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With two $10 gift cards to Barnes and Nobles in hand I ventured out into to the store with wild shelves of untamed, unowned books and chose three likely novels.

Dust, by Elizabeth Bear
Farthing, by Jo Walton
Undertow, by Elizabeth Bear

This is my Elizabeth Bear excitement alarm going off. I was all set to get three Bear novels, the third being Carnival, when I decided that maaaaaybe I should support another author too. I've heard good things about Farthing so picked it up instead. Sorry, eBear.

I almost picked up a Heinlein, too, but didn't.

And, in conclusion, if anyone who reads this blog has not picked up anything by Elizabeth Bear...I can do no more to convince you (pssst! Go read Blood and Iron!)

Whiskey and Water, by Elizabeth Bear

Whiskey and Water
Elizabeth Bear
Roc: 2007

Seven years prior to the beginning of Whiskey and Water Matthew Magus and Jane Andraste fought a war against Faerie. Jane attempted to rescue her daughter, Elaine, a half human / half faerie who was at the time the Seeker of the Daonie Fae. The result of this war was Matthew betrayed Jane, the Prometheans destroyed, Elanie took the throne of the Daonie Sidhe, Matthew was left powerless and with a crippled right hand, and an uneasy truce between the Faerie and the humans of the Promethean Club.

Seven years later a woman is murdered in New York City. This, in itself, would not be unusual, but the murder was clearly Fae. This with a truce that has kept Faerie out of New York for seven years. Matthew, the Protector of New York, needs to find the killer. Jane Andraste, still alive, is rebuilding the Promethean Club, presumably to restart the war against Faerie.

But, wait. There's more.

Elizabeth Bear brings back Elaine and Carel the Merlin, and Whiskey, and most (if not all) of the living characters of Blood and Iron. More than this, and much more interesting than this, Elizabeth Bear mixes in Christopher Marlowe, Lucifer, Satan, the Archangel Michael, a trio of human twenty somethings who want to be faerie, interfighting amongst the faerie, betrayal, Lucifer's yearning for heaven, magic, new mages, and does so in a way that feels entirely fresh and original.

The result?

One beautifully written book that at 431 pages could easily have been three hundred pages longer and have lacked for nothing. Isn't that what a novel should be? A complete story that leaves the reader wanting more? Whiskey and Water is exactly that.

While the set up of the novel leads the reader to expect the resumption of an active war between human and faerie, the execution is far superior to that. Elizabeth Bear tells a story about stories, about how all stories are true, even when they aren't. The telling and retelling of a story is what makes it true and makes it real. Devils who were not around before the story was told are now real.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Whiskey and Water is the existence of heaven and hell, only there is just one heaven but multiple hells depending on the devil. With Lucifer (Christopher Marlowe's Lucifer) as a major character we get to see a bit of the perspective of the other side and how Hell relates to human and faerie. It would have been very easy for Bear to simply make Lucifer a sympathetic character just for the sake of shock or to be contrary, but Lucifer, like nearly every single character in the novel is a fully realized character with his own motivations and his own goals and wishes. That's what is so remarkable here, Bear has created numerous distinct characters with distinct voices and traits. They act in ways that may not even be convenient for the story, but are necessary for the character to be real.

Whiskey and Water is an expansion of Blood and Iron and though Elaine Andraste is relegated to being a secondary character, the importance of what happened seven years prior can not be overstated. The changes in the characters from Blood and Iron to this novel make sense.

Simply said, after all this, Whiskey and Water is an outstanding novel. It surpasses the already excellent Blood and Iron and showed Bear's development in storytelling and character, and should be counted as one of the best novels published in 2007.

I can only hope that Elizabeth Bear is able to sell more of her Promethean Age novels. Two more are due to be published in 2008, set back in 16th and 17th Century England (which makes me guess that Kit Marlowe and Will Shakespeare will play major roles), with a third novel sold but not scheduled. This leaves 8-9 novels on Bear's chronology left unwritten and unsold. If Blood and Iron and Whiskey and Water are any gauge, and they should be, The Promethean Age could be one of the most oustanding fantasy series written and nearly every book would be standalone. I can only hope.

