Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

L'Agneau égorgera le lion by Margaret Killjoy

11 reviews

leafhead's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

tetrootz's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

booksthatburn's review against another edition

Go to review page

mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

*I listened to this as read by the author on the CZM Book Club Sunday episodes of the podcast It Could Happen Here posted between October 8th and October 29th, 2023.

I liked most of THE LAMB WILL SLAUGHTER THE LION. It has some interesting ideas about punk and anarchism as import elements of the setting and plot, but some of that was conveyed more by the CZM book club commentary than the actual text. Since there isn't an audiobook, that was a great way to listen to the story. It feels like a cross between a modern fable and an anti-police procedural, as Danielle is trying to figure out what's happening in the punk settlement and how to stop people from dying. As the first book in a series (current of two books but there might eventually be more), this functions almost completely as a stand-alone story, then at the very end it specifically sets up the idea of more stories to come. The ending felt a bit too neat, as all of a sudden everything was solved and the problems are fixed, which definitely contributed to it feeling like a fable where the lesson is more important than any realism. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

midnightcomets's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging hopeful informative tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Such a unique book, a wonderful little allegory about power, corruption, anarchy, humanity and friendship. I love Margaret's music so I was very happy that I loved her writing too. Also, this could work wonders as a mini-series. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

donutlookaway's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.25


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

mikkitooloud's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I was first introduced to Margaret Killjoy on the "Behind the Bastards" podcast, but I hadn't read any of her books until now. This is fantastic! It's a really quick read, it took me maybe 3 hours. There's communism, body horror and shitty men! Ms. Killjoy excels in painting the scene with words; I really felt like I could see Freedom, Iowa.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

softbitten's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark hopeful tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

owenblacker's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional funny hopeful tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

First in a Tor.com collection of 4 queer-authored novellas published for Pride 2018, The Lamb will Slaughter the Lion is a punk fantasy. Alex Brown summarises the tone well in their Tor.com piece Anti-Doorstoppers: 10 Great SFF Novellas and Novelettes: “The story is part rural fantasy, part dark fantasy, and part horror. Think Supernatural but darker and queerer.”

Travelling to the anarchist utopian squatter-community of Freedom, Iowa, to find out why her old friend ran away from his found-family and the home that made him settle down from the road in order to kill himself in a motel room, squatter/nomad Danielle discovers an “eternal spirit” in the form of a blood-red, three-antlered deer is… “protecting”… the community.

With an author who is herself a transfeminine nomad, a queer protagonist and prominent trans secondary characters and characters of colour in the found-family, the story is effortlessly diverse and the setting itself is really interesting: the ancom utopia sounds lovely — but broken, inevitably, otherwise the community wouldn’t have needed to summon their protector, and with it the cost. But this isn’t just a what-happened-next; as KJ Charles puts it:
This is on one level a tense horror novel, where forces of the State and society and male violence are as much a sinister and pervasive threat as the heart-eating magic deer. But, as that suggests, it’s also a meditation on things like society, what anarchism means, how societies enforce rules and what it means to do so and who takes enforcement roles on themselves. How do we keep ourselves decent without a prospect of punishment for those who transgress? Who makes those calls?

And, as Killjoy put it in the book, “the revolution is about taking power away from the oppressors, not becoming them ourselves”.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

kazik's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

lipstickitotheman's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark inspiring mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings