The Death of Mountains by Jordan Kurella
I would like to thank the author for a copy of this novella in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Lethe Press
Published – Out Now
Price – £8.27 paperback £3.00 ebook
The latest novella by Nebula finalist Jordan Kurella (I Never Liked You Anyway) is a moving allegorical tale. As mankind continues to hurt the planet, leaving us with scarred lands, stories like The Death of Mountains are more meaningful than ever.
When the Death of Mountains came for us, we had been aching for a long time. There is so much loss in being a mountain; it is a terribly long time to live. Yet something awoke within us when they arrived, their face a stone skull, their hands' obsidian bones that cracked and crackled like fracking. It made us hurt to hear their earthquake step across the ground as they arrived. Their breath was like coal dust, the stuff their cloak was made from. They left a trail of oil behind them as they walked.
When they spoke, their breath was hot, volcanic; it made us wither at first. We, however, are a middling hill of the Appalachians. And we have seen much worse.
Far worse than death.
Death comes for us all and in typical human fashion we tend to personalise this event we cannot escape. The concept of Death the persona has been with us in art and culture for a very long time and in recent times Death can be dancing in Poe’s Masque, an ANTHROPROMORPHICAL PERSONIFICATION in Pratchett’s Discworld or a wannabee rock star in Bill and Ted. Do we do this out of respect, a hope by making Death a human we get to understand the idea a bit better to reassure us or like getting up every day and going to wort its just one of those things that happens? In Jordan Kurella’s very impressive fantasy novella The Death of Mountains where humans take a slight back seat as the forces of death and nature tell stories to each other to avoid the inevitable and in so doing delivering an absolutely fascinating and surprising tale.
The Plundered Mountain sits in the Appalachian Mountains of America. She has been mined far longer than is safe, turned into roadways and now knows death is imminent. Aware of all the lives from insects to humans who occupy her at any moment she senses a figure it is The Death of Mountains who will usher her out of this world. Plundered Mountain though is not ready to depart and so over the night they trade stories, games and desperate pleas to see if in a world where humans are the biggest killer of all can mercy be found.
Tales of us wanting to challenge and cheat death are another part of our culture but what I loved about Kurella’s tale is how this familiar storyline is tuned into something new. First off how many stories have the mountain as a living creature. Kurella does an amazing job in just the first few pages to make us buy into the idea that a Mountain is alive and has a fascinating perspective on exitance as well as a sense of humour and wisdom. Then we get the initially sinister Death of Mountains – in the standard skull and cloak costume but as beautifully described ‘their face a stone skull, their hands obsidian bones that cracked and crackled like fracking’ very much a death made for its own subjects. But as the story opens up, we find this Death is a bit less malevolent than we’d think – always late for work, in trouble with their bosses and perhaps the right person for a request although they are not happy about it. They’re two very unusual lead figures for any story and that captivates us before Kurella plays with the format more introducing little games that also open up our two characters.
Using the idea of a game with death we move into firstly the two telling each other stories and neatly this returns to the bigger theme in the novella. There is a powerful theme of environmental destruction having a huge impact on the natural world. Humans mine mountains until these ancient beautiful landscapes fall apart dramatically, humans pollute and are now the best-known killers in the world. Even The Death of People (who we also meet in the story) gets shocked at how many deaths we cause almost without thought making them the eternal employee of the month in the underworld. Initially we see the Death of Mountains respects its flock and wants them to be respected and have a good death, but Plundered Mountain also has some perspective and there is for them a difference between human beings on their own and when they are bigger force collectively acting as a thoughtless block forever consuming the world. . These little stories are very poetically told in each character’s very unique voice – one ageless and peaceful, one ageless and a little grumpy but they both land their points about human beings really well. Especially when we have a few snapshots of what a day in the life for the Death of People is like.
You’d think this story would be fully condemnatory of humans, but Kurella shows us moments of people being joyous just before the start of a shift, falling in love or just desperately driving to their lives in the night. We too are not simply the villains of the story. The book instead has a more interesting cause for why we have got so terrible a treating the world and I really like dhow this revelation becomes the book’s solution to our character’s problems.
Initially I was expecting a tale of death to be incredibly downbeat, but I was pleasantly surprised that this beautifully inventive weird tale sees death not just as something to fear but also a tie to re-appraise life, consider what we want from life and not to give into the worst instincts that we have. A beautiful read aided by Kurella’s skilled and poetical use of language. This is a story I strongly recommend.
