num_pages: 346
description: 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 Htel Mon Cherie on Amity Street. Htel has a little hat over the o like that. It's French so Beatrice tells me.Set in the late 19th centurywhen 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 housea resourceful groupand 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 heapa 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.
language: English
title: Karen Memory
publisher: Tor Books