Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://birdsbeforethestorm.net/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
Founded SteamPunk magazine in 2006 *
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author, musician, crafter, activist. Steampunk Magazine, founder.
POLITICS: Anarchist.WRITINGS
Also contributor of short fiction to anthologies and online journals.
SIDELIGHTS
Margaret Killjoy is, as noted on the author’s Website, an “author, musician, crafter, and general jack of all trades.” Killjoy further commented to a contributor on the Civilian Reader Website: “I’m an author who comes out of the DIY tradition of zines and has recently been making headway into traditional publishing. I’m recently-out as a transwoman and I’m a longtime anarchist organizer. I’ve spent most of my adult life traveling but just recently decided to hang my hat in the mountains of Western North Carolina.”
The author or editor of a number of nonfiction books on anarchism, including Mythmakers & Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers on Fiction, Killjoy has also written steampunk fiction, as well as the utopian novel, A Country of Ghosts, and the anarcho-punk fantasy series, “Danielle Cain.”
Mythmakers & Lawbreakers and A Country of Ghosts
For her 2009 work, Mythmakers & Lawbreakers, Killjoy interviewed a number of anarchist writers on their dual purpose of providing readable fiction while also creating stories that deal with social change. Among those Killjoy interviewed are Ursula K. Le Guin, Alan Moore, Michael Moorcock, Jim Munroe, Rick Dakan, and Lewis Shiner. These authors write in a wide variety of genres, including science fiction, fantasy, cyberpunk, and graphic novels. Online Rain Taxi reviewer Niels Strandskov noted, “In Mythmakers and Lawbreakers, a collection of interviews with writers who give a sympathetic hearing to anarchist ideas, Margaret Killjoy has undoubtedly made a great contribution to the study of the artistic influence on and of anarchism.” Strandskov added: “Killjoy’s book, though very comprehensive, will hopefully serve as a prod to other authors, journalists, and theorists to begin an even more exhaustive cataloging and investigation of this under-examined but ever fruitful category of literature.”
In A Country of Ghosts, Killjoy creates an alternate-reality nineteenth century in the land of Borolia. Dimos Horacki is a journalist and a patriot, though with a dash of cynicism thrown in. Once a noted investigative reporter, those days are now in the past. However, now his newspaper sends him to the front of an endless war, embedded in the Imperial Army. Borolia is fighting for natural resources in this bid for colonial expansion, and now Horacki is an eye witness to the perfidy of such a policy, traveling with the army as it destroys villages, and forcing the populace into the refugee city of Hronople. There the desperate Hron anarchists continue to fight for their way of life, and now Horacki must choose between safe complacency or the dangerous course of criticizing his government.
Reviewing the novel in Tor.com, Ay-leen the Peacemaker commented: “A Country of Ghosts evokes the mindset of 19th century utopian movements, so there is a sense of barefaced optimism in this book these historical communes had embodied, unlike later attempts at creating perfect societies that only resulted in the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. While Killjoy purposefully intends this to be a work of political speculation … I still wonder how much of this is a romanticized argument for anarchism. Killjoy’s mix of politics and storytelling is at times intellectually engaging and at times winsome, though it’s also a curiosity to behold in the field today.” Similarly, Bull Spec Website writer Nick Mamatas noted: “A Country of Ghosts was entertaining, its politics intriguing, and the setting is a place I found myself missing after I turned the last page.”
"Danielle Cain" Series
Killjoy’s “Danielle Cain” series opens with the 2017 novella, The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion. Danielle Cain is a runaway and searching for clues to the suicide of her best friend she travels to Freedom, Iowa, a utopian squatter town. These anarchist squatters were initially protected by the magical red, three-horned deer, Uliksi, but now this guardian spirit has turned killer, taking the lives of a number of the residents it once protected. Danielle and her new friends in Freedom must take action if they are to save the town and their lives. A Publishers Weekly reviewer had praise for this novella, noting that it is “full of suspense, intrigue, and a surprising amount of
heart.” The reviewer added: “The suspenseful narrative flows smoothly, with plenty of humorous asides from Danielle and her cohort. Perhaps most refreshing is the work’s concision.” Similarly, Alex Brown, writing in Tor.com, felt that “The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion is a novella that feels like a novel.” Brown added: “It’s deep and expansive, and while much of the details are few and far between, you hit the end knowing everything you need to. The plot breezes by but isn’t rushed. It’s a whole world in 130 pages. While the novella is categorized as dark contemporary fantasy, it also crosses into horror. … Killjoy has crafted a world filled to the brim with queer people of all races, body types, and gender/sexual identities with fascinating and complex personalities. This isn’t an author playing with diversity. Killjoy is a trans punk anarchist, so there’s an undercurrent of the truth of experience in her story.” Locus Online critic Liz Bourke also had praise, terming this novel “thoughtful, well-characterised, well-constructed, and tightly paced.” Bourke went on to observe: “Where Killjoy excels is in the atmosphere she creates in this novella. The lingering presence of the unknown, unknowable, implacable spirit is juxtaposed against the sharply observed anarchist collective, familiar and alive and full of queer bodies and ways of living. The blend of horror and social commentary makes for an interesting experience, and, I think, an effective one.” RT Book Reviews Website contributor Victoria Frerichs also had a high assessment, noting: “There is nothing formulaic here; each passage and paragraph breathes originality and, most importantly, a thoroughly fantastic story.”
The series continues with The Barrow Will Send What It May, which finds Danielle and her crew of demon hunters–Doomsday, Thursday, Vulture, and Brynn–on the run from the police and arriving in the small town of Pendleton, Montana, which has a secret occult library. This is operated by anarchists and residents, all of whom say they have come back from the dead. As Danielle and her friends investigate this phenomenon, they come into the sights of a necromancer who may initiate the apocalypse. A Kirkus Reviews critic had praise for this second installment, noting: “An entertaining book filled with memorable characters who tread glibly through the realms of both the living and the dead.” Booklist writer Rachel Colias also had praise, observing: “Readers will find themselves bingeing on this highly addictive, dark fantasy thriller.” Likewise, a Publishers Weekly Online reviewer concluded: “Fans will be very entertained and look forward to the next installment in the series.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, March 15, 2018, Rachel Colias, review of The Barrow Will Send What It May, p. 28.
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2018, review of The Barrow Will Send What it May.
Publishers Weekly, June 12, 2017, review of The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, p. 45.
ONLINE
Bull Spec, http://bullspec.com/ (April 9, 2019), Nick Mamatas, review of A Country of Ghosts.
