the Priestess of Unexpected Violence
May. 22nd, 2012 06:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sergebroom“Hail! Hail the Priestess of Unexpected Violence!”
Those of you who’ve had the pleasure of reading Seanan McGuire’s novel “Discount Armageddon” were introduced to Verity Price who, while pursuing a career as a ballroom dancer in New York City, remains involved in the family business of hunting monsters, and of slaying them only if they misbehave and eat humans.
While we’re waiting for Verity’s next adventure, we can read some short stories set in 1928 that tell us how her grandparents met. In “The Flower of Arizona”, Jonathan Healy winds up in Tempe, Arizona, after reports of unusual deaths that seem to follow in the wake of a circus. At first he wonders if Frances Brown, the titular Flower, might really be a monster hiding under the guise of a beautiful young woman who’s *very* good at knife-throwing, thus the family’s mice calling her the Priestess of Unexpected Violence. When that’s cleared up, and the local situation with death is resolved, Jonathan heads back to Michigan in “One Hell of a Ride”, accompanied by Fran, but the train takes a detour in the layers of Hell closest to our Reality. In “No Place Like Home”, Fran, who’s been taking Jonathan’s activities and encounters pretty much in stride, gets to face one truly unnerving situation – the doubtful approval of his parents.
By the way, while the first story was published in “Westward Weird”, a DAW anthology, the other two are available for free on her site here:
http://seananmcguire.com/icshorts.php
Enjoy!
Those of you who’ve had the pleasure of reading Seanan McGuire’s novel “Discount Armageddon” were introduced to Verity Price who, while pursuing a career as a ballroom dancer in New York City, remains involved in the family business of hunting monsters, and of slaying them only if they misbehave and eat humans.
While we’re waiting for Verity’s next adventure, we can read some short stories set in 1928 that tell us how her grandparents met. In “The Flower of Arizona”, Jonathan Healy winds up in Tempe, Arizona, after reports of unusual deaths that seem to follow in the wake of a circus. At first he wonders if Frances Brown, the titular Flower, might really be a monster hiding under the guise of a beautiful young woman who’s *very* good at knife-throwing, thus the family’s mice calling her the Priestess of Unexpected Violence. When that’s cleared up, and the local situation with death is resolved, Jonathan heads back to Michigan in “One Hell of a Ride”, accompanied by Fran, but the train takes a detour in the layers of Hell closest to our Reality. In “No Place Like Home”, Fran, who’s been taking Jonathan’s activities and encounters pretty much in stride, gets to face one truly unnerving situation – the doubtful approval of his parents.
By the way, while the first story was published in “Westward Weird”, a DAW anthology, the other two are available for free on her site here:
http://seananmcguire.com/icshorts.php
Enjoy!