Blood and Iron, by Elizabeth Bear

Blood and Iron
Elizabeth Bear
Roc: 2006


Elizabeth Bear on The Promethean Age:

Assuming that I am alive to write them, and that people like you keep buying enough of them to make it worthwhile for my publishers to keep printing more, my plans for the Promethean Age series are rather ambitious. The four novels listed at the top of the page are only the beginning of the vast mad edifice I hope someday to construct. Essentially, the idea is a cycle of some twelve or more books, each of them exploring an aspect of the five-hundred-year-long secret war between Faerie and the human magi of the Prometheus Club. A secret history of sorts, in other words. Oh, Gods, you groan, not another interminable fantasy series--

But no! Wait! Hear me out! Because the magic of this, you see, is that each book stands alone. Or, at the very worst, is part of a duology.

Normally I would be filled with trepidation at the thought of another interminable fantasy series. I've read far too many of those and I think half of them still have not come to a close. I meant for Hammered to be my first foray into Elizabeth Bear's novel length fiction but my library only had one or two copies and both were out and there was a hold list. Instead I grabbed Blood and Iron off of the bookshelf and gave it a go. I knew this was something of a modern day fantasy with magic and technology mixing. That's all I knew and I had no idea what I was getting into.

Over the course of 400 + pages Elizabeth Bear weaves a story of what feels like it could be the final battle between humanity and the faerie. The Magi, human born mages, are hunting the faerie and hunting the new Merlin coming into its powers. The Merlin is not necessarily the Merlin of legend, but is a spiritual descendant. Once every several generations a Merlin comes into his powers and can be a great force for either faerie or humanity. Normally the Merlin already has his full power and needs to be seduced into supporting the faerie, but this Merlin is not fully formed yet. The faerie's Seeker is hunting the Merlin. The Magi's Matthew Magus is hoping to get to the Merlin first and perhaps finally take care of the faerie.

At the beginning of Blood and Iron there is a sense that Matthew Magus is the true hero of the story, but Bear flips things around a bit and as we learn more of the Seeker and the faerie the reader’s sympathies switch to the Seeker rather than the humans. But, things are more complicated than that because the Seeker is / was human herself but is held in thrall by the Daoine Sidhe faerie queen who knows her True Name. The Seeker serves because she must, but also because the Queen holds her son.

Blood and Iron is more complicated than that. Elizabeth Bear weaves in werewolves, faerie legend, the Arthurian Legend with Morgan and Mordred and Arthur, Shakespeare with Puck, magic, dragons, unicorns, and even more to coalesce into a novel that is far greater than its individual parts. Blood and Iron has a slow build, a phrase I realize I use too often in describing fiction, but the first hundred pages are solid and yet not enough to truly hook the reader. We know that the prose is well thought out and well written but not fully compelling. We’re not sure where Bear is taking us yet. As Blood and Iron progresses and we are brought deeper and deeper into this world of faerie and human and myth and legend Elizabeth Bear's storytelling sinks its talons in and doesn't let go. Elizabeth Bear rewards the reader who is willing to persevere and invest the time and effort into this novel. Blood and Iron is a novel which actually gets better with each passing page.

Elizabeth Bear's concept for The Promethean Age is unbelievably ambitious and complex and had I known her plans before I started Blood and Iron I might have been put off. Had I known what Blood and Iron was all about before flipping to the first page I am not sure I would have given it a go. Somehow the blending of faeries and humans in a modern day setting does not light a fire under my literary bum. Having read Blood and Iron and having been astounded by just how good it is and how well told and well written the novel is, I cannot wait for the chance to read Whiskey and Water, the next novel of The Promethean Age. The Promethean Age is an ambitious project to say the least. But, I have read Blood and Iron. It's one of the best damn novels I have read this year. Literary in the best possible sense and filled with the Fantastic. Elizabeth Bear might just be good enough to pull the whole thing off, and she is likely to only improve with each book. Imagine that. She's just going to get better than what she accomplished with this beautifully written novel: Blood and Iron.



Some of Elizabeth Bear's short fiction is available on her website, including several Promethean Age stories.