Civilian Reader, https://civilianreader.com/ (April 22, 2017), “Interview with Margaret Killjoy;” (October 10, 2017), review of The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion.
Locus, http://locusmag.com/ (November 2, 2017), Liz Bourke, review of The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion.
Margaret Killjoy Website, http://birdsbeforethestorm.net (March 24, 2018).
Publishers Weekly Online, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (March 12, 2018), review of The Barrow Will Send What it May.
Rain Taxi, http://www.raintaxi.com/ (November 19, 2013), Niels Strandskov, review of Mythmakers & Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers on Fiction.
RT Book Reviews, https://www.rtbookreviews.com/ (March 24, 2018), Victoria Frerichs, review of The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion.
Tor.com, https://www.tor.com/ (March 12, 2014), Ay-leen the Peacemaker, review of A Country of Ghosts; (August 16, 2017), Alex Brown, review of The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion.
While Reading and Walking, http://whilereadingandwalking.com/ (February 6, 2018), review of The Barrow Will Send What it May.
QUOTE:
I’m an author, musician, crafter, and general jack of all trades.
BIO
My name is Margaret Killjoy. I’m an author, musician, crafter, and general jack of all trades. I’ve spent most of my adult life on the road, but am currently nestled into the Appalachian mountains. Politically, I’m an anarchist: I believe society would be better off without systems of hierarchy and oppression such as the state, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and the like. I’m a transwoman and my preferred pronouns are she/her, but I also believe in the abolition of gendered language and have no problem with people using the singular “they” to refer to me.
My email address is magpie@birdsbeforethestorm.net. I occasionally say things @magpiekilljoy on twitter. I’m on facebook and instagram.
My main music project is called Nomadic War Machine. I have a bandcamp for finished albums and a soundcloud for works in progress.
Margaret Killjoy is an author and anarchist with a long history of itinerancy who currently calls Appalachia home. When she's not writing, she can be found organizing to end hierarchy, crafting, or complaining about being old despite not being old at all. Her books include A Country of Ghosts (Combustion Books, 2014) and the Danielle Cain series (Tor.com, 2017-). She blogs at www.birdsbeforethestorm.net and says things @magpiekilljoy on twitter.
QUOTE:
I’m an author who comes out of the DIY tradition of zines and has recently been making headway into traditional publishing. I’m recently-out as a transwoman and I’m a longtime anarchist organizer. I’ve spent most of my adult life traveling but just recently decided to hang my hat in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
Interview with MARGARET KILLJOY
April 22, 2017 Civilian Reader ReviewDanielle Cain Series, Dystopia, Horror, Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, Margaret Killjoy, Most Anticipated 2017, Tor.com
KilljoyM-AuthorPicLet’s start with an introduction: Who is Margaret Killjoy?
I’m an author who comes out of the DIY tradition of zines and has recently been making headway into traditional publishing. I’m recently-out as a transwoman and I’m a longtime anarchist organizer. I’ve spent most of my adult life traveling but just recently decided to hang my hat in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
Your new novella, The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, will be published by Tor.com in August. It looks rather fascinating: How would you introduce it to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion is the first book in my Danielle Cain series, which follows a group of squatter-punk demon hunters. In the first book, our protagonist heads to a utopian town to figure out what happened to her dead best friend and stumbles upon magic and demons. It’s hard to describe the themes of a book without offering spoilers, but it’s a book about the ways in which we wield power over one another and it’s a book about a traveler trying to find home.
What inspired you to write the novella and series? And where do you draw your inspiration from in general?
This first book actually started off quite differently, as a non-speculative novella I wrote because I needed to read it. I wanted to write about a home for traveling folks, basically the big rock candy mountains. But the book was missing something, and quite some time later I figured out what: it was missing a three-antlered murderous deer. I rewrote the whole thing from scratch.
I draw inspiration from my experiences and the experiences of my friends, mostly. I tend to write about wanderers, queers, vagabonds, ne’er-do-wells, revolutionaries, criminals, and all the sorts of people I surround myself with in my life. I don’t think we’re very well represented in fiction at the moment, so I do my best.
KilljoyM-DC1-LambWillSlaughterTheLion
How were you introduced to genre fiction?
My father kept the house more than well-stocked with science fiction when I was growing up. Early on, my tastes ran more towards fantasy, which I mostly had to grab during our family’s regular trips to the library. But by high school, I was poring through all my dad’s classic SF. Then I got too uptight for such frivolous writing and only read dead, boring european men for a couple years and became a pretentious asshole until I realized life was short. Now I read mostly genre fiction again.
How do you like being a writer and working within the publishing industry?
I realized, at some point, that telling people I wanted to be a professional writer is like telling people I wanted to be an astronaut. Sure, that is technically a job people have, but dream on. But here I am, a barely-scraping-by professional writer at the beginning of her career. I love it. It’s scary as hell, sure. In the world of zine publishing, you don’t work with gatekeepers. You just write a thing, lay it out, photocopy it, and give it to people. If they like it a lot, they might print or copy it themselves and distribute it further. If not, then not many people see it and no harm done, you just work on the next thing. My small press work was the same way: I’ve started plenty of periodicals from time to time. SteamPunk Magazine was the one that took off, so I put more work into it than I put into some of the other stuff I was doing. I never bothered to ask permission or get approval for work before I did it.
Now that I’m working in traditional publishing, things are different. I have to please editors and I have to write things that people might actually want to read. But having that small press and DIY background keeps me from freaking out too hard about failure. If I write something that an editor doesn’t like, then maybe I’ll scrap it or maybe I’ll decide to self-publish it. No big deal either way.
And honestly? I think learning to write things that might sell is an awesome challenge and makes me a better writer. My goal as a writer is to communicate ideas. If I’m able to communicate them widely, I have succeeded to a greater degree than if I write something only ten people will appreciate. As long as I can do that without compromising the ideas I want to communicate, of course.
Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practices?
I write fairly fast. If I could get myself to write on a regular schedule, I’d be so much more productive than I am. But no, I write in fits and spurts. Sometimes I write 3k words a day for three weeks. Sometimes I don’t write fiction for months at a time. I didn’t write a word of fiction between Donald Trump’s election and February, when I had to get back to work on the second Danielle Cain novella.
On the craft side of things… Mostly I write in silence, but when I ghostwrite romance novels, I put on loud stoner metal to obliterate my brain and just get the job done. I used to “pants” my books (writing by the seat of my pants), but now I’m a believer in outlining. Specifically, I write an outline, then I write a chapter, then I readdress my outline based on the new information provided to me from having written that chapter, and repeat until I finish the story or book or whatever it is I’m writing. I’ve recently taken up micro-outlining, where before I sit down each day I roughly sketch out what’s going to happen in the next couple of scenes. This speeds my writing up substantially, even if it hurts my brain sometimes.
