Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Maplecroft: The Borden Dispatches by Cherie Priest


Maplecroft: The Borden Dispatches by Cherie Priest

Lizbeth Borden, made famous because of the double homicide by axe she was acquitted of at trial, has moved to the outskirts of Fall River, Massachusetts with her sister Emma.  Their house by the sea, Maplecroft, is ideal for their current activities: saving the people of Fall River from the creatures that sometimes come up from the sea as well as the ailments that occasionally affect the hapless residents.

Each chapter in the book is voiced by another character including Lizzie, her girlfriend Nance, the local doctor, Emma and other characters like a Professor from Miskatonic University.  For those in the know that reference to Miskatonic U. made you smile because it’s the fictional creation of H.P. Lovecraft many of his Cthulhu stories reference in one way or another.  So Lizzie and her axe are saving us all from the tentacled denizens of the deep.  It’s a neat concept and I did enjoy the mashup.  It was also really interesting to have an apocalyptic type of feel to a story that takes place in the late 1800s.  While technology is still in its infancy it is the heyday of amateur scientists and naturalists and hearing how they test and observe new life forms is disconcerting knowing how things would be done now, but interesting nonetheless.