Review: Crow Named Torment by Silas A. Bischoff

Blurb:

After a perfectly normal bird is captured by a perfectly deranged alchemist, and her soul is remade in torment,

she rots in a cage, dreading her doom, awaiting the perfect moment ...

Escape lies in the dark secrets of her new mind, as does a disturbing new thirst for blood.

Together with Vladimir, her feline companion in captivity, Torment sets out on a flight through realms of dreams and spirits in search of a way to break the curse that binds them to their master.

But in the vast and strange worlds yonder dwell the discontented spirits of the dead, and Torment and Vladimir are as likely to uncover the truth they seek as they are to be lost forever, or consumed by the ancient darkness stirring in the depths of their alchemically altered souls.

A novel filled with horrors lurking in the shadows, with whimsical creatures from surreal dimensions - a fable about journeys inward and onward into the unknown - featuring mad scholars, vampires from the dawn of time, animal familiars and giant slugs (among many other oddities).

Perfect for fans of Terry Pratchett and Edgar Allan Poe, lovers of Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Otfried Preußler's Krabat, for those who would like to see Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland meet Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in modern dark fantasy.

Review:

I first heard of this book while talking with Silas A. Bischoff and Yaroslav Barsukov at a new book celebration in a room with several other authors, readers and reviewers attending. We sat at Barsukovs table, we talked a bit about translations and books, and within that conversation, Bischoff mentioned he had a book by the name of “A Crow Named Torment”  coming out soonish. Being the ever avid reader, I filed that information away for later, then went about my day at the convention. 

About a month later, and I can definitely say that Barsukov and Bischoff have a similar genre, and both have their own way of playing out questions of reality. I’ve already talked in length about Barsukovs novel in a review, so I won’t say much here besides… “if you liked “sleeping worlds have no memory”, this novel would be a fine read afterwards” and vice versa.

Now, if I have to quickly sell you this novel, I’d give you this snippet:

“Torment used to be a crow with no name, no wants or needs aside from food and flying. Until an alchemist diverted her from her messaging job... Care for more?”

Aber - but, this doesn’t say everything and it’s just the beginning of a very befuddling series of events that, in all honesty, doesn’t hold back in any regards with being dark for a second before going back to a slightly more jovial tone, however jovial that may however is up for debate due to the crows name being Torment. 

To start this off, there’s the characters within “A Crow Named Torment”.  We have the crow, who for whatever reason, names herself Torment, a cat named Vladmir, and the deranged alchemist. 

Torment, well, is a crow, and crows like shiny things and food. So, when her job requires her to deliver a message to some place or other by her former master, she gets distracted by a telescope directed at a swirling vortex in the middle of the one city. After she gets captured and experimented on, she wants to be a free crow, and is quite vocal about that, but is trapped not by cage, but instinct. Torment now a being with human thoughts in a crow's body takes that personally and shenanigans ensue, leading to death, puppetry and, as is her name, torment.

Next, there’s Vlad the cat. Vlad’s intelligent, but cannot speak, since he’s a cat and lacks the vocal cords that a crow has, so he communicates via signs with letters on them. He’s… a cat with a humanish/vampiric mind in him, but for the most acts like a typical cat. Since he’s in the same tower as Torment, she enlists him to help with her own experiments and when one of them catapults them out of reality, he starts his bloody path down a shenanigan laden road.

Finally, we have the alchemist who has a degree in psychopathic lunacy and dubious moral standards. He’s the villain of this story, having concocted a plan to see what is beyond the One City in the vast Yonderrealm that involves a crow, and a bit of death. He has an ever looming presence in the story of Torment, and she is as much trying to escape her instincts as she is trying to escape him. 

Next on the list of fun things about “A Crow Named Torment” is the world building. There is no map but who needs maps in the Hitherrealm, where the one city is ever present, ever there. What makes it stand out however, is the drawings of various parts of the story. And they paint a much more vivid detail than a map does, contrasting the size of the crow and the city. As previously mentioned, there's the vast Yonderrealm spanning throughout the universe and the physical Hitherrealm. Some scholars believe that all one needs to do to reach the Yonderrealm is dream, however risking your soul in the process due to it maybe getting stuck there through some outside force. 

Besides that, the city has a few notable places that the crow has memorised, which includes her former masters crow tower at a castle, where she roosted with the rest of her murder, and the tower of undreamed truths. The castle is important for the former memories, and the tower is important for various other reasons, including but not limited to:

• Mind shenanigans

• Realm shenanigans

• The Raven (Edgar Allen Poe reference, you’ll get it once you get there)

…and so on and so forth.

Meanwhile, there’s the Yonderrealm. I don’t really know how to explain where or how this place comes to be without major spoilers, but… it’s down quite a rabbit hole, literally and figuratively. Besides that, it can be whatever the mind conjures, and what is collected and kept in person there comes back, to a degree. Trinkets and scars, more or less. Aside from that, there isn’t much to say besides the Yonderrealm being absolute chaos.

Now, in regards to what magic exists in the Hitherrealm. There really isn’t any (except the stationary vortex in the city). But outside the Hitherrealm, in the Yonderrealm, anything is possible, one just has to will into existence. And to top it all off, there are a few ancients that have survived the war with vampires, and the vampires are supposedly gone and dead. More or less. Compared to that, the Hitherrealm is but an empty shell, with the only magic being alchemy, and it is subpar at best. Still has its uses though, with most people within the city going to the tower of undreamed truths to go rouse the alchemists if something ails them.

Considering that Bischoff is German, the English within “A Crow Named Torment” is superb. However, there is at least one thing I’d have to point out in terms of negativity about it, and that would be the dialogue and interactions between the various characters. Some parts of the dialogue were great, other parts were less stellar, more wooden in appearance. I don’t mean to say it is a bad novel due to that, yet it does knock it down a peg when the interactions don’t sound right. Now, that’s my own annoyance about the book, others might find it different, and it still is an amazing work that plays around with reality.

If you like Alice in Wonderland levels of reality warping, talking animals, and deranged alchemists, Silas A. Bischoff’s debut work, “A Crow Named Torment” is for you.

As always, thank you for reading this rather lengthy review, and I hope I’ve helped nudge you towards your next novel. If not, don’t fret, here is a link to a random review from another member of the SFF Insiders team. It might be something for you, it might not be. 

Wherever you are reading this, have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night.