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Mordew

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About this listen

Welcome to Mordew - the first in a fantastic new trilogy from the Wellcome Book Prize-shortlisted writer Alex Pheby.

God lies defeated, his corpse hidden in the catacombs beneath Mordew. On the surface, the streets of this the sea-battered city are slick with the Living Mud and the half-formed, short-lived creatures it spawns - creatures that die and are swept down from the Merchant Quarter by the brooms of the workers and relentless rains, where they rot in the slums.

There, a young boy called Nathan Treeves lives with his parents, eking out a meagre existence by picking treasures from the Living Mud - until one day his mother, desperate and starving, sells him to the mysterious Master of Mordew.

The Master derives his power from feeding on the corpse of God. But Nathan, despite his fear and lowly station, has his own strength - and it is greater than the Master has ever known. Great enough to destroy everything the Master has built. If only Nathan can discover how to use it.

So it is that the Master begins to scheme against him - and Nathan has to fight his way through the betrayals, secrets and vendettas of the city where God was murdered and darkness reigns....

Experience this critically acclaimed masterpiece, perfect for fans of Philip Pullman and Ben Aaronovitch.

©2020 Alex Pheby (P)2021 W F Howes
Action & Adventure Dark Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Paranormal Scary

Critic reviews

"Brilliant.... Extraordinary.... An extravagant and unnerving marvel." (The Guardian)

"A treat.... The world of Alex Pheby's fourth novel is dizzying...a beguiling splicing of Dickensian social satire and rackety steampunk fantasy. Written with combustible verve." (The Spectator)

"Weird and wonderful, bleak and beautiful...[Mordew] is an extraordinarily vivid piece of world-building." (The Sunday Express)

All stars
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found this to be a very entertaining and well preformed story by the reader.

amazing reader

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exceptional narrator, interesting world creation looking forward to the rest of the series dd gg hh nice to hear a new author with such skill

exceptional narrator

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Really enjoyed this. build's a unique world with an inventive story. It's not a formulaic fantasy story and it's not what I expected. Can't wait for the next one. Kobner does an excellent job narrating.

Inventive and compelling

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The narrator was perfect I thought. His character voices were seamless and his tone for narration was subtly dreamlike - which was so well matched to the nightmarish imagery .

Some of that imagery was visceral and I felt confused early on as I was under the misapprehension that this was a coming of age story . It’s not .

I am just not sure whether I liked it or not. We’re the book a date I wouldn’t suggest meeting for dinner next week. As it isn’t I plan to listen t the next n the series in a couple of weeks.

I don’t know how I feel

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I can’t really fault the writing, which is very good, or the performance, which is excellent, but the whole thing just felt to me a bit too detached and cold-blooded. The magical powers are so overwhelming that they leave the character motivations almost completely obscured; even in the end you can’t really tell why everything happened, and thousands of imaginary people were murdered, or worse. The most enjoyable characters were the dogs, maybe because they were easiest to understand.

Well done, but not my favourite.

Well written, excellently performed, but a bit too cold for me.

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