James Nicoll Reviews

Jen Williams’ 2022 Seven Dead Sistersis a stand-alone horror novella.

Although the menfolk of Alizon Grey’s village are disinclined to waste effort on women, whom the men see as one-part domestic animal and one-part sinful Daughters of Eve, in Alizon’s case the men enthusiastically apply themselves to the task of transporting Alizon to Demdike Hill. 

The men do like a public burning, after all, and Demdike Hill is the traditional execution ground on which transgressors like Alizon are burned alive. 

Unlike many women in her position, Alizon is absolutely guilty of murdering her father, although she would argue her actions were both justified and more merciful than her father deserved. Unfortunately for Alizon, not only do the men reject the idea that women can object to masculine decisions — thus, there can be no such thing as justifiable homicide by a woman — they are extremely keen for executions on the slenderest pretext .

For her part, Alizon is unenthusiastic about the impending spectacle. Having been dragged to many burnings by her father, she is quite aware that the honour of her role cannot compensate for the exquisite pain she will experience as she slowly burns to death. Alizon must escape in the time it will take the cart conveying her cage from the village to Demdike Hill.

The most practical escape is poison, provided to Alizon by a sympathetic old woman. Death is still death, however, and Alizon would prefer to live. Accordingly, she pins her hopes on a plea to the Fair Folk, despite the fact she has made such pleas before on her sisters’ behalf, without saving single one of Alizon’s six sisters.

Results are mixed at best. Somethingresponds, something ferocious and wild. Bad news for the two men transporting Alizon. Bad news for Alizon, as the force of nature that descends in the cart does not see fit to unlock Alizon’s cage as it passes. 

Trapped in an iron cage, Alizon knows if she does not find some way out, her future will be grim: either the monster will return to kill her, she will die of exposure (or poison), or some curious villager will investigate her absence from the execution and convey her to Demdike Hill. At least she knows where the key to the cage is: in the pocket of a corpse just out of reach.

~oOo~

At the risk of biting the hand that feeds me, one of my motives for reviewing this is to demonstrate by example that while tor dot com is in all ways an exemplary publisher whose contributors are all magnificent people — especially the ones living east of Kitchener’s River Road¹—tor dot com is not the only novella publisher. One might conclude that from the Hugo Awards, but that would be incorrect. Other novella publishers include:

Annorlunda

Apex

Aqueduct Press

Blind Eye Books

Book View Cafe

Crystal Lake

Giganotosaurus

Hodder

Innismouth Free Press

Luna Press Publishing

Meerkat Press

Neon Hemlock

NewCon Press

Nine Star Press

Paper Road Press

Prime

Queen of Swords

Saga

Small Beer Pres

Solaris Satellites

Subterranean

Tachyon

Twelfth Planet Press

And of course, PS Publishing, who published Seven Dead Sisters.

Although it’s no secret that Alizon murdered (or at least violently inhumed) her father, nor that she is on her way to execution, the novella is coy about the details. Backstory is provided in small, enticing sips, just enough to keep the readers’ interest engaged without giving the whole game away.

Unsurprisingly, this is somewhat grimmer fair than Williams’ Sundering Flame series (which I really need to finish reviewing). Such sympathetic characters as exist are victims, who by being mentioned at all are therefore doomed. One might expect that the novella would be a tremendous downer. There are certainly unpleasant revelations, but the situation is not entirely hopeless — which is rather a surprise to the men of the village.

Seven Dead Sisters is available here (Amazon US) and here (Book Depository) (for out-of-stock values of available). Seven Dead Sisters is available (in the sense of actually being able to buy it) here (Amazon UK), here (Barnes & Noble), and here (Chapters-Indigo). I did not find it at Amazon Canada.

1: Yes, it does annoy me that nowhere along River Road’s length is there a river, although if you stood on a rooftop at either end of it, you could see the Grand River.