Volk: A Novel of Radiant Abomination

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Volk Excerpt

At the dawn of the twentieth century in the Idaho logging town of Eliada, orphaned farm boy Jason Thistledown and black physician Andrew Waggoner came face to face with monsters: the human sort, in the form of American eugenicists seeking to perfect the human race through breeding and culls; and the inhuman, a parasitic species named Juke, that lived off the hopes, dreams, and faith of humanity, even as it consumed it from within.

The year is 1931 . . .

In a remote valley in the Bavarian Alps, the Germanic students of those eugenicists seek to uncover the secret of the Juke and the promise of the Übermensch. In Paris, Dr. Andrew Waggoner enters his third decade of unravelling the mystery of the elusive organism. Jason Thistledown, now a veteran pilot of World War I, gets ready to embark on a new career flying mail and passengers in North Africa and, he hopes, forget the profound horrors that have shaped him.

Soon, they will all have to reckon with one other: a terrible synthesis of those horrors, which moves among humanity with an inexorable and terrible purpose – obliterating and reshaping that humanity until there is only one thing left:

Volk.

Praise for Volk: A Novel of Radiant Abomination

“…a political, psychological and philosophical allegory of remarkable depth and ambition: the most intellectually provocative horror novel of the twenty-first century.”

Alex Good

The Toronto Star

“It is a dazzling horror novel that’s unafraid to ask questions and leave some of them unanswered.”

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review

“**The sequel to Eutopia is “a nailbiter . . .**

that is spooky as hell, a critical and sharp demolition of Lovecraft’s own romanticization of eugenics”

Cory Doctorow

BoingBoing

-“With multiple engaging protagonists, a unique antagonist, and a well-realized pre-WWII European setting, Volk picks up the story of Juke

but shifts its focus away from the literal monsters to the humans that try to control them. It’s a bold, but natural progression for the story, with an ending that hints at much more to come.”

Gordon B. White

Hellnotes

“Here we find Nickle doing what he does best:

engineering a terrific hybridization of science fiction, historical fantasy, and horror; subverting the works of H.G. Wells, H.P. Lovecraft, and Nietzschean philosophy; and paralyzing the reader in the process.”

Chris Hallock

Cemetery Dance

“Volk is technically and intellectually very ambitious, and it succeeds on almost every level, including as good, intelligent entertainment.”

Paul St. John Mackintosh

See the Elephant Magazine

“David Nickle’s compelling Volk extends and expands upon his Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism.

In elegant, engaging prose, Nickle explores the darker highways and byways of the middle decades of the last century, when science joined hands with frightening ideology. It’s the latest contribution to what is emerging as one of the truly substantial bodies of weird fiction in the early twenty-first century, and further cements David Nickle’s reputation as one of the leaders of his generation of writers.”

John Langan

author of The Fisherman

“David Nickle’s sequel to his eugenicist novel Eutopia switches the action to 1930s Europe,

but jumping to a different continent doesn’t mean the gruesome horror is about to diminish. Volk is a worthy book with plenty of secrets to unravel.”

Silvia Moreno Garcia

author of Mexican Gothic

“David Nickle’s distinctive mastery of voluptuous horror makes for a sequel every bit as enthralling and disturbing as Eutopia.”

Molly Tanzer

author of Vermillion