The Works of Vermin

 

Hiron Ennes, The Works of Vermin (Tor Publishing Group: 2025).

Ennes creates wonderfully weird worlds, always described at just the right level of detail. They know what to explain in depth and what to leave for the reader to fill in. The Works of Vermin is a story of a world, its people, and its vermin shaped by art, war, and decadence. Set in a weird Gormenghast-like city of impossible architecture, built on and within a tree over a poisonous river, it is a novel about revolution, remaking the self, and constructing reality.

Saturated with heavy ideas dripping like ecdytoxin from teratopods,  this novel respects the intelligence of the reader and leaves space for reflection. Reminiscent of China Miéville’s The Last Days of New Paris, art itself takes on physical powers of destruction and construction. The city’s opera, statuary, and embroidery not only record history but they make historical facts true.  Open alchemical street warfare between pest extermination companies frames an exploration of the relationship between beauty and violence, fact and fiction, disease and power, all within a battle for the control of aesthetics within a vicious cycle of oppression.