One Eyed Jack

The officially official news on this one is a week old by this point, but I did want to take the time to point out that Elizabeth Bear's One Eyed Jack will be published on August 13, 2014.  

The One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King: personifications of the city of Las Vegas—its history, mystery, mystical power, and heart…

When the Suicide King vanishes—possibly killed—in the middle of a magic-rights turf war started by the avatars of Los Angeles, a notorious fictional assassin, and the mutilated ghost of Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel–the King’s partner, the One-Eyed Jack, must seek the aid of a bizarre band of legendary and undead allies: the ghosts of Doc Holliday and John Henry the steel-driving man; the echoes of several imaginary super spies, decades displaced in time; and a vampire named Tribute, who bears a striking resemblance to a certain long-lost icon of popular music.

All stories are true, but some stories are truer than others.

Folks, I seriously love Bear's Promethean Age novels and when Roc decided not to publish any more after the first four, it was assumed that the series had a great run, but that was it.  Prime stepped in and is taking a shot on Bear's standalone One Eyed Jack.  That's right, standalone.  Just because you haven't read any of the first four, this is your entry point.  Though, I do heartily recommend the other novels.

Blood and Iron or Ink and Steel are each two excellent places to start with the series as they are the first books in their respective duologies.  

I have previously reviewed each book in the series.  
Blood and Iron
Whiskey and Water
Ink and Steel
Hell and Earth

But that's the past (and what a wonderful past it was).  One Eyed Jack is the future.  I absolutely can't wait to read it.

One Eyed Jack and the Suicide King: Sold!!!

Here's a hearty congratulations to Elizabeth Bear.  Her now forthcoming novel One Eyed Jack and the Suicide King has been sold to Prime Books and is tentatively slated for publication sometime in 2013.

Y'all, I don't think I can express how friggin excited I am by this news.  Now, you all know I like me some Bear.  This is understood. But, I love me some Promethean Age.  One Eyed Jack and the Suicide King is the fifth volume in Bear's Promethean Age series, which we have neither seen nor heard a peep of since 2008 as Roc, the previous publisher, declined to buy any more of these damned wonderful fantastic novels.

From Bear's livejournal, she writes

I should mention that this book takes place between Blood & Iron and Whiskey & Water, except the bits that take place long before either, and it's on the opposite coast. So it totally functions as a stand-alone novel.

Waaaay back in 2007, Subterranean Press published an excerpt.  Go take a gander.  

Can't. Friggin. Wait.  

Hell and Earth, by Elizabeth Bear

Ink and Steel was a novel that could stand entirely on its own. Sure, it lacked a true conclusion and only contained three of the five acts of the story arc, but Ink and Steel was a satisfying novel on its own. Hell and Earth is not that sort of a novel. Picking up the story threads in Act Four Elizabeth Bear assumes that the reader has already encountered Ink and Steel. Hell and Earth requires it. This is not a knock on the novel as both Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth were originally conceived as a single volume, The Stratford Man. Bear does not spend time reintroducing Kit Marley and Will Shakespeare or setting up the story. Bear says “go” on page one and the reader has to keep up. Keeping up is easy enough if one has already read Ink and Steel. If not, well, stop reading now and go find a copy of Ink and Steel.

Now that everyone is back on the same page, let us return to Hell and Earth. Elizabeth Bear picks up the strands of the story where she left off in Ink and Steel. Will Shakespeare has returned to London after a sojourn in Faerie. He has medicine from Morgan le Fey which will help him stay stronger for longer. Master Shakespeare, you see, is suffering from the same wasting disease which afflicted his father. This is important because any time Will wishes or needs to get physical, to use his strength, he has little enough remaining and must use his strength to hide his weakness from his enemies.

