031023b

I have discovered a wonderful fantasy writer, William Morrow. He is not new, and his fame is not new either, but I hadn't read anything by him until I picked up The Asylum of Dr Caligari. This is not an award-winning book, although Morrow has won the World Fantasy Award, but it is an extremely entertaining book. Art figures prominently, as does war, as the setting is a small mythical country next to Luxembourg, during World War I. A down-at-the-heels artist of promise takes the job as an art therapist at the asylum. He doesn't know anything about art therapy, but he's told that, as all of his students are quite insane, it doesn't matter much. After a while he and his associates discover that Dr Caligari is supporting the war effort by turning ordinary young men into homicidal maniacs. They decide that he must be stopped. This story is both horrifying and fun from beginning to end.