Elizabeth Bear returned this March to the main character from Karen Memory with a brand new novella. Click the jump to learn about a story of spiritualists, mad science, a misplaced mine goblin, and a little of what happens after “and they lived happily ever after.”
This new story has a lot of what I loved about Karen Memory. Rapid City is a pleasing Weird West setting, with all the Old West clothing and architecture mixed in with a healthy dose of Steampunk. It’s not an overwhelming amount of Neo-Victorian stuff, mind you; don’t expect people to travel on rocketpacks or a dirigible stagecoach. But there’s just enough clockwork/steam-powered technology that a magic show (or a seance) can get reeeaall interesting, and someone might show up in a suit of armor that can also hem your skirt and sew a top-notch buttonhole.
Yes fans, the Singer Sewing Machine makes an appearance here. I never thought a mechanical dressmaker could be so much fun.
Some of the less likable aspects of the Old West are still in evidence here, like how little power women were allowed to have. Things are slowly getting better; single women have the right to own property by themselves now, and even run their own business. All of that plus the reward that Karen and the love of her life Priya received after the events in Karen Memory meant that the two women have been able to quit the “Seamstress” business for good and buy their own little ranch on the outskirts of Rapid City. The story starts with the two of them going to dinner at the city’s poshest hotel to celebrate.
The celebration is cut short when a table across the restaurant starts shaking, and levitating, and one of the two impeccably dressed ladies at the table starts speaking in tongues. All the hallmarks of a well-rehearsed seance (or a scam for a free dinner), at least until Karen and Priya’s table flips over on its own.
If I had anything to nitpick about this story, it’s that the pacing takes some getting used to. Karen still has that entertainingly folksy drawl to her inner monologue, and her storytelling style is to digress all over the place. The novella starts with Karen and Priya noticing the shaking table; Karen then has to tell the reader where they are, why they’re celebrating, her reasons for and against stepping in to stop a possible flim-flam, which leads to a brief history about a former client who happened to be a very talkative magician (excuse me, illusionist), Karen’s thoughts on what a “woman’s place” is supposed to be and why men tend to think different, and oh yes, the hotel was once the scene of a mass murder and is possibly haunted.
By the time we get back to the table-flipping, almost twenty pages have passed. It’s fun, and I love the way Karen has of phrasing everything, but this kind of back-and-fill plot progression slows everything down. Things pick up slightly when an earthquake centered entirely on the hotel traps the main characters inside, but you have to be prepared for the action to stop every few pages for a lot of soul-searching, since Karen and Priya have a fight in the first half of the story, and Karen spends most of the second half agonizing over whether they can patch this up or if her own stubborn pride is going to drive Priya away.
But as my ma would have said, you got to remember pride is a tool. You use it; you don’t let it use you. And you don’t sell your happiness ’cause your spine’s too stiff to bend.
There’s a lot going on in this novella, especially considering that the main story isn’t the intrigues between illusionists or the murderer in the hotel, it’s the very believable relationship between Priya and Karen. Elizabeth Bear has quite a few things to say about trust and loyalty, and how giving yourself to another person means have a responsibility to think about how your decisions affect that person’s life. And I happen to agree with all of it (although I think Priya has as much adjusting to do as Karen does).
I feel like Bear couldn’t quite decide if the backdrop for this was going to be a whodunnit, a caper, or a monster story, so she put an equal emphasis on everything. Each of the elements by themselves are incredibly appealing, something I’d love to see in a lot more detail. It might have worked better to let some of those stories fade into the background in order to let at least one of them shine as its own adventure.
Plus, maybe a few more steampunk elements. A few rocket packs or a dirigible stagecoach wouldn’t go amiss, is all I’m saying.