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Hollow
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
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Summary
From the author of the Vorrh Trilogy comes an epic odyssey following a group of mercenaries hired to deliver a church's ultimate power, a sacred oracle, as the decadence of carnival gives way to the gravity of lent and the mystic landscape grows ravenous - all set within a Bosch painting.
The history of art contains no more imaginative or mysterious paintings that the landscapes of Hieronymus Bosch. Art historians ask where the weird creatures depicted there came from, and so too do the central characters of Hollow as they fight their way across these landscapes and encounter these creatures. Author B. Catling is the first novelist to engage fully with Bosch's vision and climb imaginatively into it.
In this novel it emerges that Bosch gave colour and form to monsters, 'letting them in' to the real world, and that they were still infesting the landscape when it was painted by Bosch's follower Pieter Bruegel.
Now a wild bunch of mercenaries with a mission to deliver an oracle made of cloth, bones and a loud voice take a dangerous journey to the monastery at the base of the Tower of Babel, where the most terrifying secret in the world is kept. As they travel through a country painted first by Bosch and then by Bruegel, they are confronted and seduced by monsters and see scenes painted by them. These include the devil playing dice, a lewd mock wedding with a dirty bride, an unholy being living inside a hollow tree and riding a giant rat, and creatures indulging in inter-species sexual play as depicted in The Garden of Earthly Delights. A local marauding woman called Mad Meg with a small army of looting women from Breugel's Dull Gret is one of this novel's stranger characters.
Perhaps it is because B. Catling is himself an artist that he has been able to create a modern narrative masterpiece which brings the painterly genius of Bosch and Breugel alive.
What listeners say about Hollow
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- burningupinside@aol.com
- 20-11-22
more brilliance from Catling
beautifully written, a poet writing fantasy in the most eloquent way. funny and clever.
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- Phoebe Dixon
- 18-12-21
EPIC book, best narrative and narration ever!
Every increment was amazly detailed, the narrator was EPIC! I loved every bit the story
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- Anonymous User
- 01-02-22
Enjoyable dark fantasy
This story is both dark and funny with a memorable set of characters. It is well read and it, unlike some, does keep the separate story lines together in an understandable and non confusing manner. Only negative that I can think of is one character being hard to understand, and I wish it was read a bit more clearly.
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- King' OB.
- 07-12-21
Comic Horror Genius
Very good. Great narration. If you liked The Vorrh Trilogy you will love Hollow. B Catling's imagination is incredible.
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