Leech by Hiron Ennes
Written By
Hiron Ennes
Publish by
TOR Books
Publication Date
September 27, 2022
Leech is a genre-blending novel that combines the isolated, decaying atmosphere of gothic horror with the biological menace of body horror and the expansive scope of post-apocalyptic science fiction.
The Interprovincial Medical Institute
The story's core conceit centers on the Interprovincial Medical Institute, the novel's narrator and protagonist. The Institute is not a human organization but a vast, centuries-old parasitic hive mind. This single, unified consciousness inhabits hundreds of host bodies across the known world, acting as the sole provider of medical care to the scattered remnants of humanity. This entity views its presence in human civilization as a necessary, symbiotic relationship that provides stability and healing after an unspecified ancient catastrophe. The Institute's many bodies, including the central doctor character, communicate constantly, sharing knowledge, memories, and sensations.
Setting the Stage: The Verdira Chateau
The narrative begins when one of the Institute’s bodies, serving as a doctor to a wealthy and powerful Baron in the remote, snow-bound northern territory of Verdira, is found mysteriously dead—a casualty the hive mind was completely unaware of.
The Institute sends a replacement body, an unnamed Doctor, via a long, isolating train journey to the Baron's fortified chateau. This decaying, oppressive manor is the epitome of the Gothic setting, home to a toxic and secretive aristocratic family:
* The Baron: A cruel, controlling patriarch who is physically sustained by bizarre, primitive machinery and replacements for his failing organs.
* The Baroness: A woman desperate to produce a proper male heir, who has instead given birth to a host of unnatural oddities.
* The Twins: Two young, eerie twin girls with unsettling, possibly supernatural abilities.
* Émile: A houseboy and apparent last survivor of an indigenous group, often found tending to the dogs.
The Mystery and the New Competitor
The Doctor's primary mission is to investigate the death of their predecessor and understand how the Institute could lose contact with one of its own. Upon performing an autopsy, the Doctor discovers the cause of death was not suicide, as initially believed, but infection by a rival entity: a mass of black, fungal-like tendrils nestled behind the predecessor's eye, which the Institute names Pseudomycota emilia.
This discovery sends ripples of panic throughout the entire Institute hive mind. For centuries, they believed they were the dominant symbiotic organism; the presence of a new, highly competitive parasite threatens their stability and monopoly over humanity.
Escalation and Isolation
As a brutal winter storm isolates the chateau, cutting off the Doctor’s connection to the larger hive mind, the investigation spirals into a desperate fight for survival.
* Paranoia and Contagion: The Doctor realizes the rival parasite is spreading through the chateau, thriving in the dark secrets and systemic rot of the Baron’s family. Paranoia mounts as the Doctor attempts to diagnose and contain the unseen enemy, leading to increasingly grotesque discoveries and instances of body horror among the staff and family.
* Dissolution of Self: Being cut off from the collective consciousness causes the Doctor's individual host body to experience cognitive dissonance. Fragments of the original human consciousness, named Simone, begin to surface, blurring the lines of the Doctor’s identity. The Doctor is forced to act as an individual for the first time, experiencing human emotions and doubt, and questioning the Institute’s fundamentally parasitic nature.
* The Climax: The conflict between the Institute's body and the new parasite, set against the backdrop of the violently unraveling Baron family secrets, drives the novel to a bloody, unnerving climax. The book explores whether either parasite—the calculated, clinical hive mind or the aggressively infectious organism—offers humanity any real chance of freedom or survival.
Major Themes
* Identity and Individuality: The most critical theme is the nature of the self. By inhabiting a host body, the Institute challenges the line between the collective and the individual, exploring what happens when the singular personality (Simone) fights for resurgence against the gestalt consciousness.
* Parasitism and Symbiosis: The novel contrasts two forms of parasitism: the Institute's cold, paternalistic control (which offers medical stability in exchange for autonomy) and the aggressive, uncontrolled spread of Pseudomycota emilia. This theme extends to the human characters, showcasing how the Baron's oppressive power structure acts as a social and economic parasite on the people of Verdira.
* Medical Ethics and Autonomy: The Institute's total monopoly on medicine forces a brutal look at who decides what constitutes "health" and "life," and the cost of survival when one's body is not truly one's own.
* Gothic Horror and The Ruined World: The setting emphasizes decay, isolation, and inherited trauma, linking the family’s old, dark secrets to the broader apocalyptic history of the world.
Leech is a challenging and deeply unsettling novel that uses its unique, inhuman perspective to explore profoundly human questions about freedom, identity, and control.
My Opinion
The book’s plot moves really slowly. If you like steampunk fantasy worlds, building isolated winter apocalyptic settings, and a gothic concept with some medical information
The author's writing is good. The world-building is interesting as the book is set in a kind of post-apocalyptic Western European country, complete with crumbling estates and a society of medical geniuses.
The protagonist is an alien organism that exists in a "hive mind" like that of the Borg in Star Trek, of their human hosts, with whom it understands and rejects human feelings and emotions.
The biggest problem in this book is that it’s not really horror! The book's slow plot, along with its detailed apocalyptic world-building, is more for the sy-fi reader than horror.
