In Vacuo

Andrea Morstabilini’s In Vacuo is a Gothic science-fiction novel about Henry Caxton, a poor boy who becomes the ward and eventually the medical apprentice of the brilliant, secretive Dr Robertson Hammond. What initially appears to be a Victorian Gothic mystery about a suspicious childbirth and a locked room gradually reveals itself as a story about a valley existing outside ordinary space and time, where people from different historical periods coexist and where Hammond has spent decades murdering women in an attempt to create life beyond death.

Henry first arrives at Hammond’s enormous estate as a child with his heavily pregnant widowed mother, Jane Caxton. They have been summoned from the poor coastal village of Brzeg in the middle of the night. Jane has apparently entered into some financial arrangement with Hammond concerning the delivery of her child. Henry overhears her demanding more money, but does not understand what she has agreed to.

Hammond sends Henry away while examining Jane. More suspiciously, when her labour begins he orders almost the entire household to leave the estate. His new assistant Eliezer Markovi protests that he could help, but Hammond dismisses him. The maids, including a girl close to Henry’s age named Clara, are also removed.