Vardøger

Gray Matter Novellas #5

by Stephen Volk

Welcome to Shewstone House Hotel. One of those quiet places. An oasis of calm to escape the stresses and anxieties of modern living. Where a non-paying guest waits for his next victim . . . BAFTA-winning writer Stephen Volk outraged the critics with his first screenplay, Ken Russell's GOTHIC, and shocked an unsuspecting nation with his notorious BBC TV Halloween hoax GHOSTWATCH. His gripping supernatural drama series AFTERLIFE was called "Terrific television" (The Guardian) and "Unmissable" (Mail on Sunday). VARDOGER is his long new novella and it's fully as cunning and frightening as any of his previous work . . .

Genres: Horror

98 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Vardøger is a spirit predecessor, from Norwegian folklore - I had to look it up. Sean and Alison Merritt are looking forward to getting away from it all, at the exclusive Shewstone House Hotel but things quickly go wrong - the booking was already taken and paid for the previous week, several members of stuaff remember Sean from that prior visit and it appears he assaulted one of the waitresses. Then Sean watches as his wife walks away with someone who looks remarkably like him. Briskly told, with some wonderful characterisation, this is creepy, sometimes brutal, increasingly paranoic horror that pulls the reader along to a point where the narrative shifts abruptly. In lesser hands, this would have had me throwing the book down and cursing, but Volk handles it smoothly and assuredly, leading us towards a perhaps hopeful ending. This is a well written novella that’s definitely worth a read.

[Stephen Theaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sean and Ali check into a luxury hotel but everyone seems to think Sean was there already on his own the previous week, and he didn't behave well at all. He soon becomes convinced that he has an evil twin, one who wears a smart suit and mistreats women, and frustration turns to horror when he sees his wife leaving the hotel on that double's arm. As with the same author's The Little Gift, I'm baffled that this was nominated for a British Fantasy Award; neither feature any fantastical elements. I found the plot fairly interesting – it would have made a good episode of Inside No. 9 – and could share Sean's anguish, but he is an unpleasant character from the off, grabbing female staff by the arm and such, and it's narrated in an artless, blunt style that may reflect the way Sean sees the world but didn't make it enjoyable to read. One mystery remains at the end: what was the Frankie Goes to Hollywood song playing at the wedding party?

[Jameson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Twilight Zone-esque novella to do with a man, a hotel, and a doppelgänger? Sold. Didn’t love the last fourth, but otherwise it would have earned a spot in my To Read Again Someday bookshelf. The twist just made the whole thing less interesting and less satisfying, mostly because it’s been done to death.

SPOILER-ISH:
I also thought it was refreshing that the man wasn’t alone in the Twilight Zone. Having his wife with him experiencing the same weirdness made it much more interesting, like Stopover in a Quiet Town, but then….

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

**SPOILERS**

This is an assured novella which initially appears to deal with a Vardoger - a Norwegian doppelganger-type 'demon'. However, in the final pages another revelation presents itself - one which is much less interesting and whilst Volk manages to tie it back nicely into the main 'plot' ultimately feels a little like a cheat. I'm going to mention this revelation in the review, so if you don't want to know it, stop reading now.

Sean and Alison are on a weekend break, possibly to repair cracks in their marriage which even they might not be able to see. Upon arriving at the hotel, however, the staff seem to know Sean from the previous weekend, and this sense of displacement spirals when Alison goes missing, seemingly being walked out of the grounds on the arm of his other self. Descending into paranoia, frustration, possibly madness, Sean remains at the hotel and tries to come to terms with what is happening. The tension builds well - this is certainly a page-turner - up to a climatic incident which draws the main plot to a close.

I found the characterisation to be clear cut, although the tone of the prose is a little matter of fact. In hindsight, the final revelation that Sean went mad long ago, and that the entire hotel episode never happened at all, ties in well with the strange attitudes that the police and staff have to him. Whilst the reader believes in the Vardoger, unfortunately the behaviour of those surrounding Sean seems unbelieveable. Once the Vardoger is exposed, then it does make sense. However this doesn't help when reading it first time around and I couldn't suspend my disbelief around the hotel staff characterisation.

Ultimately, this is a pulp tale and taking it on that basis it's good for an afternoon read; like watching a one-off play on tv (if only they still did those nowadays). However, it could have been so much more, and the profusion of several typos and lack of a strong final edit tidying up some occasionally sloppy prose, meant that I was less satisfied with this than I hoped.