Killjoy, Margaret. ‘The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice’. Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, 2025. @tangled_wilderness Thanks to the publishers for the ARC pdf!
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I was born in the 80s, grew up in the late 80s/90s/early 00s. Anything spooky, paranormal, or magicky will always strike a chord deep within my psyche, thanks to shows like The X-Files, Unsolved Mysteries, and the Australian show The Extraordinary.
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The Danielle Cain series, of which this is the third and latest novella, is like combining all the things I loved as a young kid with the Beautiful Idea I found aged 13/14 and the anarcho-punk I found later in life. Each novella is like a Monster-of-the-Week episode of your favourite spooky show, with Mulder and Scully replaced by a crew of crust punks chasing down what’re called The Endless Spirits. Book One had Uliksi. Book Two had Sebastian Miller and Barrow. Book Three has… a couple of different Endless Spirits.
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Each novella can be read in one sitting, or drawn out and savoured for a couple of days (which is how I read them because I want them to last longer). The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice is like a sequel which tells prequelly stories about a crew that I’ve loved for some time now, ever since Book 1 (The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion) was released. I zipped through Books 1 and 2 prior to reading Book Three, so I could be reacquainted with Dani, Doomsday, Thursday, Brynn, and Vulture.
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The main thing that stood out for me about this book is that it is FUN, just like the first two were. There’s enough anarchy for anarchists, enough magic and supernatural stuff for fantasy lovers (I say that like I know, when I really don’t; I don’t read fantasy). I liked how Margaret told the tale of the Free Trade Area of the Americas protests in a way that might have been “fancy magic” like the first two stories told in this story, showing “real magic” to be just as magic. And my fave tale was easily the factory/city in the side of a mountain, home to the Troll King and Lady in Green. Come to think of it, these books might even be like an anarchist version of the Goosebumps books by RL Stine.
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