Review: “The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion” by Margaret Killjoy

Release Date: August 15, 2017
Publisher: Tor.com Publishing
Series: Danielle Cain #1
Genre: Fantasy

Description

“Danielle Cain is a queer punk rock traveller, jaded from a decade on the road. Searching for clues about her best friend’s mysterious and sudden suicide, she ventures to the squatter, utopian town of Freedom, Iowa. All is not well in Freedom, however: things went awry after the town’s residents summoned a protector spirit to serve as their judge and executioner.

Danielle shows up in time to witness the spirit—a blood-red, three-antlered deer—begin to turn on its summoners. Danielle and her new friends have to act fast if they’re going to save the town—or get out alive.”  (via Goodreads)

My Thoughts

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…

To read the rest of my review of The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy, head over to Tor.com.

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.

Excerpt of the first book in the Danielle Cain series, The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion.

Thanks to Tor.com for sending me a review copy.

Do the world a favor and buy this book from your local indie bookstore or borrow it from your public library.