Ancillary Justice meets Annihilation: Announcing Leech, the Debut Novel From Hiron Ennes

We’re thrilled to announce Leech, the surreal and horrifying debut from author Hiron Ennes—arriving Fall 2022 with Tordotcom Publishing. Leech combines parasitic body horror with gothic family drama in a post-post-apocalyptic masterpiece that defies our understanding of identity, heredity, and bodily autonomy.

In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies.

For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed.

In the frozen north, the Institute’s body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron’s castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again.

Hiron Ennes is a writer, musician, and student of medicine based in the Pacific Northwest. Their areas of interest include infectious disease, pathology, and anticapitalist healthcare reform. When they’re not hunched over a microscope or word document they can be found playing in the snow or playing the harp (though usually not at the same time). They’re queer in every sense of the word, and they really want to pet your dog. Leech is their first novel.

Tordotcom editor Carl Engle-Laird acquired world rights in all languages for Leech, and a second novel, in a pre-empt, in a deal with Alexander Cochran at C&W. Tor UK will publish the novels in the United Kingdom.