'The Vorrh' by B. Catling

The Vorrh is a vast sentient forest in which the restrictions and distinctions that pass for knowledge are suspended, or rather upended, in which the monstrous and the beautiful are continually sloughed off by some unreachable, seemingly intelligent, possibly capricious force, under the influence of which cause and effect are loosened or inverted, humans behave like objects and objects display sentience or, if not sentience, will. Reading this book is like reading Ballard on steroids (either Ballard or the reader, take your pick), like setting off fireworks in a tent, like overinflating a balloon until, after pressing you against the wall, it bursts the room and sends you flying backwards into the world outside. In this work of speculative fiction as vast and dense as the Vorrh itself, Catling exercises his muscular obsessions with the mechanisms of colonisation, both mental and physical, with intrusion, pursuit and control, and with the obverse faces of all of these. Following any of the converging narratives is like walking along a beam only to have it twist and invert beneath you in mid-stride, leaving you to find yourself walking upside-down.  

July 2015

 

>> Catling also some reputation as an artist and a poet