Hollow - Brian Catling

There's a great deal to admire in the works of B. Catling. Leaving aside his work as a sculptor and artist, his fiction has a distinctive character, a tremendously imaginative and original approach to dark fantasy, the writing evoking wondrous visuals. He is at his most expansive in The Vorrh trilogy, but equally creative in shorter works like Earwig. Hollow is another fabulous creation, creating a world so unsettling that it's not one you'd particularly want to revisit in a trilogy.

It indeed starts out like a fable, one set in medieval times, where Follett and his group of mercenaries and knights of seemingly Dutch or Flemish origin have been tasked by the High Church with delivering a new oracle to the monastery of the Eastern Gate, Das Kagel, formerly known as the Tower of Babel. The nature of the Blessed Oracle is a little obscure but also somewhat disturbing. A creature of withered limbs, it feeds on the marrow of human bones treated fresh by the whispered sins of the Follett's men, who have "a depth of sin and crime to draw from". 

The Blessed Oracle also guides the company of mercenaries along each stage of the way, since they don't seem to have a map to follow. The journey, needless to say is beset with all manner of strange creatures and extraordinary obstacles to surmount. Some of them aren't going to make it all the way there, and indeed, one doesn't even get past the opening pages.

All is similarly unsettling and sinister in the Monastery of the Eastern Gate. Their previous Oracle, the Quiet Testiyont, is reportedly dead, but whisperings of a strange and unfathomable nature have still been heard in the Cyst, a hollow where the prophecies of the Oracle used to be heard. Also just beyond the grounds of the Monastery of the Eastern Gate is the Glandula Misericordia, the Gland of Mercy, an enclosure where the armies of the living and the dead fight a perpetual battle. It seems that some of the recent disturbances might have something to do with the secret Abbot Clementine is keeping.

There are all manner of Gothic horror subplots and fantasy elements elsewhere on Hollow. The writing strikes a superb balance between those two styles, creating vivid images. And if the world around them isn't surreal enough, imagine what the dreams Catling describes for them are like. Well, it eventually becomes difficult to tell dreams and reality apart as Woebegots, otherwise knows as Filthlings start to appear and be developing or imitating human characteristics.

It's apparent that the Woebegots are like creatures out of paintings by Heronymus Bosch. Whether these creatures have been conjured out of those paintings, have been given birth from the imagination of the painter, or whether they have appeared from a portal of Hell is a mystery, but they don't bode anything good. That seems to be the inspiration for Catling this time and he seems to enjoy bringing those paintings to life in the period they are created.

Reading notes: Read from Amazon Kindle eBook.