Elizabeth Bear - Karen Memory (epub)

"You ain't gonna like what I have to tell you, but I'm gonna tell you anyway. See,
my name is Karen Memery, like memory only spelt with an e, and I'm one of the girls
what works in the Hôtel Mon Cherie on Amity Street. Hôtel has a little hat over the
o like that. It's French, so Beatrice tells me."

Set in the late 19th century--when the city we now call Seattle Underground was
the whole town (and still on the surface), when airships plied the trade routes,
would-be gold miners were heading to the gold fields of Alaska, and steam-powered
mechanicals stalked the waterfront, Karen is a young woman on her own, is making
the best of her orphaned state by working in Madame Damnable's high-quality bordello.
Through Karen's eyes we get to know the other girls in the house--a resourceful
group--and the poor and the powerful of the town. Trouble erupts one night when a
badly injured girl arrives at their door, begging sanctuary, followed by the man who
holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take over anyone's mind and
control their actions. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the next night brings a body
dumped in their rubbish heap--a streetwalker who has been brutally murdered.

Bear brings alive this Jack-the-Ripper yarn of the old west with a light touch in
Karen's own memorable voice, and a mesmerizing evocation of classic steam-powered
science.

Title: Karen Memory
Author: Elizabeth Bear
Published February 3, 2015 by Tor
ISBN: 0765375249
Language: English
Length: Hardcover, 352 pages