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dreadpiratekelButcher of the Forest
Premee Mohamed
I don’t really like the wild woods. Give me a nice trail I can run on, bike on, or walk my dog on and I’m good. But take me off the path into the woods – nah. In the woods, there is a potential for monsters, or so the many scary books I have read have taught me, haha. (Disclaimer: I have only respect for people who can safely hike and adventure in the woods. You are a different breed than I am, and good for you.). Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed is a fantasy novella set in a universe world that is not here but it has a forest in it, and that forest has monsters. The kind of forest that you’d want to avoid if you had a choice...
In the novella, there is a land ruled over by a person known only in the text as the Tyrant. As the name would imply, they are explicitly not nice. While it is implied that a wide range of territory is controlled by the Tyrant, the story is concerned with a nameless village where the Tyrant has built a castle. The village doesn’t just live in the shadow of the Tyrant, they also have to deal with a forest that is just not normal. People go in and, in most cases, do not come out. There is something in there, the Elmever, a land of creatures who are very much not human.
But Veris has gone into the woods, and she has come out, and she brought out a child that had wandered into it with her. But that was a long time ago, and by the time the Tyrant’s guards wake her in the middle of the night and drag her to the castle, Veris has grown older. Her exploits have reached the Tyrant’s ear however, and now that his two children have gone missing he wants to send her into the woods. She is “encouraged” to take up this task again and told her life and the lives of the people in her village will be forfeited if she does not go in search of the missing. Those same lives will be forfeited if she goes and does not come back out with the children. Lose, lose basically.
So it’s dark! Very dark. But despite all of the above, this reads like a fairy tale. The unsanitized kind of fairy tale. And like a fairy tale, there is a certain logic inherent in the strange, awful place Veris has found herself in. I enjoyed watching her follow the “rules” of the setting and find ways to aim to achieve her goals. I like fairy tale logic, nonsensical or more sensical as it can be.
The writing is just - beautiful, even as it describes unsettling moments. For example (that is less about the outright horror and more about the strange-ness) you have moments like this:
Love it.
Also, love that Veris is a grown woman; according to the text, she is pushing forty. Her previous experience in the woods when she was younger does come into play, but so does her age. She feels mature and measured and even thinks that at one point she could have done something faster when she was younger. I am here for older heroines in my fantasy. Yes, I read to escape, but as someone of an age with Veris, I like the acknowledgment that we don’t move as fast as we used to. We've got some grey in our hair.
Some truly original creatures show up in the story to vex our hero. These creatures are beautifully described and yet horrifying in many cases. In one case, I was like, I have never considered something like that being horrible and now I have thought about it several times. I was so excited for this release because I had read that genre-wise it was fantasy and horror, and I was like, my two favorites! Together!
Very solid read for me, and now I’m looking forward to diging into the author's other work!
The post at Cannonball Reads
Premee Mohamed
I don’t really like the wild woods. Give me a nice trail I can run on, bike on, or walk my dog on and I’m good. But take me off the path into the woods – nah. In the woods, there is a potential for monsters, or so the many scary books I have read have taught me, haha. (Disclaimer: I have only respect for people who can safely hike and adventure in the woods. You are a different breed than I am, and good for you.). Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed is a fantasy novella set in a universe world that is not here but it has a forest in it, and that forest has monsters. The kind of forest that you’d want to avoid if you had a choice...
In the novella, there is a land ruled over by a person known only in the text as the Tyrant. As the name would imply, they are explicitly not nice. While it is implied that a wide range of territory is controlled by the Tyrant, the story is concerned with a nameless village where the Tyrant has built a castle. The village doesn’t just live in the shadow of the Tyrant, they also have to deal with a forest that is just not normal. People go in and, in most cases, do not come out. There is something in there, the Elmever, a land of creatures who are very much not human.
But Veris has gone into the woods, and she has come out, and she brought out a child that had wandered into it with her. But that was a long time ago, and by the time the Tyrant’s guards wake her in the middle of the night and drag her to the castle, Veris has grown older. Her exploits have reached the Tyrant’s ear however, and now that his two children have gone missing he wants to send her into the woods. She is “encouraged” to take up this task again and told her life and the lives of the people in her village will be forfeited if she does not go in search of the missing. Those same lives will be forfeited if she goes and does not come back out with the children. Lose, lose basically.
So it’s dark! Very dark. But despite all of the above, this reads like a fairy tale. The unsanitized kind of fairy tale. And like a fairy tale, there is a certain logic inherent in the strange, awful place Veris has found herself in. I enjoyed watching her follow the “rules” of the setting and find ways to aim to achieve her goals. I like fairy tale logic, nonsensical or more sensical as it can be.
The writing is just - beautiful, even as it describes unsettling moments. For example (that is less about the outright horror and more about the strange-ness) you have moments like this:
‘His voice sounded nearly human. She truly had to concentrate to hear the strangeness in it: the sound of the woods, of wind blowing over broken branches, deep in his chest, and the way he snipped off the ends of his words like timing the buds from a rosebud.’
Love it.
Also, love that Veris is a grown woman; according to the text, she is pushing forty. Her previous experience in the woods when she was younger does come into play, but so does her age. She feels mature and measured and even thinks that at one point she could have done something faster when she was younger. I am here for older heroines in my fantasy. Yes, I read to escape, but as someone of an age with Veris, I like the acknowledgment that we don’t move as fast as we used to. We've got some grey in our hair.
Some truly original creatures show up in the story to vex our hero. These creatures are beautifully described and yet horrifying in many cases. In one case, I was like, I have never considered something like that being horrible and now I have thought about it several times. I was so excited for this release because I had read that genre-wise it was fantasy and horror, and I was like, my two favorites! Together!
Very solid read for me, and now I’m looking forward to diging into the author's other work!
The post at Cannonball Reads
