(no subject)

[skygiants]

I wanted to write Hiron Ennes' Leech up for Halloween. It is now over a week past Halloween, which perhaps tells you something about how behind I am on everything, but let's all pretend this is appropriate and timely because it was the most horror book that I've read this year, even counting the camp bees.

I'd seen this book pitched as 'gothic horror' and thought I knew to a certain extent what to expect from that kind of marketing these days -- vampires and unhealthy family relationships and seductively sinister men and girls fleeing houses -- and that is not at all what this book is, although there is a big house, and an unhealthy family, and a bad man. But the narrator is not really at any risk of being seduced by the bad man. The narrator has different concerns, because the narrator is a doctor who is also a parasitic telepathically-linked hivemind.

Dr. Hivemind is in fact a great doctor! [to everyone who is not a child who thought they were being apprenticed to Dr. Hivemind Institute to join a normal profession and have instead become just another host body to a giant parasitic hivemind]. Dr. Hivemind just wants to become humanity's best and only medical professional! because a.) it is to Dr. Hivemind's benefit for Dr. Hivemind's host species to grow up healthy and strong and b.) it is not to Dr. Hivemind's benefit for any other medical professionals to start investigating and realize that the world's premiere medical authorities are all in fact the same weird parasite. On the other hand, on a day-to-day basis this means that all of Dr. Hivemind's sub-doctors are very selfless in going into danger to treat patients [because who cares about one host body], and also always have the benefit of infinite peer review, so there are real upsides to the Dr. Hivemind system, I think [unless of course you are a person who is unfortunately about to be nonconsensually infected with Dr. Hivemind.]

One of Dr. Hivemind's Hivemind Doctors -- stationed, of course, in an isolated castle populated by an unhealthy family -- has had the misfortune to die and, what's worse, to somehow die cut off from the collective without any way to send back interesting medical data, so another Hivemind Doctor has come out to investigate what killed him. The answer, unfortunately for Dr. Hivemind, seems to be a Rival Parasite that doesn't appear to have anywhere near as much care for the health of its host population as Dr. Hivemind does. Over the course of the book, Dr. Hivemind embarks on an increasingly paranoid quest to discover the extent of the contamination, while also more or less accidentally uncovering more of the dark secrets of the Gothic House and its relationship with the surrounding village along the way.

I love Dr. Hivemind as POV character on the gothic narrative; the voice is confident, compelling, and unique, and the gradual shift in the narration as the parasitic hivemind starts to lose its grip on the protagonist is really skillfully done -- it's not a surprise to the reader that's happening, but one can believe that it might be a surprise to Dr. Hivemind. I also loved the gradual buildup on the deuteragonist as he assumed central importance to the narrative and to the protagonist. The book is also very effectively creepy! big warnings for body horror, disease horror, pregnancy horror, child abuse horror, fucked-up family horror, and probably some other kinds of horror that I am not thinking about at the moment; happy to give specifics. But if you like creepy books at all I do recommend this and if you like unusual narrators with weird sideways perspectives on the world I also recommend.

[as a sidenote, I think the whole thing might possibly be set in postapocalyptic Montreal, which would make the isolated castle a postapocalyptic Chateau Frontenac. I have no hard proof of this within the text but it's extremely funny so I'm choosing to believe.]

Comments

[brownbetty]

I read the first half of this book voraceously, but then my library load expired, just as dr. hivemind is like "wow, there's *defifinitely* not another hivemind out there, that's *definitely* not what I have just discovered" and then when I tried to pick it up again I was like '....I have forgotten nearly all these characters," but perhaps I should try again.

[skygiants]

Yeah I can imagine that a gap would make for challenges with this one ... to be fair the first half was my favorite part but I do think it's worth finishing!

[sovay]

I wanted to write Hiron Ennes' Leech up for Halloween. It is now over a week past Halloween, which perhaps tells you something about how behind I am on everything, but let's all pretend this is appropriate and timely because it was the most horror book that I've read this year, even counting the camp bees.

I am also behind on a project that had an original date-stamp, if it helps.

I love Dr. Hivemind as POV character on the gothic narrative; the voice is confident, compelling, and unique, and the gradual shift in the narration as the parasitic hivemind starts to lose its grip on the protagonist is really skillfully done -- it's not a surprise to the reader that's happening, but one can believe that it might be a surprise to Dr. Hivemind.

I am curious if the success of the Imperial Radch books made these themes of collective vs. individual consciousness more publishable outside of their traditional home of science fiction, but also this particular narrative trick sounds great.

[skygiants]

Together, we attempt to not let our self-imposed date-stamps get in the way of actually getting the thing out the door 🤝

I do think the Imperial Radch books pushed the door open to an explosion of exploration on a lot of narrative devices and collective consciousness is absolutely among them. In a decade or so I think it will be a really interesting enterprise to do a family tree of Breq's literary descendants, much as these days one can track the line down from the Scarlet Pimpernel's non-identical twin sons, Percy Wimsey and Batman.

[rachelmanija]

Wow, this sounds bizarre and amazing.

[skygiants]

I'd definitely recommend it to you in particular -- when thinking about whether a book commits to its premise there is no doubt that this one commits.

[chestnut_pod]

You know, I can see a few benefits to this situation. You'd never be out of network…

[skygiants]

A continents' worth of expertise constantly at your doctor's fingertips! Who needs to travel to a specialty hospital?

[a_reasonable_man]

This sounds like taking the establishment vs. populist argument about vaccines and turning each side metaphorically into rival parasites with different motives. In other words, it sounds like an intricate satire.

I have fond thoughts about the Frontenac. My parents had their honeymoon there.

[skygiants]

My parents also had their honeymoon at the Frontenac! And are both doctors, so I suppose it's not inconceivable that they were infected by Dr. Hivemind there.

[kate_nepveu]

without reading spoilers or other comments, I'm in! how much Imperial Radch vibes are there?

[skygiants]

I am really looking forward to your thoughts! Hm, the narrative tone is extremely different, and I think that in many ways the journey is the opposite of the Radch books' assertion of agency and individuality by the collective-as-individual-as-new-consciousness, but I'd say there are nonetheless definite resonances with the way the experience of Being Many is written on the page.

[sophia_sol]

so on the one hand I adore weird narrator stuff but on the other I'm a wuss about creepy vibes, how survivable do you think this book would be for me?

[skygiants]

To sum up what I told you elsewhere, I think it probably would be survivable but perhaps on the edge of? Worth reading the first two chapters or so to see!

[snickfic]

I had skipped this one because it sounded like it went more medical/science fiction horror than I'm usually into, but this sounds more fun and weirder than I expected. I will have to check it out now. :)

[skygiants]

It was much more fun and weird than I expected also, and I ended up really glad I gave it a shot!