I admit I tend to write books that don’t require a ton of technical or historical research, especially now that I’ve moved away from Victorian-era and steampunk work. I think the main thing I do a lot of that is similar to technical research is writing-the-other research. I want to represent characters who are dissimilar to me, so I spend a fair amount of time talking to friends, picking their brains, running ideas past them, etc. If I fail completely, I might abandon a character, a side plot, or even an entire story rather than misrepresent people I care about.
I’ve also developed a kind of nasty habit of asking my friends for details on rather traumatic specific experiences: “What were you thinking, as you saw the tire coming toward your head when that SUV ran you over?” and things like that.
When did you realize you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?
I think on some level I always “knew” I was going to be an author, but I mean, if I’d wound up a scientist or something I would probably say I always “knew” I was going to be a scientist. My dad ran a zine in the 80s, and I recently found a story I wrote when I was probably 5. In high school I started taking writing more seriously. I helped run the literary magazine and we published a cyberpunk story I wrote about a biohacker who ran away from home and lived in a squatted building and had a crush on basically a manic pixie dream girl. I remember hating writing that story, because there were so many things I didn’t know how to do yet. How do you get a character from one place to another? Do you describe their walk, or just cut to a new scene? Questions like that. I have definitely not looked at that story ever again. I also wrote a feature-length screenplay about a gang of criminals in a world where anyone under 30 had no rights. There was a revolutionary conspiracy in which most of the main figures were actually squirrels operating human-looking robots via levers inside the head.
Fast forward several years and I made the decision to be a writer more consciously while I was living in a squatted tenement building in the south bronx. I probably decided to be a writer because there was this fabulous old rolltop desk in my bedroom, right next to the cracked window that overlooked the highway and the river. Streetlight came in through that window and lit up the bare mattress on my floor, and I don’t know, becoming a writer at that point was probably as much an aesthetic choice as anything else. So I started writing stories. Those times, in comparison to writing in high school, I look back on fondly.
What’s your opinion of the genre today, and where do you see your work fitting into it?
It’s great, it’s always been great, it will always be great. It’s probably more-great than it used to be, because there’s a more conscious effort to expand the pool of voices and experiences in genre fiction right now. But genre fiction is awesome because it’s constantly reinventing itself and because people are always just doing whatever the hell they want. And sure there’s probably lots of garbage misogynist work and garbage misogynist authors but that’s true of the real world also, and we’ll just fight them in genre the same as we fight them in the real world.
If I’m being honest, I didn’t expect to be taken seriously or accepted at all by the more mainstream genre world (the world outside of zines and DIY) because I write about anarchists and criminals and trans people and all of that. But, as I’ve learned, there have been anarchists in our ranks the entire time and believing in a world of self-determination and cooperation hasn’t really hindered me at all. I think as long as you’re willing to put in the work on your craft, people are just excited to hear from as many different voices as possible.
It’s also been a massive boon to have had a… let’s go with storied… past. I don’t tend to draw my story inspiration from existent novels, but from life experiences that folks have related to me or that I’ve been through. (I do get my craft inspiration from existent books, and am proud to be part of a tradition.)
Do you have any other projects in the pipeline, and what are you working on at the moment?
Well, I’m on contract with my non-fiction publisher, AK Press, to write a review of political strategies one might use to move us towards an egalitarian society, but I’ve also got about half of a near-future SF draft done and two other ideas in the outlining stage.
What are you reading at the moment (fiction, non-fiction)?
Last night I started Wakulla Springs by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages, and I’m about halfway through The Eintstein Intersection by Samuel Delany. Delany can make trashy pulp read like poetry and I love him for it. As for non-fiction, I’m working on Dixie Be Damned by Neal Shirley and Saralee Stafford. It’s an overview of southern rebellions (real rebellions, which aim to increase liberty instead of deny it) that does wonders to redeem the South. I’m also reading Angels With Dirty Faces by Walidah Imarisha, who works in genre as well.
KilljoyM-Reading
If you could recommend only one novel to someone, what would it be?
Oh god.
Uh, right now, off the top of my head, The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk, a utopian novel. It’s not a masterwork of prose (she’s primarily a nonfiction writer and an activist) but it was hugely influential on me when I was in my early twenties.
Starhawk-FifthSacredThing
What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?
I disagree with most of his political positions pretty intensely these days, but Heinlein is one of my favorite authors and his books were intensely influential on me when I was a kid. I’m a pretty open book, so it’s hard to know what would surprise people to learn about me.
What are you most looking forward to in the next twelve months?
Realistically, what I’m most looking forward to in the next twelve months is a book tour to support The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion. Ambitiously, I’m looking forward to being part of the movement that takes Trump out of office, smashes the alt-right, and inspires people to discover autonomy and cooperation instead of putting their trust into politicians.
*
Margaret Killjoy‘s The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion is due to be published on August 15th by Tor.com in the US and UK.
QUOTE:
An entertaining book filled with memorable characters who tread glibly through the realms of both the
living and the dead.
Killjoy, Margaret: THE BARROW WILL
SEND WHAT IT MAY
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 15, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Killjoy, Margaret THE BARROW WILL SEND WHAT IT MAY Tor (Adult Fiction) $11.99 4, 3 ISBN:
978-0-7653-9737-9
The sequel to Killjoy's The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion (2017) finds Danielle Cain and her anarcho-punk
gang of demon-hunting novice mages on the lam, in the cross hairs, and glistening with undead magic.
The second installment of the Danielle Cain series opens where the first left off. Danielle (not Dani) and her
newfound friends Doomsday, Thursday, Vulture, and Brynn are on the run from both the regular police and
the magic police as the result of their gory defeat of a vengeful protector spirit in the form of a blood-red,
three-antlered deer. Unsure of what to do next, the group forms a loose plan: to seek out shelter, arcane
knowledge and instruction, and new demons to combat. After an accident wrecks their ride, the group
hitchhikes into the small town of Pendleton, Montana, and right into the web of a deranged necromancer
whose spells carry with them the threat of apocalypse. With the help of new friends Vasilis and Heather--
fellow anarchists and occultists who have taken over the town library to save it from dissolution--Danielle's
group sets themselves the task of ferreting out the necromancer and solving the mysterious, and perhaps not
coincidental, disappearance of the librarians' friends Damien, Isola, and Loki. Filled with riotous bonhomie,
a determined sense of social justice, and the deeply enjoyable banter of characters who live on the fringes of
fringe society, the novel patters along quickly as it wiggles through the convolutions of its plot. Yet, as
entertaining as reanimated anarchists, zombie hands, and magic feds are to read about, the author's real
interest lies in the deepening friendships and developing romances that are taking place within her core
group of characters. In this way, she sets herself up for a third installation in which both characters and
readers genuinely want to know what happens next.