Kit Marley finally chooses to take an active role in the politics of Faerie, to become a player rather than one who is played. In doing so Kit will learn the true reason why he was targeted by Richard Baines and why he continues to be tormented. Kit spends more time back in the human world in Hell and Earth than he did in Ink and Steel, and the novel is stronger for placing Kit Marley more into the mix. Ink and Steel had more of the individual storylines of Kit and Will. Hell and Earth has the feel of truly moving the story inexorably towards an ending which is sure to be as shocking and unexpected and still natural as any reader might hope for. This is the promise Elizabeth Bear makes with her readers by writing such an extraordinary and brutally honest novel. This is the trust the reader should have for Elizabeth Bear's storytelling. At no point will Elizabeth Bear betray the reader by betraying the basic natures of her characters and nowhere is this more true than in her dual leads: Kit Marley and Will Shakespeare. Once the reader gets a feel for the characters every subsequent action feels natural and necessary, as if there were no other choice the characters would make in a given situation. Despite this, Hell and Earth scarcely feels predictable.

Predictable does not show off beauty and predictable does not deliver the sweetest pain to be found in surprising moments. Predictable does not offer beauty and pain and sadness all in the same passage.

Kit weighed the instrument of torture in his hands. "How brave are we, Meheil?"

:We are a very small angel, Sir Christopher:

He breathed through clenched teeth. "It's all right, Mehiel. We're a very small poet, too." - pg 291

Reading these lines on their own offers one idea of what exactly is occurring in this scene, and that idea would be damning in itself: Kit offering up an angel for torture while asking that same angel if it brave enough to deal with the torture. By itself this is a powerful sequence with the various things that can be read in those thirty seven words. Placed in the greater context of the novel, of everything that has gone before and anything that may come after, this sequence is one of the most powerful, beautiful, and sad sequences in the entire novel and one which lingers long after the page is turned.

Those thirty seven words are also representative of the skill and grace with which Elizabeth Bear tells the story of Hell and Earth. So much is packed into a small package and Hell and Earth is jammed full of these beautiful small packages.

Hell and Earth is more than the conclusion to Ink and Steel and it is more than the perfect complement to Ink and Steel, though it is both. Once the story gets rolling and readers catch up to what came before, Hell and Earth is an outstanding novel in its own right. It may not be able to stand entirely on its own feet, and given that it was conceived as part of a single novel this should be expected, but Hell and Earth is, pun intended, a hell of a book. Taken together with Ink and Steel, Hell and Earth completes an outstanding longer novel. The Promethean Age is one of the more exciting sequences in fantasy right now and we can only hope that Bear will be able to publish more of them.


Previous Reviews
Blood and Iron
Whiskey and Water
Ink and Steel
"The Girl Who Sang Rose Madder"
Hammered
Scardown
"Your Collar"
New Amsterdam
"Tideline"

Ink and Steel, by Elizabeth Bear

Ink and Steel is not so much a prequel to Blood and Iron as it is a novel which just happens to be set in the same world and shares a handful of the same characters of Blood and Iron. Set some four hundred years before Blood and Iron, Ink and Steel takes the reader away from modern day New York City and brings the reader to Elizabethan England. Elizabeth Bear takes her readers to the days of Queen Elizabeth, of dissent, of theatre being dangerous, of ideas being dangerous, of intrigue, of storytellers, of murder, of faerie tales being real, of poets and playwrights.

"All stories are true," Elizabeth Bear tells us. This simple statement is repeated on her website, in Ink and Steel, in Whiskey and Water, and very likely in the first Promethean Age novel Blood and Iron. All stories are true. This may have multiple meanings, and as the series progresses, very likely will, but what may be the primary meaning in The Promethean Age is that the stories people tell have the power to shape reality. The stories become true. With storytellers as the protagonists of the novel, this idea pervades Ink and Steel.

Despite being pronounced dead in the very first sentence of the novel, one of the two protagonists of Ink and Steel is Kit Marley, also known as Christopher Marlowe. Yes, this is the Marlowe of Faustus, the poet and playwright. Among many other things, Ink and Steel is a novel of ideas, of poetry and theatre, and this is made evident by Bear's choice of dual protagonists. Kit Marley is one. The other is Will Shakespeare. Yes, that William Shakespeare.

The chapters alternate between Kit and Will and are written in a very tight and limited third person perspective. The reader experiences the story through the eyes and thoughts of Kit and Will. Anything they are not aware of us left unseen by the reader. This allows for readers to delve deeper into the characters of Kit Marley and Will Shakespeare and provides a more emotional reading experience. More than anything, more than even the "story" Elizabeth Bear is telling, the characters of Ink and Steel matter and carry the novel.

