Desert Creatures

Praise

★ “Chronister’s futuristic, dog-eat-dog Sonoran and Mojave deserts are as devastating as they are inventive. . . . Chronister cleverly deploys and subverts horror, dystopian and western genres alike in this razor-sharp novel.” —Shelf Awareness, starred review

“If The Canterbury Tales was set in future Sonoran and Mojave deserts, it might look a little like this . . . [A] strange and frightening vision.” —Publishers Weekly

“Chronister pierces with her prose. You’ll find hope and acts of kindness in an unkind world. Desert Creatures is not a comfort read—it is rife with horror, betrayal, and a landscape that will burn itself on your consciousness. But in the end, this book will comfort you.” —BookRiot’s “Best Books of 2022”

“[Desert Creatures] is a striking new take on the post-apocalypse novel, invigorating an old genre tradition with new vitality and life. And it is a haunting meditation on what it means to retain our humanity under the most adverse of conditions. It is a masterpiece, all the more impressive for being Chronister’s debut.” —The Fantasy Hive

“Genre-shredding . . . Stunning . . . A story of both creation and apocalypse, where characters struggle with both belief and heresy.” —Tor.com

“In [this] distorted version of Las Vegas wherein false saints peddle false promises, . . . a rejected girl takes a wretched journey whose inward dimensions hold the potential for healing. . . . Heartbreaking.” —Foreword Reviews

“A vivid investigation of faith, perseverance, and human violence as they exist at the end of the world . . . Scintillating.” —Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World

“Incredible . . . pushing the wild weirdness of the Sonoran Desert toward the furthest extremes of possibility. I will never forget this uncanny world, nor brave Magdala’s quest across it.” —Matt Bell, author of Appleseed

“[Desert Creatures] does for the Southwest desert what Jeff VanderMeer did for Florida’s swamps and Algernon Blackwood did for the Danube. . . . Unlike most post-apocalyptic works, the narrative never revels in the downfall of modernity, but scavenges in the remnants of what was and calls forth the twinned opulences of medieval Catholicism and Las Vegas as its guideposts. . . . This is the book of monsters our liminal year deserves.” —Ancillary Review of Books