An entertaining book filled with memorable characters who tread glibly through the realms of both the
living and the dead.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Killjoy, Margaret: THE BARROW WILL SEND WHAT IT MAY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2018. General
OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527248305/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d39b35a6. Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A527248305
3/24/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1521921351520 2/2
QUOTE:
full of suspense, intrigue, and a surprising amount of
heart.
The suspenseful narrative flows smoothly, with plenty of humorous asides from Danielle
and her cohort. Perhaps most refreshing is the work's concision.
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion
Publishers Weekly.
264.24 (June 12, 2017): p45.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion
Margaret Killjoy.Tor.com, $14.99 trade paper (144p) ISBN 978-0-7653-9736-2
Killjoy (A Country of Ghosts) packs this novella full of suspense, intrigue, and a surprising amount of
heart. Danielle Cain is a runaway who finds a home in Freedom, Iowa, a town populated by a group of
squatters. The residents' guardian spirit, a three-horned deer named Uliksi, has seemingly gone rogue,
killing members of their community--the very people who had summoned it. Danielle encounters danger at
every turn, learning hard lessons about trust and safety. The mythology surrounding Uliksi is spare, and the
writing speaks more to the successes and failures of anarchist politics in a highly charged, supernatural
setting. Evocative of a desolate future, Killjoy's writing is populated with characters that are as human as
they are unique. The suspenseful narrative flows smoothly, with plenty of humorous asides from Danielle
and her cohort. Perhaps most refreshing is the work's concision. Nothing is superfluous. Killjoy allows the
reader to glimpse a beautifully chaotic world, leaving just the right amount to the imagination. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion." Publishers Weekly, 12 June 2017, p. 45. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495720667/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d147bbbb.
Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495720667
QUOTE:
Readers will find themselves bingeing
on this highly addictive, dark fantasy thriller.
The Barrow Will Send What It May
Rachel Colias
Booklist. 114.14 (Mar. 15, 2018): p28.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
The Barrow Will Send What It May.
By Margaret Killjoy.
Apr. 2018. 112p. Tor, paper, $11.99 (9780765397386); e-book, $3.99 (9780765397379).
Killjoy's (The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, 2017) exciting and surprisingly hilarious second Danielle Cain book follows a diverse
group of anarchists as they hitchhike to a small town haunted by an evil magician and the living dead corpses he reanimated. One of
these living corpses drops the group off at the local occult library, where they stay for barely a night before joining the librarians'
investigation into how and why two dead locals have suddenly reappeared on the edge of town. Their research is a little more
dangerous than they expected, though, and one of the librarians ends up severely injured by a magic spell protecting the magician's
basement full of secrets. Her eventual death catapults the hodgepodge group into a fullblown standoff, pitting heavily armed locals
against people they believe to be unwelcome outsiders. Without an active police department, it's up to the unnamed group to prove
that a magic-wielding murderer is manipulating the town before they become his next victims. Readers will find themselves bingeing
on this highly addictive, dark fantasy thriller.--Rachel Colias
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Colias, Rachel. "The Barrow Will Send What It May." Booklist, 15 Mar. 2018, p. 28. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A533094466/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d23601ed. Accessed 10 Apr. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A533094466
QUOTE:
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion is a novella that feels like a novel. It’s deep and expansive, and while much of the details are few and far between, you hit the end knowing everything you need to. The plot breezes by but isn’t rushed. It’s a whole world in 130 pages. While the novella is categorized as dark contemporary fantasy, it also crosses into horror:
Killjoy has crafted a world filled to the brim with queer people of all races, body types, and gender/sexual identities with fascinating and complex personalities. This isn’t an author playing with diversity. Killjoy is a trans punk anarchist, so there’s an undercurrent of the truth of experience in her story.
You Had Me At “Queer Demon Hunters”: Margaret Killjoy’s The Lamb Will Slaughter The Lion
Alex Brown
Wed Aug 16, 2017 1:30pm 2 comments 3 Favorites [+]
GAAAAAAHHHHHH!! Margaret Killjoy’s The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, y’all. I mean. I can’t even. Like. It’s so good. It’s sooooooooo good. It’s very existence is a tonic for my troubled soul. And now having read it (twice!) it’s my everything. Open a new tab and buy this novella RIGHT. NOW. I’ll wait. ……… Done? Good. Now let’s talk about how awesome it is.
When Danielle Cain finally makes her way to the squatters’ settlement of Freedom, Iowa, it seems like a queer punk traveler’s home sweet home. It’s anarchy with structure, a free-for-all community run by shared responsibility. Or so they say. There’s a reason Danielle’s best friend Clay killed himself after abandoning Freedom. Just as there’s a reason suspicion, doubt, and mistrust saturate the town.
On her way into Freedom, Danielle encounters a three-antlered deer the color of freshly spilled blood, whom she later learns is a protector spirit called Uliksi. It was summoned by several Freedomers in a desperate bid to protect the town from further violence, but things quickly spiraled out of control. As the creature starts killing off its summoners, fear and unrest trigger a schism in the community. Civil war, police brutality, zombie animals, and a bloodthirsty ancient being converge on the commune and Danielle may be their last hope.
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion is a novella that feels like a novel. It’s deep and expansive, and while much of the details are few and far between, you hit the end knowing everything you need to. The plot breezes by but isn’t rushed. It’s a whole world in 130 pages. While the novella is categorized as dark contemporary fantasy, it also crosses into horror:
The sun sat fat and low on the western horizon, at the top of the street, and the last light of the day lent everything vivid faded colors White lambs, dappled with red and purple wounds, paced a circle around both lanes of the street, not twenty yards from where we stood. Geese dodged in and out between them, and a regal goat oversaw the parade Each had only a gaping wound where its rib cage had been, yet they lived. They opened their mouths to bellow and squaw and bleat, but their organ-less bodies let out only strange rasps…
A fluttering, above me, caught my eye. On the power lines, hundreds of birds without rib cages – sparrows and finches, jays and pigeons – cried dry and unholy, an angry jury to the trial below. I was transfixed. I can’t say if it was magic or shock. I can’t say the two are wholly distinct.