Right. Right. What about the issue of Kit Marley dying in the very first line of the novel? This is where the fun starts. Kit Marley is whisked away by the Fae, healed, and made to turn his allegiance from Queen Elizabeth and serve Queen Mabd, the Faerie Queen. Meanwhile, taking Marley's place in service to Elizabeth is Will Shakespeare. See, there is magic in poetry and there is magic in theatre, magic that can prop up monarchs. Both Elizabeth and Mabd seek to use this magic to strengthen their respective reigns and protect their realms from those enemies which would seek to usurp their power, whether the foes are external or internal. In Faerie various factions strive to turn Marley's magic for their own gains. In England, Will learns of the strife within the Prometheus Club and the antagonism of those who oppose Elizabeth. Will playwriting must provide the magic Marley wrote into his plays, but the act of doing so will put his life in jeopardy from those who killed Marley. It is the magic Marley and Shakespeare create with their words which thrusts them into the intrigue of nations in which anyone may be discarded so long as the monarchy is preserved.

Yet, Ink and Steel is not a novel about magic, unless it is the magic of storytelling. The heart of Ink and Steel is the characters Elizabeth Bear plucked out of history and brought to life so clearly on the page. Kit Marley and Will Shakespeare are fully drawn, three dimensional characters inhabiting an Elizabethan England which lives, breathes, and even smells a bit. Not just the protagonists, but all characters in the novel true characters and not just constructs or devices to fill a role in the plotline. These characters have their own motivations and when they are not a part of the action of the novel the reader is left with the sneaking suspicion that the characters are off doing their own thing and having their own troubles and triumphs. They do not sit idly by waiting for Bear to call on them.

The storytelling lives through the characters, from Marley to Morgan, Shakespeare to Puck, and Elizabeth to Lucifer. To name six. The story happens because of the characters and because of Elizabeth Bear's gift for bringing them to life and also because Bear does not betray her characters by backing off from allowing very bad things to occur if demanded by the story. Bear is true to the characters and true to the story and Ink and Steel is a stronger novel for it.

At this point it would be appropriate to mention that Ink and Steel is really only half of a novel. Oh, it has a definite beginning, middle, and end, but Ink and Steel was originally part of a larger novel titled The Stratford Man. The Stratford Man was written with a theatrical five act structure, which may give hints to astute readers who can work out how that structure works and what it means for story. Ink and Steel contains the first three acts and while it is a fully satisfying novel in its own right, Ink and Steel will only be complete when read in conjunction with the final two acts of Hell and Earth.

All stories are true. Elizabeth Bear has fashioned this four word statement into a driving force behind her Promethean Age novels. The stories told by major historical storytellers have the power to shape reality, both in how the magic of their storytelling may strengthen their political causes and also, in the case of Faerie, directly influence what is real. There are many stories of Arthur, Morgan, and Lancelot, of Satan, of Faerie, and they are all true. They all melt into each other and as stories are told, the melting does not stop. This is not the only meaning of "All stories are true," however. Elizabeth Bear's talent is such that her fictional creation, her story is so well written that a reader could swear that this isn't just a collection of well written lies, but that it was history. That these are the untold stories of Marlowe and Shakespeare, that Faerie is a real and dangerous place, that King Arthur still sleeps until the moment he is most needed. Elizabeth Bear makes the reader believe that yes, these stories are true. This is the beauty of Ink and Steel.


Previous Reviews
Blood and Iron
Whiskey and Water
"The Girl Who Sang Rose Madder"
Hammered
Scardown
"Your Collar"
New Amsterdam
"Tideline"

Ink and Steel: The Prologue

In lieu of actually writing about the Lucius Shepard stories, you are hereby notified that Elizabeth Bear has posted the prologue to her forthcoming Promethean Age novel: Ink and Steel.

Go read some Bear.

Two Promethean Age stories!

Elizabeth Bear shares two stories of Matthew Magus, a prominent character in the first two Promethean Age novels.

"The Rest of Your Life in a Day" features a younger Matthew, and "Cryptic Coloration" is set a year before Blood and Iron.

Both stories were originally published in Baen's Universe.

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.