Kirkus has chosen Maplecroft: The Borden Dispatches, Book 1 by Cherie Priest as one of it’s Top Picks for Speculative Fiction Reads in September!
“Part alternate history, part horror, Maplecroft is sure to be one of the season’s creepiest reads.” – Kirkus
Mary Robinette Kowal’s novelette, “The Lady Astronaut of Mars,” has won the 2014 Best Novelette Hugo Award!
Congratulations, Mary!
Maplecroft Will Be the Best Damn Cthulhu Novel You’ve Read in Ages
Lizzie Borden’s infamous murders took place just a couple of decades before H.P. Lovecraft first dreamed up the horrors of his greatest invention, the cosmic ocean monster-god Cthulhu. Cherie Priest has taken this historical confluence and turned it into a wild, awesome page-turner called Maplecroft.
Last Plane to Heaven: The Final Collection by Jay Lake
VERDICT: Perhaps inevitably this collection has a sense of yearning to it: a desire for escape, a wish for broken things to be fixed, a longing for more time. Here both literal and metaphoric narratives deal with Lake’s struggles with terminal cancer, but readers will enjoy plenty of adventure and pure flights of fancy as well.
Lake (1964-2014) was a well-known author of sf and fantasy novels (Green; Mainspring), but he was also a prolific short story writer. This final collection shows the range of styles that Lake was comfortable with and showcases his clever way with words. There are pieces from the worlds he created in his novels, including “From the Countries of Her Dreams” about a priestess from the Copper Downs and “Promises,” a haunting tale of the City Imperishable about a young woman on a difficult path. Subtly steampunk is “The Woman Who Shattered the Moon,” centered on an old woman who was once a supervillain. “West to East” describes a landing crew trapped on a wind-scoured planet and their ingenious efforts to get one last message back to their ship. There are also two Lovecraftian stories that are perfect little gems in their own ways. — Library Journal
Maplecroft: The Borden Dispatches, Book 1 by Cherie Priest
Lizbeth “Lizzie” Andrew Borden wields her axe against Lovecraftian entities in this terrifying and powerful series launch by fan favorite Priest (the Clockwork Century series). Two years after Lizzie infamously slew her mother and stepfather, she and her consumptive, scholarly older sister, Emma, remain in their hometown of Fall River, Mass., in an isolated and modified home called Maplecroft. Lizzie spends countless hours in her basement laboratory, trying to understand what transformed the Bordens into horrifying creatures, while protecting and caring for Emma and conducting a love affair with actress Nance O’Neil. Then Emma, who poses as “Dr. E.A. Jackson” to contribute to the men-only world of science, sends a biological sample to colleague Phillip Zollicoffer at Miskatonic University, with terrible consequences. Readers will be intrigued by the weird monsters and 19th-century science, but the story is really carried by the characters’ emotional dynamics, especially those between the Borden sisters. — Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