In case it isn’t obvious by now, Margaret Killjoy is a revelation. Her writing is crisp, taut, and stunningly evocative. She effortlessly bobs and weaves through supernatural thriller, horror, and romance, not sitting too long in one attitude but not coming off as jarring or disjointed either.
Danielle isn’t a girl you typically see in supernatural thrillers. She’s tough and hard, but isn’t a seasoned warrior or a Strong Female Character™. She has to figure out how to take down Uliksi and the rebels like everyone else, all while dealing with her personal turmoil. Her co-conspirators—Vulture, a couple calling themselves Doomsday and Thursday, and Brynn, Danielle’s potential love interest—are a masterclass in how to reveal a character’s layers through action and dialogue rather than biographical infodumping.
Killjoy has crafted a world filled to the brim with queer people of all races, body types, and gender/sexual identities with fascinating and complex personalities. This isn’t an author playing with diversity. Killjoy is a trans punk anarchist, so there’s an undercurrent of the truth of experience in her story.
There’s a bit about halfway in where Danielle suffers a panic attack that hit a little too close to home for me. “It hit like a fever or drugs or something. A panic attack just drops you through the ice into freezing water. Even when you drag yourself out of the water, you’re left with the memory that forever-and-always, you’re walking on ice. It’s worse than anything. It’s worse than watching a demon eat a stranger’s heart.” Having gone through my own share of anxiety attacks over the years, the way Killjoy describes it was visceral. Just recalling my last anxiety attack last week and my heart is already racing and my fingers trembling. It’s rare to have anxiety/panic attacks described so realistically.
Tor.com is killing it right now with their novellas. And no, I’m not just saying that because I’m on the payroll. They’re publishing the kinds of stories no other mainstream house dares. I fell in love hard and fast with The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion. It was everything I never knew I wanted, and more. The ending wraps up most of the loose threads but leaves enough dangling to setup the forthcoming sequel, and you can bet your ass I’ll be there cash in hand the day it releases.
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion is available from Tor.com Publishing.
Read an excerpt here.
Alex Brown is a teen librarian, writer, geeknerdloserweirdo, and all-around pop culture obsessive who watches entirely too much TV. Keep up with her every move on Twitter and Instagram, or get lost in the rabbit warren of ships and fandoms on her Tumblr.
QUOTE:
thoughtful, well-characterised, well-constructed, and tightly paced. Where Killjoy excels is in the atmosphere she creates in this novella. The lingering presence of the unknown, unknowable, implacable spirit is juxtaposed against the sharply observed anarchist collective, familiar and alive and full of queer bodies and ways of living. The blend of horror and social commentary makes for an interesting experience, and, I think, an
Liz Bourke reviews The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy
November 2, 2017 Liz Bourke
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, Margaret Killjoy (Tor.com Publishing 978–0-7563-9736-2, $14.99, 128pp, tp) July 2017. Cover by Mark Smith.
Margaret Killjoy’s The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion is a peculiar, compelling, and atmospheric novella. I’d never heard of Killjoy before this novella, though I understand she’s written plenty of fiction and nonfiction, largely from an anarchist point of view.
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion is set in a future USA, though one that’s just barely the future, and really quite strongly resembles the present. Mutated animals are unremarkable, due to some unspecified polluted-water problem, and the world seems even more precarious in terms of labour and class relations than it is right now – though this may be primarily down to the protagonist’s point of view.
Danielle Cain is an anarchist and a vagabond who’s spent most of her life on the road. Her best friend Clay recently committed suicide in Denver, but the last place he spent any time before that was in a community called Freedom IA. Danielle wants to understand why he killed himself, so she’s headed to Freedom to look for answers. She knows this is a quixotic sort of quest, but Clay was her friend, and she’s committed to it.
Freedom IA is an anarchist squatter community, a relatively large one, in a town that’s otherwise abandoned. The community appeals to Danielle: it’s the kind of anarchist community she’s always wanted to see, egalitarian, communitarian, without a hierarchy. But it also has magic, magic that’s killing people. The evening Danielle arrives, she sees a three-horned deer, attended by dead-but-still-moving prey animals, kill a man and eat the heart out of his chest.
The three-horned deer is a guardian spirit, known as Uliksi. It turns out that four members of the community, including Clay, took it upon themselves to summon a guardian spirit that killed people who preyed on others, after a member of the Freedom community murdered another member, but now the guardian has turned on its summoners. The community is torn between trying to unsummon it, and keeping it without knowing if it may ever be unsummoned again after its summoners are dead.
Young firebrand Erik champions keeping the guardian, arguing that the deaths are a small price to pay for the security that Uliksi brings their community – but most other people disagree. The conflict splits the community, and Danielle finds herself, along with tattoo artist Bryce and a houseful of anarchists, at the centre of efforts to figure out how to unsummon Uliksi and to prevent more bloodshed. Matters come to a head when Erik’s faction informs the police about a member of the community with warrants for murder, and the police descend on Freedom. Danielle is caught in the middle of a face-off between heavily armed police, two separate factions of anarchists, and a guardian spirit whose motives no one really understands.
Told in the first person from Danielle’s point of view, The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion is thoughtful, well-characterised, well-constructed, and tightly paced. Where Killjoy excels is in the atmosphere she creates in this novella. The lingering presence of the unknown, unknowable, implacable spirit is juxtaposed against the sharply observed anarchist collective, familiar and alive and full of queer bodies and ways of living. The blend of horror and social commentary makes for an interesting experience, and, I think, an effective one.
Liz Bourke is a cranky queer person who reads books. She holds a Ph.D in Classics from Trinity College, Dublin. Her first book, Sleeping With Monsters, a collection of reviews and criticism, is out now from Aqueduct Press. Find her at her blog, her Patreon, or Twitter. She supports the work of the Irish Refugee Council and the Abortion Rights Campaign.
This review and more like it in the September 2017 issue of Locus.
Quick Review: THE LAMB WILL SLAUGHTER THE LION by Margaret Killjoy (Tor.com)
October 10, 2017 Civilian Reader ReviewHorror, Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, Margaret Killjoy, Most Anticipated 2017, Mystery, Novella, Thriller, Tor.com
KilljoyM-DC1-LambWillSlaughterTheLionAn excellent novella, and excellent intro to the author’s work
Searching for clues about her best friend’s mysterious suicide, Danielle ventures to the squatter, utopian town of Freedom, Iowa, and witnesses a protector spirit — in the form of a blood-red, three-antlered deer — begin to turn on its summoners. She and her new friends have to act fast if they’re going to save the town — or get out alive.
