Bone and Jewel Creatures
Into a slim volume Bear packs the kind of intrigue, detailed world building, and passionate characters found in her longer books. Aging artificer Bijou, a wizard of Messaline, remains spry because she works the forge during the building of her beloved bone and jewel creatures. One equinox, her former apprentice Brazen brings her a feral child, poisoned by sorcery, and Bijou fashions an arm of bones and pearl for it. The child, whom Bijou calls Emeraude, turns out to be the opening salvo in a battle between Bijou and her old nemesis and former lover, who has created a plague that is poisoning the city. Bijou, of course, is the only one with any hope of saving the city from this necromancy. In the ensuing struggle, decades of betrayal are finally resolved. Because of the scale of the novella, many things are only hinted in it, so artfully that what are tantalizing glimpses of its world seem much, much larger than the page count would seem to allow. --Regina Schroeder