We Are All Ghosts in the Forest, by Lorraine Wilson
4 Dec 2024The Book
Synopsis:
When the internet collapsed, it took the world with it, leaving its digital ghosts behind – and they are hungry. Former photojournalist Katerina fled the overrun cities to the relative safety of her grandmother’s village on the edge of a forest, where she lives a solitary life of herbal medicine and beekeeping.
When a wordless boy finds her in the marketplace with nothing but her name in his pocket, her curiosity won’t allow her to turn him away. But haunting his arrival are rumours of harvest failure and a rampant digital disease stirring up the ghosts, and the mood in the village starts to sour.
Accused of witchcraft, Katerina and Stefan escape into the forest, searching for his missing father and the truth behind the disease. If there is a cure, Katerina alone might find it, but first she must find the courage to trust others – because the ghosts that follow her aren’t just digital.
My Review
We Are All Ghosts in the Forest is an amazing science-fantasy novel written by Lorraine Wilson, published by Solaris Books. A poignant story that refuses to hold the reader's hand, full of human element, and that throws us into a post-collapse world, which has some reminiscence of the COVID pandemic, and that takes you into an emotional journey, examining trauma, humanity and healing.
After the internet collapsed and leave its digital ghosts behind, Katerina moved to the safety of a rural village at the edge of the forest, living a solitary life helping her neighbours with her herbal remedies and beekeping; however, she was always deemed as an outsider for the others, tolerated but an outsider. But when she comes back to the village with a wordless child (Stefan), and their arrival is matched with rumours of bad harvest and a rampant disease, they are forced to escape to the forest in the search of Stefan's father, who might also have an answer to the new disease that is spreading.
Katerina's journey in this novel is not only a physical one, but also an interior one: if the world is plagued with ghosts, she harbours her own ghosts inside, and learning to trust in others will be needed to succeed. She's compassionate, and her own acts show the kindness, but fundamentally, she's a broken person; the journey with Stefan is what can heal her.
We can see the rest of the world as wary of strangers after the collapse; it's a hard world where people have gone back to the rural work, and their little stability is threatened by the digital ghosts and that new disease they don't know enough about (you can see the parallel with certain pandemic). Outsiders are never accepted in those small communities.
This is a story set in a collapsed world, not about the collapse. The world building is excellent, all painted through the marvelous Wilson's prose, which doesn't hold your hand, but which allows you to get a full image of this post-internet world. The pacing is relatively slow, which pairs excellently with the deepness of the plot.
We Are All Ghosts in the Forest is a highly atmospheric proposal, a great science fantasy that you will enjoy if highly affecting stories are your motto; an excellent novel that further proofs Lorraine Wilson's ability to craft amazing stories around humanity.
The Author/s
Lorraine Wilson
Writer, biologist, photographer, herder of cats, drinker of tea. she/her.
A conservation scientist and third culture Scot, I live by the sea writing stories influenced by folklore and the wilderness. My debut novel, the dystopian thriller This Is Our Undoing, won an SCK award & was two times BFA & Kavya Prize finalist. The Way The Light Bends, a dark folkloric mystery won another SCKA & was BSFA longlisted. My third book, Mother Sea, an exploration of motherhood, climate change and belonging, was recently released.