As soon as I saw this was available, I requested it – and was delighted to be approved. Tchaikovsky is a huge talent who deserves to be far more widely read.
BLURB: It’s always idyllic in the village until the landlord comes to call. Because the landlord is an Ogre. And Ogres rule the world, with their size and strength and appetites. It’s always been that way. It’s the natural order of the world. And they only eat people sometimes.
But when the headman’s son, Torquell, dares lift his hand against the landlord’s son, he sets himself on a path to learn the terrible truth about the Ogres, and about the dark sciences that ensured their rule.
REVIEW: This is Tchaikovsky at his disturbing best. His smooth prose style has a tendency to lull readers into thinking they are reading one kind of book – before he slips in a few sentences that make you realise that this is something else altogether… I was intrigued by the unusual second-person viewpoint – so that the narrator is directly addressing the reader as you, instead of the more common I or s/he. If the author hadn’t been Tchaikovsky, this would have raised warning flags, but I was happy to go along with it in the knowledge that I was in the hands of a capable, experienced writer with a complete mastery of his craft. And I was pleased to see that my faith was justified, as the closing scene makes it clear who is talking so directly – and why.
I’m not sure that I liked poor Torquell all that much, but I completely sympathised with his plight, given how humanity have been so downtrodden by the greedy, entitled ogres. The story is cleverly presented. We have Robyn, the outlaw who lives in the forest surrounding the village, which is an obvious allusion to a major legend. As Torquell experiences other key events that tend to happen to an archetypal hero, which he is shown to be, it gave me a sense that I knew this story arc and where it was going.
Until I didn’t… Because inside the wrapping of this classic underdog heroic tale, other things are also happening. The most devastating of those are who the ogres are and how they ended up ruling over humans. And that was a twist I didn’t see coming until Tchaikovsky revealed it. I was still reeling over that one, until the doozy of an ending once more had my jaw dropping. I’m an experienced reader and writer – and while I get drawn into a story with the best of them, if any plot device is clumsily presented, I’ll spot it a mile away. So to be able to pull off two major plot twists while playing such games with the narrative structure takes skill and deftness. Particularly as the story is also delivered with a wry humour that at times had me grinning, despite the awfulness of the ongoing injustice.
All in all, this short book is a triumph – as well as a strong warning that we need to get our sustainability sorted out urgently. The fact that the message is presented so cleverly made it even more apt. I certainly haven’t stopped thinking about this one since I put it down. Very highly recommended for those who appreciate their science fiction delivered with skill and originality. While I obtained an arc of Ogres from the publisher via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
10/10
Brainfluff 