Review: Ogres by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2022)
A genre-bending masterpiece about your monstrous betters.
Ogres is a novella set in a world dominated by massive creatures who rule over humans with an iron fist. Although the downtrodden humans use the epithet of ogre for them, they prefer a more appropriate name: The Masters.
“If you are over six feet tall and your father five and a half, then Sir Peter is ten, easily. And vast, a great tun of a body, thick-waisted and heavy. A flat face that would look human if it weren’t so big that it becomes just a great, jowly topography. The eyes seemingly squeezed half shut by the opposing pressure of cheeks and brow…”
The ogres control everything. Humans work ogre land and maintain ogre forests to provide food and game for them (as only ogres eat meat). They maintain roads for ogres to travel, that only they can use. Ogres collect taxes from the villages they control, and take whatever they feel like. This world is neatly divided into those who rule, and those who serve. Remember your place.
“It is a sermon you’ve sat fidgeting through often enough, how God has ordered the world. `The Master in his castle` as the hymn goes, `the poor man at the gate`. So it is that God gave unto the ogres the rule of all the world, and placed the beasts, tame and wild, in it for their sole pleasure.”
Ogres follows a human named Torquell who lives in an agrarian village. Torquell, as far as humans go, has a good enough life—his father is village headman and is in charge of the village while The Landlord is away. But Torquell is impetuous, brash, and hot-headed, which are all bad traits for someone who has to interact with their betters. Trouble soon starts when he decides to raise his hand against the Landlord’s son, a cruel ogre who likes pushing boundaries just as much as Torquell does. His father tells him to flee for some time in response, and Torquell hides out in the woods with a band of brigands. From there, the book goes in so many directions that any details would spoil the joy of discovery, something that Ogres sets up magnificently well.
“But perhaps he senses that you are like him, just a little—some version of not corrupted by the power he was born to, and perhaps that’s why he decides to make you regret it.”
This is the second work I’ve read from Tchaikovsky (the other being Elder Race), and his strengths are becoming vividly clear. He is a master of genre-bending and voice, two traits that are prominently on display in Ogres. This book transforms itself into so many directions over its hundred-and-change pages that it felt like every time I picked it up, I was reading something different. It is an expertly crafted work, and each shift allows the reader to peel back the curtain a little more, and zoom out a little further. It explores themes of control, oppression, and how exploitation foments and festers until it is the new status quo, and it does so while telling a page-turning, well-written tale.
“And nobody can say what thoughts circle within you, that you never speak to another soul, but perhaps there are wolves, and one is the hunter and the other the hunted. The hunted wolf knows it is doomed, but the hunter knows it is right. And, so long as you hunt, you don’t need to listen to that mournful other voice.”
Tchaikovsky absolutely nails a unique voice for Ogres. The book is written in second-person (which is hard enough to do well), and almost immediately settles into a masterful rhythm of and thens and yous that makes it feel like someone is whispering over your shoulder, narrating your actions as you act out Torquell’s life. The text has a clear cadence and a word choice that in my mind invoked a rural English narrator, who I heard in my head through the entirety of my reading. In fact, I found the first few pages jarring as my mind was still identifying and absorbing the voice—which was a small price to pay for the journey ahead, but just to forewarn you that it may take a moment to get used to. Several times I would catch myself saying a sentence or paragraph aloud, playing with spoken rhythm that flows ever-smoothly from the pages. Ogres is a book that both readers and writers alike will be able to admire, as Tchaikovsky plays with both voice and genre with the skill of a seasoned master.
“And you’ll be made to go apologise, you know. You’ll have some chore to do, in punishment. The village elders will shake their heads again and tsk through their teeth. But fondly, always fondly. They were young once, and you serve as a kind of magnified memory of all the trouble they never quite got up to but wish they had”.
Overall, Ogres was an absolute joy to read. It has been a book that my thoughts have returned to again and again since I’ve finished it. I’m left with a deep admiration for the work, which is frankly much more polished than it has any right to be, given how fast Tchaikovsky writes. It’s a short read that punches far over its weight class, and provides a phenomenal experience to the reader. This is a book that will live a long time in my memory, and it gets the highest possible score from me.
You should read Ogres if:
You want to read a masterfully written book that showcases second-person narration and a strong voice.
If you read Elder Race and liked it for how well it plays with genre—here’s another helping.
You love books that bring about the joy of discovery. So much of this book can’t be discussed without spoiling the unexpected.