From Publishers Weekly
In this stylish sequel to Kiernan's debut novel,
Silk (1998), it's been 10 years since a drug-fueled experiment opened a window on an alternate world of horrors that pushed angst-scarred Spyder Baxter to suicide, and its survivors are still reeling from the aftershocks. Daria Parker has parlayed some of her experience into a successful musical career, but her lover, Niki Ky, is wracked by full-blown schizophrenic episodes in which Spyder beckons her from a dimension beyond death. When Niki follows Spyder's instruction to make a fatal plunge from San Francisco's Bay Bridge, she awakens in a gothic realm of death and darkness where she plays a key role in an intrigue Spyder has engineered to draw out a demonic entity known as "the Dragon." Meanwhile, Daria struggles in the world of the living to retrieve and protect an artifact Niki needs to keep horrors in the Dragon's world from erupting into our own. Though the plot often mystifies, the novel's unusual blend of otherworldly and supernatural horror gives it a uniquely weird cast. Kiernan's true achievement, however, is the careful crafting of her mellifluous prose to sustain an intense atmosphere of dread. Dream and nightmare, hallucination and reality, private fantasy and objective experience all merge seamlessly, making this one of the more relentless horror reads of the year.
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Review
From
Publishers Weekly Returning from
Touch the Dark and
Claimed by Shadow, Cassie Palmer has finally become Pythia, the supernatural communitys all-knowing oracle. Shes struggling with her new powers (such as shifting back and forth through time) and is stuck between good and evil factions of the paranormal community. Her main concern, though, is to figure out how to reverse a pesky spell that threatens her independence: the geis, once placed on her for protection, is now trying to bind her to the handsome master vampire, Mircea, with results detrimental to them both. The only solution is to find the fabled book that has the counterspellfind it in space and time. Cassiein her struggles between her passionate need for independence, her burgeoning feelings for Mircea and her conflicts with her new role as Pythiais a well-rounded character, and the intensity and complexity of the plot puts her through her paces physically, emotionally and psychically.
"[Kiernan's] punk rock prose...makes
Angels fly."
-
Entertainment Weekly "Lyrical and earthy,
Murder of Angels is that rare book that gets everything right."
-Charles de Lint
"Kiernan's best book to date, joining her always prodigious gift for language with a wrenching, compelling story."
-
Locus
See all Editorial Reviews