OBIR: Occasional Biased and Ignorant Reviews reflecting this reader’s opinion.
THE BUTCHER OF THE FOREST – by Premee Mohamed
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates/Tor Publishing Company, New York, NY, 2024.
Cover Art and Design: by Andrew Davis
This Novella is on the ballot for an Aurora Award. Voting has yet to begin. I figure I should try to review a number of nominees. The CSFFA makes it easy. Anyone who is a member of CSFFA can download the works on the ballot and read them to determine if they are worthy.
Also, since I’m on the ballot for doing these reviews, I should definitely be churning these reviews out on a weekly basis as I normally do when I am not pressed for time.
Alas, I’ve been so involved with the publication process for my novel Shatter Dark, that I’ve fallen way behind on all my other projects. For instant, the May issue of Polar Borealis Magazine is still a week or two away from publication. You would think, my being a writer, editor, and publisher, that I should be able to multitask in a comprehensive and seamless fashion.
Not a chance. I’m essentially a monomaniac chained to a computer. Sigh. But this one day I am devoting to reading and reviewing this novella, which is only 157 pages in length. Doable, methinks. We’ll see, or rather, you’ll see.
The book’s genre is horror/fantasy. It begins with a woman by the name of Veris being abducted from a village to the castle where dwells a tyrant. Not just any tyrant, mind you, but one who has conquered a vast empire with murderous efficiency. Oddly, he chose to build a castle near an obscure village. Possibly because both lie close to a haunted wood. Implies the tyrant is out to conquer, or at least exploit, more than just the real world.
Now, some might feel the tyrant is too evil, too one-sided. That to describe a leader as purely evil is a cliché out of movie fiction. Pandering to readers who just want to know whom to hate. And roughly and rudely grabbing a woman out of her home in the middle of the night is something no sane authority figure would ever do because of the curse of accountability. It just isn’t credible.
I beg to differ. As luck would have it, I’ve been reading (in my limited spare time when I’m too tired to do anything else) a historical biography titled The Mad Emperor: Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome by a scholar with the memorable British name of Harry Sidebottom. He describes a scene where a 14-year-old Heliogabalus orders his best friend and mentor slaughtered on the spot in full view of his other advisors because he dared suggest the emperor tone things down a little. Apparently, many modern scholars believe not even a madman is capable of such uncouth action, so the event must have been invented by ancient historians to make the boy emperor look bad.
Sidebottom then recounts the incident where one of Saddam Hussein’s best buddies, during a cabinet meeting, suggested Saddam surrender to the allies for the sake of preserving the nation. Saddam invited his friend into an empty room next to the meeting to discuss the matter further. He closed the door behind them. A shot rang out. Saddam returned to the meeting and carried on without mentioning his friend’s fate as if nothing had happened. Oddly, no one chose to remind him.
Sidebottom dryly remarks, “Autocrats have a distressing tendency not to behave like Western Academics.”
In light of today’s world, Premee’s depiction of a woman knowing she has no recourse to laws, rights, or due process and therefore failing to resist or even protest her abduction is ferociously realistic. Laws don’t matter worth a damn when those in charge decide not to obey them. History proves this over and over again.
What I like about the scene is that right away it establishes that unpredictability underlies the basis of reality. The whim of a tyrant is more real than a codification of law. Expect the unexpected and deal with it as best you can. That’s life. In that sense, life itself (occasionally) behaves like a tyrant unleashing a campaign of terror. Be prepared.
More particularly, as a reader, look forward to surprises and unanticipated twists in the unfolding of the novella. This generates excitement and a desire to find out what happens next, helps keep the pages turning.
The second thing I like about the novella is that it is in the form of a seemingly “simple” quest. The tyrant’s two young children, Eleonor and Aram, have wandered into the forbidden forest and not come back. Veris is the only person to have ever entered the wood and returned alive. Presumably, she is the only person in the Empire capable of retrieving the children. That is her mission. She better agree to do it, or else.
Fear of the forest, the great arboreal forest which used to cover most of Europe, is one of the most basic themes of Western literature. It is a world where the random violence of nature is firmly in control. Nothing domestic about it. Virtually every living being within has been transformed by fairy tales into mythic figures. Premee has a cornucopia of classic myths to select and transform with her imagination into something new and original. All the more reason to plunge into the book.
In other words, the quest is merely an excuse to get the action going, but one that raises expectations and also justifies the need to carry on no matter what weirdness threatens. Simple, easy to keep in mind, yet powerfully pervasive and motivational. Beginning writers take note of this technique. A useful device.
The third thing I like about this novella is that Veris is always in the moment. To be sure, there are mentions of past events, and worries about the eventual outcome of the one-woman expedition, but for the most part, her immediate focus is on the here and now. What is currently hunting her? How best to escape? Should she hide? Should she run? Even better, when the next threat has yet to reveal itself, the full power of her intellect is dedicated to her paranoia about everything she sees, hears, smells, and imagines. I know how she feels. Felt the same way in the jungles of Guatemala back in 1981. In a dangerous environment, hyper-situational awareness is your best friend. Very convincing realism in the description of her thoughts.
The fourth good thing? Premee’s power of description. Her description is not just evocative and mood setting, but wonderfully manipulative of the reader. By that I mean the description is profoundly immersive. You are literally one with the protagonist in experiencing her thoughts, perceptions, and feelings. Even scenes where nothing is happening hold you in a firm grip of anticipation. Many writers accomplish this, but few better than Premee. She has an eye for unusual and quirky detail which adds to the growing sense of dread. Yet, always, the description is at the service of the narrative voice and the plot. Painting the everchanging scene before the reader’s eyes. Rendering the unreal real. No padding. Everything has a purpose.
The fifth good thing is Premee’s treatment of the “monsters” encountered. Almost all appear to be based, in some fashion or another, on critters you’d expect to find in a densely wooded forest. None of them can be mistaken for the “normal” version even at first glance. They are all monstrous, usually in more ways than one, and refreshingly original in character. Like Veris, the reader just doesn’t know what to expect.
I particularly like the fact that the monsters are as jaded and cynical as Veris. Not similar life experience so much as mutual frustration over the unpredictability of the inevitable. Life just doesn’t seem fair, even to the monsters preying on the weak and helpless. The higher up the hierarchy of evil, though, the greater their temptation to engage in a battle of wits. Somehow, the most satisfying hunt of all. Even monsters like a challenge.
Finally, the sixth thing I like about the novella, the presence of magic and supernatural elements at an almost subliminal level, casually slipped in here and there appropriate to the plot, but in an a matter-of-fact understated manner, as if to impress upon the reader the magic should be taken for granted as part of the underpinnings of reality and therefore there is no need to question it. This helps establish the credibility of everything in the book. It is all of a piece. Another writing device worthy of imitation.
CONCLUSION:
There are many other aspects of The Butcher of the Forest worthy of praise. Collectively, everything adds up to a brilliantly original work of fantasy, something new and exciting. No wonder it is on the Aurora Awards ballot.
Of course, as a critic who specializes in promoting Canadian speculative fiction, I feel I should not advocate that any one book in an Aurora Awards category should win, because I don’t want to be seen as demeaning the other worthy candidates. Stating that it, like the others, deserves to be on the ballot is as far as I’m willing to go. It’s up to the Canadian CSFFA members to determine by their votes who should and will win.
Nevertheless, I conclude by adding this, that certain encounters in The Butcher of the Forest are burned into my mind’s eye and will not be easily forgotten. To state the obvious is to state the obvious. Premee Mohamed is a wonderful writer.
Check it out at: < The Butcher of the Forest >