This is the first thing by Killjoy that I’ve read, and it will not be the last. A slim, perfectly formed novella, Killjoy’s prose is excellent. It’s been quite some time since an author’s writing jumped out from the get-go. If you’re looking for a quick, excellent read with a supernatural twist, then I would definitely recommend The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion.
The characters, too, are great: varied, colourful, complex, and infused with their own personalities — particularly impressive given that the cast is not small, but the novella really is. We get a lot of character-building in the sub-150-page novella, and I would very much have liked to have spent more time with them. The story flows very nicely, the momentum never dips, and we’re pulled through by the great prose and engaging characters. I enjoyed the punk-aesthetic that infuses the cast, their world-view.
The premise is interesting, well-constructed, and quietly creepy — the cover is an excellent depiction of a major component of the story. Killjoy’s prose is spare, the description just enough. It’s a very efficient, economically-told story. I really enjoyed this, and am very much looking forward to the author’s next book (of any length).
Highly recommended.
*
Margaret Killjoy’s The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion is out now, published by Tor.com in North America and the UK.
QUOTE:
There is nothing formulaic here; each passage and paragraph breathes originality and, most importantly, a thoroughly fantastic story.
Image of The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion (Danielle Cain)
THE LAMB WILL SLAUGHTER THE LION
Image of The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion (Danielle Cain)
Author(s): Margaret Killjoy
Killjoy’s writing is incredibly smart and exists so close to our reality that the more fantastical elements of her writing somehow still seem to fit. The “other” is painted with precise and detailed brushstrokes, and those who prefer stories outside the mainstream will enjoy this offering. There is nothing formulaic here; each passage and paragraph breathes originality and, most importantly, a thoroughly fantastic story.
Danielle Cain has left her current squat in Southern California to travel to Freedom, Iowa, a utopian squatter town begun by one of her best friends. She is looking for clues as to what would cause him, a thoroughly realized founder of a town based upon his own principles, to commit suicide. What she finds is surreal and gory, and what she needs to find is an answer for fixing it. (TOR.COM, Aug., 128 pp., $14.99)
Reviewed by:
Victoria Frerichs
QUOTE:
Fans will be very entertained and look forward to the next installment in the series.
The Barrow Will Send What It May
Margaret Killjoy. Tor.com, $3.99 e-book (112p) ISBN 978-0-7653-9737-9
MORE BY AND ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
This punk anarchist postapocalyptic fantasy novella, sequel to The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, sees series heroine Danielle Cain and her crew on the run. Stopping in a secluded town turned anarchist stronghold, Danielle and her cohort are welcomed by several of the town’s undead residents and soon enmeshed in a war between the living and the dead. They confront a powerful necromancer who summons an otherworldly entity, wielding enough power to break down the barriers between this world and the next. Writing with superb energy, Killjoy captures both the human drama and the supernatural suspense in the breakdown of the known world. Killjoy creates a multifaceted magic without burdening the text with needless exposition, intertwining the human and magical elements in a tale that captures the depth of humankind’s endless grappling with the everpresent specter of death. Fans will be very entertained and look forward to the next installment in the series. Agent: Connor Goldsmith, Fuse Literary. (Apr.)
The Barrow Will Send What it May is the followup to Margaret Killjoy’s first novella in the Danielle Cain series, The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion. The diverse cast of characters that Danielle found herself among at the end of the last book are now on their way across the US, seeking both safety and a new adventure. After all, when the cops think you’re the ones who killed all those people (rather than a justice-seeking deer), and when you’ve decided to become a demon-hunting crew, life won’t stay calm for long.
It takes one small incantation for luck for the group to find itself in a small town in which at least one person has come back from the dead. Coffee-loving wanderer Danielle is enamored with tattoo artist Brynn, and they and their friends make the quick acquaintance of local librarians Vasilis and Heather. The cast of characters—all anarchists, all, to some extent, reckless—is brilliant and diverse. Danielle’s anxiety is perfectly represented, and her panic attacks as well as the way she deals with them are all well-described and sincerely relatable. The novel is full of the same humor, adventure, and interesting fantastic action as the first. My only complaint is that this novella’s world-building and magic-explaining is a bit rushed, and so comes off a bit easy. But even then, I hurried through this novella at breakneck speed to keep up with Danielle Cain and her crew and all their new jokes and plot twists, from the Magic Feds to the intricacies of the damage done to Danielle’s hand. I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The Barrow Will Send What It May comes out April 3.
QUOTE:
Killjoy’s mix of politics and storytelling is at times intellectually engaging and at times winsome, though it’s also a curiosity to behold in the field today.
A Country of Ghosts evokes the mindset of 19th century utopian movements, so there is a sense of barefaced optimism in this book these historical communes had embodied, unlike later attempts at creating perfect societies that only resulted in the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. While Killjoy purposefully intends this to be a work of political speculation (why else would the subtitle read: “a book of The Anarchist Imagination”?), I still wonder how much of this is a romanticized argument for anarchism.
A Land without Leaders: A Country of Ghosts by Margaret Killjoy
Ay-leen the Peacemaker
Wed Mar 12, 2014 3:00pm 4 comments Favorite This
The most fantastical aspect of A Country of Ghosts is how it’s an earnest tale about an alternative society when dystopias fill today’s bookshelves. Full disclosure here: the author has written for Tor.com, and I did hold interest in reading his book once he described it to me as an “anarchist utopia.”
With that seed in mind, I couldn’t help but view A Country of Ghosts as the latest in a long tradition of utopian novels, starting with Thomas More’s as the most well-known early example (and a fantastic open source annotated edition can be read here).
Of course, utopias and speculative fiction go hand in hand. In the 19th century, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland envisioned a society of women. Alexander Bogdanov wrote about communist utopia on Mars in his 1908 book Red Star. Later utopian novels include Ursula K. Le Guin’s take on anarchism in The Dispossessed, Arthur C. Clark’s peaceful alien invasion in Childhood’s End, Aldous Huxley’s utopian counterpart to Brave New World in Island, and the fulfillment of the radical movements of the 1960s in Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, along with many others.
In A Country of Ghosts a regional collective known as Hron (they’re only kinda, sorta a country) fights against a colonial empire, and Killjoy’s mix of politics and storytelling is at times intellectually engaging and at times winsome, though it’s also a curiosity to behold in the field today.
