Orbit, 2024, 386 p. Reviewed for ParSec 13.
A list of some of the elements with which this novel is sprinkled – an ancient clandestine religious sect, a highly secret Government agency whose existence dates back to Tudor times, the Charge of the Light Brigade, ritual sacrifices, a sword imbued with dark powers, cannibalism – might suggest it leans towards the schlockier end of the fictional spectrum but Pullen’s writing style is far from that. Though at times it does lean into excess at others it even smacks of literary quality.
The book has an enleaved structure. As supposedly written down in 1921, the story of John Sackville, only son of the Earl of Dorset, of his male lover Garrett and their encounters with evil powers, top and tail the book in an epistolary narrative titled The White Baron. Within that, Sackville reads the diary of Dr Samuel Abravanel from September 1876 under the rubric The Red Circle, which itself contains letters from mid-Victorian General Ian Stewart to his wife Clara in a section named The Black Hunger. The settings range in location from that Dorset home to early twentieth century India, Tibet, China and Mongolia before taking in mid-nineteenth century Orkney, the Crimean War and a trip into Ukraine – then under Tsarist Russian rule.
In The White Baron, Sackville writes of his more or less idyllic childhood as the heir to Lord Dalwood and of his homosexual relationship with Garret, the son of one of his father’s tenants, a liaison which they managed to keep undiscovered for over ten years probably because “The privileged classes always give each other the benefit of the doubt.” Through these early pages Pullen leads us into his story slowly. Though in his time at Oxford, when he met Russian Count Evgeni Vorontzoff who is to reappear throughout the tale, he had heard of the Dhaumri Karoti, a shadowy organisation which is to prove to be the disruptor of his life, it is the discovery of Sackville’s homosexual relationship while serving in the diplomatic service in Sikkim that sees him blackmailed into doing the bidding of MI7, the King’s Constabulary of Astrology, Alchemy and Necromancy. “We deal in the defence of the realm against witchcraft, sorcery and black magic.” His task is to penetrate deep into Tibet and Mongolia to retrieve the sword which once belonged to General Stewart and fell into the hands of the Dhaumri Korati when he was taken prisoner by the Russians after the Charge of the Light Brigade but which has since become an object of power. Nominally Buddhist, the Dhaumri Korati believe that the only way to defeat suffering is to wipe out existence; to destroy all sentient beings. Their present-day adherents are certain that if they consume human flesh they will be granted great spiritual and physical power but be cursed by the desire for more and more of it, a hunger, the Black Hunger, that can never be satisfied. They try to control it through tantric meditation, thus gaining power over their own bodies, other people and nature itself.
Against them the King’s Constabulary must use golden weapons and golden bullets, or, rather, since gold is a soft metal, bullets made from an alloy of gold and platinum. These derive their holy power from being used in Christian church ceremonies before being seized and melted down in the English Reformation.
The Crimean and Indian episodes echo the so-called Great Game and the othering of Oriental societies and peoples which reads unfortunately these days. A man such as Sackville, despite his homosexuality, would no doubt have subscribed to those prevailing attitudes. (The book itself contains a prefatory list of trigger warnings relating to – in order – homophobia, antisemitism, violence, child physical abuse, class privilege, mental illness, racism and colonialism. Don’t say you weren’t notified.)
The Orkney scenes lack some verisimilitude. Ian Stewart’s brother, Finlay, the Earl, shoots a deer. Deer on Orkney disappeared long before modern times. His residence, Kirkwall Castle, was actually destroyed in 1614 and so would not have been occupied in 1876. Artistic license may excuse those examples but more egregiously Pullen – despite once living in Edinburgh – does not seem to be aware that Scotland has its own judicial and policing system as he has Samuel Abravanel say the Court of Chancery (an England and Wales only entity) would deal with Scottish lunacy cases and London’s Metropolitan Police would be invited to oversee sensitive matters. I wondered also if a similar caveat might be placed against the statement that the once mighty Tibetan Empire renounced its power because of conscience.
The fantasy and horror elements build up as the novel progresses. We learn of Pretas from the spirit realm which roam the countryside always hungry, always craving human flesh. A more supercharged version called a Mahapreta is able to manifest into the physical world and has great power.
Pullen carries all this off well, his characterisation and narrative drive pulling the reader through. What to make of its supernatural components depends on said reader’s capacity to suspend disbelief in them.
The following did not appear in the published review.
Pedant’s corner:- “without His Holiness’ seal” (His Holiness’s, another instance of Holiness’ later,) “onto Rawlins’ desk” (Rawlins’s,) “the hoi polloi” (‘hoi’ is Greek for ‘the’ so ‘the hoi polloi’ contains an unnecessary repetition,) a missing comma at the end of a piece of dialogue, a question rendered without a question mark, two sentences in present tense in an otherwise past tense passage, “the Laird of Stenness’ personal estate” (Stenness’s.) “I wracked my brain” (racked, another instance of ‘wracked’ for ‘racked’ later,) “we were flanked on three sides” (strictly flanks are on only the left and right of an army’s position, the enemy to the front is not on a flank,) “than either of those languages possess” (than either … possesses,) “rose to a crescendo” (the crescendo is the rise, not its culmination; there was another ‘rose to a crescendo’ later,) “my Wembley revolver” (Webley, I should think,) “the Ukraine” (true to its time, but the natives prefer just Ukraine,) “she struggled mightily” (twice in ten lines,) “the Crystal Palace exhibition” (the Crystal Palace Exhibition,) “Hermes Trismegistos” (Hermes Trismegistus,) “to bring back not just one, but hundreds of thousands of souls back from the netherworld” (has one ‘back’ too many.) “It was oblong with the end near us forming a perfect rectangle, and the farthest shore curved in a neat circle … it was shaped rather like a keyhole … or… a crude skull” (not oblong, then,) “ears perked up for further sounds” (the usual verb here is ‘pricked up’,) “a candelabra” (a candelabra is a candelabrum.)oliness’s,)
“When we was done, he raised his hands” (When he was done.)
