thoughtful (and a little posh) without being pretentious. Catling's got a way with words, and the way is a dark forest path lit by ghostly faerie lights, smothered with a thick with a sense of unease. Despite not liking basically anything about the content of the book, I kept reading it because the prose sucks you in. 

# Conclusion

*The Vorrh* is a reminder of two important things: one, that there really is no accounting for taste; and two, that you can just simply not like a book for no other reason than you didn’t like it. I would give the novel a 5 out of 10, and would only recommend it if you have a specific interest in historical fantasy.