Orbit Books, Fantasy / Horror, 434 pages, paperback edition.
My copy: Purchased.
Pros: Witty, charming, rompish.
Cons: Awesome brutality may be too much for wimpy readers.
In a line: Pragmatic and intelligent slave becomes necromancer, escapades ensue.
“He was, of course, a necromancer, although it was some time before his pupils learnt that word, and of course he meant them ill.”
Score: 9/10
The Enterprise of Death is beastly, blasphemous, brutal, bawdy, beautiful and bloody brilliant. Jesse Bullington eviscerates history and reanimates it in a new and twisted shape for us.
Set in Renaissance Europe, a woman slave is captured by a twisted necromancer and apprenticed to him along with two of her companions. She manages to escape, but a terrible doom awaits her. She flees into more danger, some love, a whole stack of betrayals, and a never-ending parade of resurrections and necromancy.
Please excuse me a minute while I uncork my bottle of HYPERBOLIC ACID and take a few swigs.
Ahhh, delicious Hyperbolic Acid.
Holy Blaspheming Be-Titted Jesus-Balls. This book has everything. Adventures around Europe. The walking dead. Interracial lesbians. Religious psychopaths. A cheeky cockney. More ‘C-bombs’ than the US Military Warehouse Collective. Love and Death in spades.
Bullington writes in a brilliant conversational narrative, equalled only in recent memory by Susanna Clarke’s excellent Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. He opens The Enterprise of Death up with a sad, tone-setting preface of how Awa, our heroine, comes to the unfortunate situation we find her in at the start of the novel.
We then open up to Awa and her friends trapped by one eeeeeevil fucker of a necromancer, hidden away on a mountaintop, prevented from escape by a relentless army of the summoned dead.
The necromancer who trains Awa and the others is a real piece of work, twisted, delightfully evil and frightfully avuncular at times. He raises the dead to be his servants capriciously, and keeps a dead concubine to service him. Eww.
We find out a little about how necromancy works in this world, painfully, slowly, as Awa works her way through her lessons and plots an escape. Bullington doesn’t let us inside people’s heads, making us experience their plans as they attempt them, which keeps the tension high and the story running smoothly.
His language is rich and evocative without being overwrought. A conversational narrator carries us through the story, much the same as his excellent Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart. If anything, Enterprise of Death is the stronger of the two, and definitely one of the most outstanding novels of 2011 I’ve read so far.
The story evolves from Awa’s apprenticeship, but to spoil any more would be a shame. We meet a bunch of characters on the way, all of them rich, detailed, human and loveable.
One slight word of warning, this book is heavier than many other supernatural fantasies. In fact, I feel guilty calling it that, because there’s enough horror in here to make your tummy squirm, and nothing sparkles. A book of this brilliance that manages to steer away from fucking vampires and werewolves deserves accolades a-plenty, and Bullington’s surely got more than a few coming.
So consider yourself warned. The Guardian‘s compared Bullington to Tarantino, and that’s a fair call to make. The story is sharp, wicked, and he doesn’t hold back at any point. People treat each other like shit. Bullington’s done his research, and let me assure you, Renaissance Europe was not a paradise, especially if you were a slave, black, a queer, or a woman, and Awa’s ticking all those boxes.
This is a bloody brilliant adventure that spans both sides of the grave. Bullington will pick you up and carry you off to a world you’ve never seen before. Just don’t expect the ride to tickle.
The Enterprise Of Death gets nine skulls: 
You can buy it from Amazon here and visit Jesse’s website here.
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