Alex Pheby | 'I like to try things. I like to see how they work and see whether I can do them'

Alex Pheby warns his readers, at the start of Mordew, about the “many unusual things” they are set to find within the forthcoming 600-odd pages. A cloud of bats made from diamonds. Clay figures animated by blood sacrifice. Hordes of feathered monsters, made of fire. Creatures that are born directly from the muck. The sheer exuberance of the list is a delight, and a dizzying introduction to one of the most darkly enjoyable fantasy novels I have read in ages; vast, gothic, Gormenghasty in the best way, and bursting with invention and joyous grotesquery.