Sister, Maiden, Monster

Product Information

Fans of Synder’s work may recognise Erin and her circumstances from her 2014 short story“Magdala Amygdala”, a title she keeps for the first part of this novel.

Erin is the first we encounter. A disease has broken out, stabbing everyone with familiar pangs of nostalgia to the corona virus. The infection sounds pretty similar, but if you are infected, you are guaranteed a trip to the hospital, if not the morgue. The disease is called PVG or ‘Polymorphic Viral Gastoencephalsiits,’ and the side effects are simply disturbing. Visceral, gory, and deliciously unhinged, Sister, Maiden, Monster is a fast-paced, disturbingly relatable pandemic horror that I absolutely devoured and never wanted to end. Type Ones are people who contracted this PVG virus, got some headache and nausea, but then after a few days of rest they recovered, never had to see a doctor, didn't have to go to an ER, and didn't need to be in a containment facility like Greenwood. Erin has become a kind of living zombie who has significant trouble with digestion, healing, sunlight, X-rays, and a dozen other things. She could also still become a 'total cancer farm' by the time she becomes 35 years old. Further still, pregnancy is no longer an option, adoption and fostering are also not options, and her brain will degenerate significantly over time. It's not clear if there is a cure.

Lucy A. Snyder

Sensuous, sinister, and sinewy; a blood-and-brains splattered shotgun-blast romp through the apocalypse that will simultaneously excite and disgust readers with equal pleasure.” — Philip Fracassi, author of Boys in the Valley

Sister, Maiden, Monster is a visceral story set in the aftermath of our planet’s disastrous transformation and told through the eyes of three women trying to survive the nightmare, from Bram Stoker Award-winning author Lucy A. Snyder.

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own. While each character is affected differently by the infection, there are nevertheless parallels between their struggles. The story’s themes are also undeniably feminist, concerning the female experience as the narrative explores the choices of the three women and the manner in which they deal with the changes to their lives. Erin, Savannah, and Mareva are all connected to each other in some way, so even though the stories may seem disjointed at first, eventually the book progresses through the three different parts and we start to see the threads that bind them together and perhaps even begin to glean the ultimate purpose behind the virus.

Snyder has created something unique here, it’s grotesque and repulsive, but it is also brilliant and beautiful. A story created in Dante’s vision of hell, then regurgitated into something addictive and infectious. I have already leant my copy to friends who felt the same as I did, we find ourselves in the same position as Maurice: Snyder has always been a trailblazer, and now she scorches the earth with the sheer audacity of her imagination.A hideously gory, kink-fueled, feminist cosmic horror apocalypse novel that should be on the top of everyone’s reading list.”— CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN, New York Timesbestselling author of Road of BonesSister, Maiden, Monster is the feminist Cronenberg I didn’t know I needed. Gleeful, gory, and unrelenting.” With Sister, Maiden, Monster, we see that there’s not only beauty in the abyss, but equal doses terror and wonder. ” Absolutely recommended for readers of the cosmic and gloriously horrific.” ―Seanan McGuire, New York TImes bestselling author Centering around the deadly—and thankfully fictional—PVG virus (polymorphic viral gastroencephalitis), Sister, Maiden, Monster is structured as three vignettes, each concerning a woman with a pivotal part to play in the ongoing apocalypse. Though there is little to connect Erin, Savannah and Mareva in their day to day lives, they’re all infected with PVG. It’s not long before their symptoms start manifesting in vastly different, horrifying ways. Getting inside the minds of the three women was also fascinating, but they were often dark places to be. Fair warning, this book is not for the faint of heart. Full of visceral horror with gory descriptions that can hedge into the downright disgusting, I can see that being a contentious issue for some readers, not to mention there’s also a fair amount of sexual content—very messy, very graphic sexual content.

Savannah, a professional BDSM switch, discovers a new turn-on: committing brutal murders for her eldritch masters. Finally, in part three – “Mater Calamitas” – everything moves up a gear and into full body horror territory as the lives of Erin and Savannah collide with Mareva, the final protagonist or final girl, perhaps? Here, we get the story of meek and reclusive Mareva whose body is covered in tumours which require to be continually operated on, and her condition makes her important to the future of the world even if she likes the part she has to play or not.

New in Series

Inspired by her Bram Stoker Award-winning story “Magdala Amygdala,” Lucy A. Snyder delivers a cosmic tale about the planet’s disastrous transformation ... and what we become after. A mutant hybrid of weird science and cosmic horror, Sister, Maiden, Monster is deliciously cerebral and unflinchingly feminist. Violently beautiful, this novel is a tale for our times. Resounding.” — Lee Murray, Bram Stoker Award-winner and author of Grotesque: Monster Stories I thoroughly enjoyed the three main women's perspectives, how their stories overlapped and crossed paths, the destiny of it all before they even knew what was happening. But the body horror was truly unique such that even in my wildest Hellraiser-esque dreams I couldn't have predicted those horrific things. This is nothing but nightmare fuel in the plainest sense of the term that played vividly in my brain like a movie as I read, and I think it will likely haunt me for some time to come. A virus tears across the globe, transforming its victims in nightmarish ways. As the world collapses, dark forces pull a small group of women together. This unflinching puzzlebox of a book leads an unrelenting narrative to its devastating conclusion in beautiful, near-seamless form. Every corner is illuminated, and the things the light reveals are more disturbing than they seemed when still unseen. Absolutely recommend for readers of the grim, the gloriously horrific, and the cosmic.”