Karen Memory

This is the first book I’ve read by the author. I picked it up because of the steampunk setting and promise of unusual adventures.

Karen narrates with a distinctive voice and in first person. It took me a few pages to get used to her style, and then I settled in. The plot moved at a good pace. There was plenty of action and peril. Karen and her allies were all distinctive. Though I admit, I got the members of the opposing team(s) a bit muddled in my head.

Unusually for me, I very much enjoyed the descriptions. They enhanced the strong sense of environment. There were intriguing steampunk-y inventions. Gratifyingly, they weren’t just cosmetic, although the technology was handwavy rather than convincingly laid out. Which is fine—Karen’s not an engineer, and explaining the speculative elements would have unnecessarily slowed the pace.

Overall, a fun, fast-paced steampunk adventure.

I usually enjoy Elizabeth Bear's fiction very much, but this was doomed from the beginning. Karen Memory is an AU story, set in the fictional town Rapid City during the gold rush. Only that this is a steampunk western.

The protagonist and first-person storyteller is Karen Memery, a hooker with a heart of gold who ends up investigating a series of murders together with a Marshal, rescuing abused hookers from the main villain. That's about as far as I got until I started skimming to the end of the book. Not even the f/f love story was enough to reel me in. I would have loved to love this story, but I just didn't.

If you enjoy the western genre, and steampunk, and would enjoy a queer cast kicking ass and taking names, you might enjoy this. I just didn't.