Death cults, queer love, and the end of everything.
Spaceships, man-eating lesbian mermaids, swords, spears, demons, ghouls, thieves, hitchhikers, and life in the margins. Margaret Killjoy’s stories have appeared for years in the science fiction and fantasy magazines both major and indie. Here, we have collected the best previously published work along with brand new material. Ranging in theme and tone, these imaginative tales bring the reader on a wild and moving ride. They’ll encounter a hacker who programs drones to troll CEOs into quitting; a group of LARPers who decide to live as orcs in the burned forests of Oregon; queer, teen love in a death cult; the terraforming of a climate-changed Earth; polyamorous love on an anarchist tea farm during the apocalypse; and much more. Killjoy writes fearless, mind-expanding fiction that is redefining the genre.
PUBLISHER: AK Press
YEAR: 2022
LENGTH: 176 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Queer Short Stories
RECOMMENDED: Highly
Queer Rep Summary: Lesbian/Sapphic Main Character(s), Gay/Achillean Main Character(s), Bi/Pan Main Character(s), Genderqueer/Nonbinary Main Character(s), Trans Main Character(s).
Many of the stories deal with blurred lines between fantasy and reality, where superstition and belief end up with their own kind of practicality. As someone with OCD who struggles with compulsions and magical thinking, these stories were deeply compelling to me. The collection is cohesive in tone while ranging through a variety of settings and many kinds of queerness. They're usually first person narratives, which wholly inhabit a different way of thinking about things in each story, all while remaining extremely accessible and evocative.
"The Devil Lives Here" is a strong opening to the collection, establishing the overall fever-dream tone and precarious sense of existence which undergirds the rest of the stories. "The Free Orcs of Cascadia" is one of the strangest, most moving stories I’ve read in a while. It’s part narrative, part interview with an orc in a permanent LARP community. It’s a story of fighting against fascism and figuring out what it means to defend the idea of a community as well as the literal people within it. I’ll be thinking about Golfimbul for a long time. I also particularly enjoyed "Everything that Isn't Winter" and “We Who Will Destroy the Future”. Every story gave me several things to ponder, and they shook some unconscious assumptions about the bounds of what could happen in stories, how far the narratives could stretch in such a small space.
I discovered Margaret Killjoy's work through her appearances on Behind the Bastards and other podcasts (she currently hosts Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff). The focus on community and queer anarchism which is an integral part of those shows is fundamental to the stories in this collection, each in their own way.
“The Devil Lives Here” - Minor CW for injury detail, child death.
“The Free Orcs of Cascadia” - Moderate CW for cursing, blood, violence, murder, death. Minor CW for racism.
“Not One of Us Will Survive the Fog” - Moderate CW for grief, child death, death. Minor CW for antisemitism, homophobia, lesbophobia.
“One Star” - Moderate CW for confinement, car accident. Minor CW for injury detail, suicidal thoughts, death, animal death.
“We Won’t Be Here Tomorrow” - Moderate CW for cursing, drug use, blood, gun violence, murder, death. Minor CW for panic attacks, fire/fire injury, suicide, parental death, child death.
“The Fortunate Death of Jonathan Sandelson” - Moderate CW for cursing, grief, stalking, blood, gun violence, car accident, murder, child death, death.
“Imagine A World So Forgiving” - Moderate CW for cursing, confinement, blood, gore, violence, gun violence, injury detail, murder, animal death, death. Minor CW for vomit.
“Everything That Isn’t Winter” - Moderate CW for drug use, fire, excrement, blood, gore, gun violence, murder, death. Minor CW for sexual content.
“Into the Gray” - Moderate CW for sexual content, blood, violence, body horror, murder, death.
“The Bones of Children” - Moderate CW for transphobia, racism, blood, gore, child death, death.
“Mary Marrow” - Moderate CW for blood, murder, death. Minor CW for violence, cannibalism, suicide, child death, parental death.
“Beyond Sapphire Glass” - Moderate CW for grief, sexual content, suicide, death.
“The Northern Host” - Moderate CW for grief, cursing, racism, violence, gun violence, war, death.
“Malediction” - Moderate CW for grief, cursing, sexual content, alcohol, excrement, blood, violence, gun violence, injury detail, suicide, suicidal thoughts, animal death, death.
“Invisible People” - Moderate CW for violence, gun violence, police brutality. Minor CW for cancer, terminal illness, pandemic, death.
“We Who Will Destroy the Future” - Moderate CW for alcohol, excrement, gun violence, murder, death.
“Men of the Ashen Morrow” - Moderate CW for grief, cursing, blood, violence, animal death, death.
“A Reasonable Place If You’re Careful” - Moderate CW for animal death, death.
“The Name of the Forest” - Moderate CW for cursing, grief, sexual content, tick swarm, fire/fire injury, police brutality, gun violence, murder, suicidal thoughts, death.
“It Bleeds, It Burrows, It Breaks the Bone” - Moderate CW for deadnaming, blood, sexual harassment, fire/fire injury, murder, suicide, death.
“The Thirty-Seven Marble Steps” - Moderate CW for kidnapping, confinement, animal death, child death, death.
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