Dimos Horacki is a young journalist from the empire of Borolia, sent on assignment to the front lines of their war for expansion. He’s sent to the Cerracs, a mountainous region placed beyond the latest conquered nation of Vorroni. There, the Borol forces are working to subdue the remaining indigenous villages. Inexperienced and earnest, Dimos plans to write about Dolan Wilder, one of the nation’s war heroes leading this fight. But when his first story sticks closer to the truth than the commander’s liking, Dimos is sent to trail a scouting group – that soon gets attacked by a group of regional fighters. Dimos is captured by the Free Company of the Mountain Heather and discovers something that he never wrote in the Borol headlines: that these isolated villages weren’t just settlements, but made up the region of Hron, which is, much to his surprise, a country of anarchists.
The storyline can be guessed from here: the young outsider realizes that the empire’s motivations are terrible and joins the fight on the side of the indigenous rebels. What is refreshing is that while many of these narratives become White Savior complexes, A Country of Ghosts neatly sidesteps this as the point of the adventure (and to note, Dimos isn’t even white). While he does get involved in gathering a war council as the Borol army prepares to march on the Cerracs, he ends up staying on the sidelines and letting the people of Hron fight for themselves.
The greater part of the novel lies in his observations of the Hron people and their culture as he grows more sympathetic towards them, which is coupled with his anarchist education. The book is a bit bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in conveying its teachable moments, and a couple moments come across as ham-fisted (in one scene, a character gives a straightforward definition of anarchism that sounded like it came right out of a pamphlet). Still, I emotionally connected to Dimos and the soldiers he befriends: stern and grounded Nola, passionate Sorros, the youthful gang of teens lead by the musician Grem, the mysterious Jackal (and be warned: don’t you dare drink his brandy). And I got so caught up in the fate of these people at the battle front, I had to blink back a few tears at certain scenes.
A Country of Ghosts evokes the mindset of 19th century utopian movements, so there is a sense of barefaced optimism in this book these historical communes had embodied, unlike later attempts at creating perfect societies that only resulted in the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. While Killjoy purposefully intends this to be a work of political speculation (why else would the subtitle read: “a book of The Anarchist Imagination”?), I still wonder how much of this is a romanticized argument for anarchism.
Hron works dependent upon the blunt self-interest and practicality that belies human nature. Unlike popular assumptions, anarchy doesn’t create chaos. Anarchists in general want to be left alone to seek their individual interests and exchange works on a gift economy. Hron individuals and villages help others because they want to or because social pressures force them to in order for a large community to survive. “Antisocial” anarchists are eventually kicked out of the greater nation to form their own city of Karak, a city that no other Hron inhabitant likes. Karak’s anarchist call for absolute individual freedom is tempered by a harder “dog eat dog” philosophy of putting the individual first that results in a hostile “survival of the fittest” environment more than a casual “live and let live” one. But even the people of Karak, while they come off not as kindhearted as some of the ones from Hron, are minor in contrast to Borol’s intense social and class divides.
The conditions for Hron’s birth and development are circumstances that would be ideal in any case of first contact: the revolutionary vanguards that had fled various empires as refugees meets a nation of loosely-connected indigenous peoples whose political culture is compatible to theirs. There isn’t a question of racial or ethnic strife or clashes based on cultural differences these immigrants may have carried with them. Eventually, the vanguard’s political thinking is assimilated into the region by the locals and contributes to their system of decentralization. The cynic in me wonders why in this case, the people of Hron refer to themselves as anarchists (the outsiders’ term) instead of a native equivalent to the concept of anarchy for any reason than for clarity of political arguments. It also felt strange that in a region where the village is the most-structured social grouping, there wasn’t a strong sense of village or tribal identification (which was a predecessor to nationalism).
Another question that came up is while Killjoy proposes that while cultural structure influences political structure and vice versa, the region of Hron is miraculously unaffected by any outside cultural influence despite its small size compared to its surrounding nations. I’m supposing that traders, missionaries, or the wayward adventurer from the outside hadn’t had much of an influence upon them over the centuries, or a strong success rate in crossing mountains. (It also made me think of how Thomas More conceived of his Utopia as an island, which makes a lot of more sense cultural evolution-wise).
Is A Country of Ghosts a reboot of the utopian novel? In a time when the dystopian has given a bleak view of our speculative landscapes, this novel is a sunny burst of new vigor. But a hint of melancholy still lingered for me after reading. In the case of More’s Utopia, many scholars have wondered upon the author’s intentions: is More’s “No Man’s Land” an impossible dream? Likewise, Hron in the novel’s indigenous language means “ghost.” Is Killjoy implying that an anarchist nation cannot exist outside of a fantasy? Despite the book’s hopeful ending, the country called Ghost brings to mind other nations and peoples that have been swallowed by empire. So should we take the title literally: this nation is a specter of the imagination, nothing more than to be treated as superstition by the fearful or the memory of a more optimistic past?
I can’t say for sure, but either way, a strange melancholic note rings inside its banner cry.
A Country of Ghosts is available March 22nd from Combustion Books
Ay-leen the Peacemaker works at Tor Books, runs the multicultural steampunk blog Beyond Victoriana, pens academic things, and tweets. Oh wait, she has a tumblr too.
QUOE:
A Country of Ghosts was entertaining, its politics intriguing, and the setting is a place I found myself missing after I turned the last page.
Review: Nick Mamatas reviews A Country of Ghosts by Margaret Killjoy
From: Bull Spec #10
a-country-of-ghosts-cover-731x1024
A Country of Ghosts
by Margaret Killjoy
Combustion Books, 2014
— Review by Nick Mamatas —
Subtitled a book of The Anarchist Imagination, Margaret Killjoy’s A Country of Ghosts is more appropriately a work of anarchist speculation. Structurally a Utopian novel—someone from a society very similar to the statist systems we’re all familiar with travels to a Utopia and is told how things work—we can count this book as a “hard” utopia. There’s no quantum computing or frictionless engine that makes the economy go, and the people living in the anarchist confederation of Hron have found themselves in the crosshairs of the Borolian Empire.
