The Vicar of Morbing Vyle
Review by James R.Cain
This really was an unusual book. It starts in the vein of a Lovecraftian fantasy, where Martin Smythe goes searching for the village of Morbing Vyle, only to discover that the villagers of New Morbing are hiding a terrible secret. One thing leads to another, and Martin Smythe seems to fall through a very dark looking glass and finds Morbing Vyle past a burned out forest where the wood seems to be still burning with it's own fire from within.
Martin Smythe becomes an unwitting prisoner to the eccentric inhabitants of Morbing Vyle. It's here also that the book slowed for me, and I, rightly or wrongly, felt Harland was building a complex metaphor on religion and Christianty. Smythe slowly unravels the mysteries of this cult and when the truth of the Vicar is finally revealed - 190 odd pages in - the book really picks up.
The tale enters a new phase as Smythe discovers a world of surreal horror. Harland is a master of creating sometimes grotesque, often absurd imagery conveying the madness of the Morbing Vyle inhabitants. At this point I was glad I persevered through the slower sections of the book, and the tale rockets towards the end. Without giving anything away, the final confrontation with the evil of the Vicar was brilliant, and it's a memorable ending that left me feeling I'd been hurtled across Bosche's hellish landscape and emerged on the other side.
Publisher: Karl Evans Books.
ISBN: 0-646-12963-5