Thank you, Erewhon books, for sending me a copy of Desert Creatures in exchange for an honest review!
At nine years old, Magdala finds herself and her father exiled from their home and searching for refuge in the Sonoran desert. There they join other survivors on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Las Vegas. Magdala, born with a clubfoot, hopes the vigilante saints there can heal her. But as the pilgrims quickly fall to the horrors of the desert, Magdala eventually finds herself alone.
After seven years of surviving on her own, Magdala takes matters into her own hands. She kidnaps an exiled priest at gunpoint and heads once again toward Vegas. The two must learn to trust each other to survive the monstrous desert and reach their salvation.
RELATED: 13 Spooky New Horror Books Coming This Fall
I don’t think it’s possible to overstate how much I loved this book. Desert Creatures ticks off every box in my incredibly niche list of things I’m looking for in a book. It’s a post-apocalyptic, wild-west version of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation combined with True Grit and The Road, and it’s absolutely stunning.
Kay Chronister breaks Desert Creatures into three parts: Outlaws, Exiles and Specters. It’s essentially three novelettes stitched together by Magdala’s story threaded throughout. Each section represents a crucial point in her development; Magdala goes from an innocent child to a wayward youth to a criminal and hero, depending on who you ask.
Magdala reminds me a bit of Laura from Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. Although she’s young, she is smart, determined and tough. Despite all the horror she faces, she adapts and forges a path for herself. Her journey from a child to a capable and powerful woman is incredible.
RELATED: Book Review: Strike the Zither
This book is bleak, and it’s not for the faint of heart. Very few people in this world are kind, and many commit horrific acts to survive. Even those that try to do good suffer. Spend too long in the wilderness, and you may develop desert sickness. People slowly go mad, wandering until they die or fuse with animal remains to walk the desert in misery. In spite of the truly terrible things that happen, Chronister’s prose is poetic, and the disturbing almost becomes beautiful.
Desert Creatures takes a unique view of ecological horror. Unlike many other books in this genre, it doesn’t look at the direct results of climate crisis like global warming, pandemics or rising sea levels. Instead, Chronister uses surrealist elements to illustrate humanity’s response to a hostile planet.
I loved Chronister’s decision to make Las Vegas a center of salvation in the desert wasteland. Although it holds religious relics and is home to living saints, Vegas is more focused on squeezing what it can from desperate pilgrims while shutting down any so-called heretics the Church deems a threat. Chronister uses Desert Creatures to explore hypocrisy, corruption and religious control and critique the American fusion of Christianity and right-wing capitalism.
If you’re looking for a post-apocalyptic, dystopian western, Desert Creatures is a perfect read. Check it out if you’re a fan of Annihilation or even The Last of Us, and keep an eye out for more from Kay Chronister!
Desert Creatures is out now and available for purchase from your local independent bookstore or Bookshop.org.
TW: ableism, amputation, body horror, church abuse/spiritual manipulation, death of a child, death of a parent, gun violence, implied sexual assault, murder, pregnancy, violence and gore
https://www.geekgirlauthority.com/sci-fi-westerns-to-obsess-over-while-wynonna-earp-is-on-hiatus/
- Book Review: THE BOG WIFE - October 10, 2024
- Amber Midthunder Joins MONARCH: LEGACY OF MONSTERS Season 2 - October 9, 2024
- New Release Radar: New Books Coming Out on October 8 - October 8, 2024