The story itself is rather simple: Dimon Horacki grew up rough but managed to become a journalist in the imperial center. He’s embedded into a troop of invaders and tasked with writing war propaganda disguised as reportage. He’s captured by a Hron guerilla group, but this being an anarchist utopia and Horacki being a cynic about empire, capture equals freedom. Horacki changes sides and casually explores Hron and its many villages. Much of the book’s middle drags a bit, as Horacki asks Hron people how this or that issue (child labor, prison, whatever) is resolved in an anarchist society, and then gets fairly lengthy, definitive, and uncontested answers. But who can sit down and explain, say, banking or the powers of the President or the state of the class struggle without simplifications and errors and arguments and corrections? The world is too complex to explain, ever. The details work better than the exposition; when Horacki runs out of tobacco and realizes that he’ll never have any more because it’s not grown in Hron, and there’s no trade with non-anarchist societies, we learn much more about the political economy of Utopia than we do from page-long conversations between characters. Horacki’s memoiristic narrative also doesn’t feel properly journalistic—Killjoy is a decent writer but not quite a great one, so having a writer-protagonist was not the best idea.
Despite its didactic elements, A Country of Ghosts isn’t quite an outline of how an anarchist society might work—for one thing it takes place in the equivalent of the nineteenth century, when the state was relatively militarily and ideologically weak. No aerial superiority, no digital surveillance, and no expansive welfare state designed to persuade the putative left that government can work for the common good. The art of nationalism was in its infancy. I found myself wondering repeatedly how this story would play out in the twenty-first century.
Hron, for its part, is an interesting society based on mutual aid and an accord of which nobody can quite remember the details, except that the spirit of the accord must always hold precedence over the letter. (There are lots of cute bits like this in the book. It’s a trick to avoid mapping out the details, but a funny one.) On pain of shunning or battering, jerks self-exile to Karak, which Horacki describes as “a town of street kids, all grown up.” But Hron needs Karak now, as only there can someone build a factory or experiment with exotic military arms if they wish to, and boy do they! And Karakians are jerks; when they join the war against the Borolians, who have established various Free Corps, they call their own troops the Freer Corps. Manarchists and brocialists, man.
This final third of the novel is gripping, both politically and narratively. Hron is outnumbered and outgunned, and are seemingly hamstrung by their broadly green anarchist, anti-industrialist, beliefs. They can’t conquer an empire, but they can raise the costs of imperialism in the hope of preserving their enclave. Horacki’s injuries take him out of the war and give him an ending for his book, and gives the reader much to think about. I wish the war had started sooner, or the book ended later, as this vision of anarchism needed a hotter crucible. But A Country of Ghosts was entertaining, its politics intriguing, and the setting is a place I found myself missing after I turned the last page.
—
QUOTE:
In Mythmakers and Lawbreakers, a collection of interviews with writers who give a sympathetic hearing to anarchist ideas, Margaret Killjoy has undoubtedly made a great contribution to the study of the artistic influence on and of anarchism
MYTHMAKERS AND LAWBREAKERS: ANARCHIST WRITERS ON FICTION
Edited by Margaret Killjoy
AK Press ($12)
by Niels Strandskov
It can be bittersweet when an idea that has hitherto existed only as an oral tradition, or in private correspondence, or as an allusion in another format, becomes suddenly codified and concretized into a solid work of reference. In Mythmakers and Lawbreakers, a collection of interviews with writers who give a sympathetic hearing to anarchist ideas, Margaret Killjoy has undoubtedly made a great contribution to the study of the artistic influence on and of anarchism, and yet it feels a little strange to see this previously secret knowledge shared with those outside the activist demimonde.
Killjoy has assembled a comprehensive selection of interview subjects. Ursula K. LeGuin, Michael Moorcock, Starhawk, Lewis Shiner, and Alan Moore represent the long-established anarchist tendency within the genres of fantasy and science fiction. Newer voices like Cristy C. Road, Crimethinc., and Carissa van den Berk Clark offer a glimpse at how anarchist fiction is transcending its usual utopian/dystopian boundaries to provide a vital critique of contemporary society.
As might be expected from any group of anarchists and fellow travelers this large, there is little consensus about what anarchism means, who anarchists are, what anarchist fiction can be, and how best to produce and distribute those ideas. Despite their differences—and it’s a testament to the diversity of the anarchist tradition that individuals as widely separated as Alan Moore and Derrick Jensen can both reasonably be said to belong to it—it seems as though most of the writers agree with Kim Stanley Robinson’s exhortation from his introduction: “In the meantime, we have to constantly work; resist capitalism; interrogate our own actions; and speak out against the current order, for something better.”
In her interview with Jensen, best known for his non-fiction polemics, Killjoy explores a crucial question: what’s the point of writing, and writing fiction at that, if the goal is to build a new society before the current one collapses? True to form, Jensen restates the question before offering an equivocation: “And so, is my work helping to save the salmon? I don’t know. And that’s a tremendous source of frustration.”
Other writers in the collection are less troubled by that apparent contradiction. In her interview, Starhawk defends the practice of anarchist fiction. “The larger culture is not going to reflect the counterculture that we build, but I think it’s important for us to have those kinds of reflections, to create those kinds of reflections. To use fiction—which is a very powerful tool—for confronting some of those major issues we confront.”
Killjoy addresses many of the other concerns of anarchist writers—how to disseminate radical information through capitalist distribution networks, how to balance imparting ideology and the demands of good writing, how to stay engaged with a fractious and protean milieu—subtly and with humor. Her interviews with some of the pseudonymous and/or group identity authors are engagingly surreal.
Perhaps the only serious flaw in the collected interviews is that some of them are so short. Killjoy’s questions are very concise, and the answers she elicits are generally lucid and to-the-point. Given the assembled talent, it would have been exciting to see more digressions and detailed exposition of the various works discussed, since so few of the authors have been interviewed at length elsewhere about their anarchism and its relationship to their works.
Rounding out the volume are three appendices. Appendix A provides brief biographies of ninety-eight current and historical authors who were anarchists or who influenced the development of anarchist fiction. Appendix B contains twenty-two similar biographies of non-anarchist authors of interest to readers of anarchist fiction. And Appendix C is split up into four categories: stories that explore anarchist societies; stories that fictionalize anarchist history; stories that feature sympathetic anarchist characters; and stories that feature anarchists as villains. For the dedicated reader of anarchist fiction, this appendix is almost as useful as the main text, although it does take some of the fun out of comparing notes with fellow enthusiasts or stumbling across a surprise at the used bookstore.
Killjoy’s book, though very comprehensive, will hopefully serve as a prod to other authors, journalists, and theorists to begin an even more exhaustive cataloging and investigation of this under-examined but ever fruitful category of literature. Losing a little in-group cachet would be a small price to pay for a discussion of anarchist fiction that could reach a larger audience and prompt more fiction writers to explore anarchist ideas.
Click here to purchase this book at your local independent bookstore
Purchase this book at your local independent bookstore.
Rain Taxi Online Edition, Summer 2010 | © Rain Taxi, Inc. 2010