The Works of Vermin is incandescently and extravagantly weird, a grotesque hallucination that will consume you. It is a book that will leave its venom in your veins and its opalescent scars on your imagination.

The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes, Review: A Grotesque and Gorgeous Masterpiece

The Works of Vermin pulls readers into the decadent and deadly city of Tiliard, a metropolis carved into the stump of an ancient tree. The story follows Guy Moulène, an exterminator whose body is crisscrossed with tattoos signifying his overwhelming debt. To protect his sister from this financial burden, he will take on any job, no matter how vile. His latest quarry is not just another pest, but a centipede the size of a dragon with a ravenous taste for artwork and a venom that reshapes the future of the city itself.

This is not a straightforward monster-hunt narrative. Ennes weaves a tangled narrative that intertwines Guy’s saga in the city’s depths with the drama of the pampered elite in its canopy. The narrative also follows Asteritha Vost, a perfumer to the city’s ruler, whose scents are potent tools of mind-altering manipulation. Through these multiple, converging perspectives, Ennes explores themes of class, serfdom and art.

The world-building in The Works of Vermin is genuinely exceptional. Tiliard emerges as a living, breathing entity, a city where beauty and decay exist as interlaced facets of the same reality.

The city operates on “bioalchemic means,” with detailed explanations for everything from public works to weaponry, all utilising the resources of the living city itself. The elite “warp minds with toxic perfume”, while the lower levels swarm with species of uncanny pests, from chimaeras to pleasure hornets.

 The culture of Tiliard is steeped in a dark aesthetic. The upper society revolves around the opera, where deaths onstage… are very real. A series of plays dictates the city’s state-sanctioned history, and their influence seeps into the everyday language and understanding of its citizens. This is a world where “political movements are art” and opera is a bloodsport.

The novel is richly populated with a truly memorable cast of characters, where every single resident feels distinctly unique and fully realised, regardless of how brief or fleeting their appearance may be throughout the story. Crafted with care, contributing depth and personality that make the entire setting come alive in a vivid and engaging way.

 Guy is a relatable protagonist, a man driven by the simple, desperate goal of protecting his family. Aster, the perfumer, carries her own secrets, including her chronically ill health from a past civil war. Their paths cross with a host of other intriguing figures, including the mysterious Mallory vant Passand, a man with a past that is hard to pin down.

The story features a bi/pansexual main character along with significant trans and nonbinary characters, making it a rich and inclusive narrative. The way Ennes skillfully explores and plays with the concept of “queerness as strangeness” at every level, from personal identity to the very architecture of the storytelling, is an absolute joy to experience as a reader.

I always appreciate it when authors challenge and push beyond the usual boundaries of conventional narrative tropes and structures. Ennes’s execution of these elements is truly breathtaking. The writing itself is not only beautifully crafted but also intensely visceral, creating a powerful and immersive reading experience.

But be warned, to paraphrase the greatest Ogre, this The Works of Vernon is an onion of a novel. It is multilayered to the max, with metaphors layered upon metaphors. While this may sound daunting and overwritten, don’t worry. Hiron Ennes is a master craftsman at creating a novel that demands your full attention without ever becoming overladen with exposition or unnecessary text.

Beneath its surface, The Works of Vermin is an intellectual and reflective novel. It offers sharp insights into so many subjects, such as family, class, art and the power of identity. Through the transformative and destructive ecdytoxin, the novel delves into themes of metamorphosis, both physical and societal, exploring what it means to change and the costs of that change.

The Works of Vermin is incandescently and extravagantly weird, a grotesque hallucination that will consume you. It is a book that will leave its venom in your veins and its opalescent scars on your imagination.

The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes

He was sent to kill a pest. Instead, he found a monster.

‘An intriguing work of whimsi-grotesquerie’ – Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six

Monster hunters tangle with court politics in this horror adventure by the critically acclaimed author of Leech.

Enter the decadent, deadly city of Tiliard.

In a complex, chaotic metropolis, Guy Moulène has a simple goal: keep his sister out of debt. For her sake, he’ll take on any job, no matter how vile.

As an exterminator, Guy hunts the uncanny pests that crawl up from the river. These vermin are all strange, and often dangerous. His latest quarry is different: a worm the size of a dragon with a deadly venom and a ravenous taste for artwork. As it digests Tiliard from the sewers to the opera houses, its toxin reshapes the future of the city. No sane person would hunt it, if they had the choice.

Guy doesn’t have a choice.

‘A lush and seductive story, rife with opulent horror and decaying decadence’ – Sunyi Dean, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Book Eaters

‘I will follow this writer anywhere going forward’ – Gillian Flynn, New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl

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