X-Book

The Works of Vermin

Click Buy to Log in and see personalised pricing.

Send as a gift Get in the xigxag app
How does xigxag pricing work?

Listen to a sample

What to expect

He was sent to kill a pest. Instead, he found a monster.


'An intriguing work of whimsi-grotesquerie' – Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six

Monster hunters tangle with court politics in this horror adventure by the critically acclaimed author of Leech.

Enter the decadent, deadly city of Tiliard.

In a complex, chaotic metropolis, Guy Moulène has a simple goal: keep his sister out of debt. For her sake, he’ll take on any job, no matter how vile.

As an exterminator, Guy hunts the uncanny pests that crawl up from the river. These vermin are all strange, and often dangerous. His latest quarry is different: a worm the size of a dragon with a deadly venom and a ravenous taste for artwork. As it digests Tiliard from the sewers to the opera houses, its toxin reshapes the future of the city. No sane person would hunt it, if they had the choice.

Guy doesn’t have a choice.

'A lush and seductive story, rife with opulent horror and decaying decadence' – Sunyi Dean, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Book Eaters

'I will follow this writer anywhere going forward' – Gillian Flynn, New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl

Critics Review

Hiron Ennes is a visionary creative who writes like no one else – their imagination is vibrant and seemingly dauntless. The Works of Vermin is an intriguing work of whimsi-grotesquerie that’s got it all: political intrigue, Wharton-esque manners, infectious disease, mysterious revenge and, of course, toxic bugs
Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six
A lush and seductive story, rife with opulent horror and decaying decadence
Sunyi Dean, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Book Eaters
I will follow this writer anywhere going forward
Gillian Flynn, New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl
A hallucinatory scorpion sting
Elizabeth Bear, author of the White Space series
A brilliant, shapeshifting puzzle box of a book, as beautiful as it is bewildering. Rarely is language used so ecstatically these days. Read it aloud to someone – its mystery is best untangled with the mouth
Christopher Buehlman, author of The Daughters’ War
Tiliard is a wonderfully gooey, oozy, rotting mess of a city, full of gnawing vermin and weaponized perfume, and the story of its revolution is a squicky blast. Fans of Max Gladstone or Seth Dickinson will love this one
Django Wexler, author of How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying
In the space of two novels, Hiron Ennes has become one of the very few inhabitants of my Read-On-Sight list . . . if you’re a fan of Mervyn Peake, Gene Wolfe, China Miéville – mammal, have I got a book for you. A book to be not so much read as wallowed and rolled around in
Peter Watts, author of Blindsight and Echopraxia
Ennes is an alchemist, and The Works of Vermin is its own, new element. A brilliant blend of intense intrigue and the fantastically macabre
Johnny Compton, author of The Spite House
Filled with some of the most twisted, inventive worldbuilding you’ll ever see . . . probably my favourite SFF read of the year!
GrimDark Magazine
Dazzling, elegant, and teeming with a glorious array of monstrosities, The Works of Vermin is at once wonderfully fresh and rotten to its worm-infested core. Loved it!
Kerstin Hall, author of Asunder
An astounding work of horror-inflected fantasy that is linguistically inventive and deliriously strange – the New Weird’s back, baby
The Fantasy Hive
Plenty of horror novels have been described as ‘skin crawling’, but none of them deserve that epithet as much as The Works of Vermin
SFX
Truly on par with Vandermeer and Miéville, an absolute thrill to read
Literary Hub
Incandescently and extravagantly weird, a grotesque hallucination that will consume you
Ginger Nuts of Horror
Author Hiron Ennes
Narrator Max Meyers
Duration 19 hours and 32 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781529073690
Format Audiobook
Publisher Pan Macmillan
Genre Contemporary horror and ghost stories, Dark fantasy, Science fiction
Availability GB, IE

More from the same

Author

Narrator

About xigxag

xigxag is an independent, UK-based audiobook platform and the UK’s only B Corp certified audiobook company. We offer nearly 150,000 audiobooks, all with professional human narration. No AI-generated voices. xigxag is rated an Ethical Consumer Best Buy for audiobooks and a top-rated ethical bookshop.

There is no subscription. You buy the audiobooks you want, you own them permanently, and prices start at £8.99. The more you listen over the year, the less you pay per book, and there is always a selection in Listen for Less from £3.99. You can also send audiobooks as gifts using our audiobook gift cards or in-app gifting.

Every audiobook on xigxag has honest reviews covering both the book and the narration, and our community features make it easy to share what you are listening to, discover what others recommend, and find your next listen.

Download or stream on iOS, Android, or in your browser. Browse the full catalogue at xigxag.co.uk.