Pluralistic: The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice (18 Jun 2025)

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Originally published at: https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/18/anarcho-cryptid/



Today's links


The cover for the Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness edition of Margaret Killjoy's 'The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice.'

The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice (permalink)

Margaret Killjoy writes fantasy stories of relentless tension, boundless wonder, thrilling adventure…and completely radical, unflinching anarchist politics. Her 2024 YA novel "The Sapling Cage" is a queer coming-of-age epic that motors with all the narrative energy of a genderbent Conan epic:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/24/daughters-of-the-empty-throne/#witchy

Today, Strangers In a Tangled Wilderness Press publishes The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice, a collection of three linked short stories set in Killjoy's celebrated Danielle Cain series, which Alan Moore called "ideal reading for a post-truth world":

https://www.tangledwilderness.org/shop/p/the-immortal-choir-holds-every-voice

Danielle Cain is a freight-train-hopping, anarcho-queer hero whose adventures are shared by solidaristic crews of spellcasting, cryptid-battling crustypunk freaks and street-fighters. In Immortal Choir, the action opens with Danielle and a motley band around a campfire in a dark Idaho woods, surrounded by the night-screams of some distant demonic presence. It's Samhain, and the veil between the realm of the living and the dead is as thin as it gets. Bad things are stalking the night.

To save themselves, they must court their own dead, welcoming them to their circle. They pile a camp-plate high with food for the dead to eat, build the fire up, and begin the tell the stories of their dead comrades, summoning them as a defense against the monstrous forces that stalk the All Saints night. This is the setup for the three linked short stories that make up this short book.

This is a great setup: a group of endangered comrades, huddled together against the darkness without, telling tales to buoy up their bravery. It's the framing device that makes The Decameron an enduring classic after 800 years and counting. In Killjoy's hands, it sings.

The first story is "The Troll King's Court," a ghost story about a Norwegian troll cult that came to America in a failed Manhattan-Adjacent Project to create a mystical superweapon with which to win WWII. It's ultimately a story about how the competent people who have their shit together in our lives are just as broken as the rest of us, and about the many ways that release, fulfillment and actualization can take place. It's spooky as fuck.

The middle story is "The Fairies of the Spring," which summons up the old, mean roots of the Fair Folk, the cruelty behind their beauty and merry laughter. Pratchett did one of these (Lords and Ladies), and so have many others – but no one's done it where the resistance comes from a motley band of queer punk club-owners in a rural town, who team up with local shitkickers to hunt the elves and banish them to their realm.

The final tale is "The Battle of Miami," a story about a streetfighting anti-globalist battle. It's a tale of Black Bloc tactics and true queer love, that lights up with joy.

Killjoy's really onto something with this series. She's tapping into the deep roots of fantasy – maybe the socialist parables woven into William Morris's stories. She's also connecting with the roots of urban fantasy (I was delighted to see a reference to Terri Windling's superb, absolutely amazing Borderland series). These three tales stand alone, so there's no need to read the previous volumes before diving into this one. But you should read the other two, because they're great:

  • The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion (2017):

https://reactormag.com/excerpts-margaret-killjoy-the-lamb-will-slaughter-the-lion/

  • The Barrow Will Send What It May: (2018):

https://reactormag.com/excerpts-the-barrow-will-send-what-it-may-margaret-killjoy/

Hey look at this (permalink)


A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#15yrsago Canadian copyright astroturf site gives marching orders to its users https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2010/06/astroturf-campaign-mandatory-letter/

#10yrsago Corbis will cheerfully charge you up the wazoo for public domain images https://www.pcmag.com/opinions/stock-photos-will-drive-photoshop-use-into-the-ground

#10yrsago Privacy activists mass-quit U.S. government committee on facial recognition privacy https://theintercept.com/2015/06/16/privacy-advocates-resign-protest-u-s-facial-recognition-code-conduct-2/

#10yrsago FCC fines AT&T $100M for throttling “unlimited” customers https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2015/06/17/att-just-got-hit-with-a-100-million-fine-after-slowing-down-its-unlimited-data/?utm_content=buffere69ad&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

#10yrsago Seattle’s tent cities https://grist.org/cities/tent-cities-seattles-unique-approach-to-homelessness/

#5yrsago This is the EU's interoperability moment https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/18/digital-services-act/#interop

#5yrsago Sterilizer company vs Right to Repair https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/18/digital-services-act/#steris

#1yrago It's been twenty years since my Microsoft DRM talk https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/18/greetings-fellow-pirates/#arrrrrrrrrr

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.


A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)


A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)


A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
    https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

  • Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

  • Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

  • The Memex Method, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026


Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

  • Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Status: second pass edit underway (readaloud)

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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