Leech by Hirron Ennes
A startlingly original tale - Leech by Hiron Ennes has been on my reading list ever since tordotcom released it way back in 2022. This and Manhunt were two of my most-anticipated titles that had me super intrigued. Now that I finally finished it, I am glad I got around to it. It's a very cleverly written story about what it means to be human, in a wonderfully constructed gothic horror setting in a bleak post-apocalyptic scifi world. The tale is narrated by a millennia-old parasite that has ingratiated itself into the human society taking over as The Institute, posing as 'doctor' on duty from the more prosperous industrial town of Inultus, complete with the world's best medical resources and library. The way it hides in plain sight, is by taking over the minds of any promising young person who can be trained as a doctor, within the institute. As the story starts, we learn that the institute has sent one of it's hive-mind doctors to investigate the death of one of t...