Karen Memory
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read, Open EPUB eBook)
Description
Set in the late nineteenth 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 Memery ("like memory only spelt with an e") is a young woman on her own, 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 for 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.
"[A] rollicking, suspenseful, and sentimental steampunk novel . . . [Karen's] story is a timeless one: a woman doing what is needed to get by while dreaming and fighting for great things to come." —Publishers Weekly
Formats
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
More Copies In LINK+
More Details
Reviews from GoodReads
Citations
Elizabeth Bear. (2015). Karen Memory. Tor Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Elizabeth Bear. 2015. Karen Memory. Tor Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Elizabeth Bear, Karen Memory. Tor Publishing Group, 2015.
MLA Citation (style guide)Elizabeth Bear. Karen Memory. Tor Publishing Group, 2015.
Copy Details
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 1 | 1 |
Staff View
QR Code
API Extraction Dates
OverDrive Product Record
- readingOrder
- 1
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/2363-1/{1C232846-64B7-4569-8DE3-D4802299A508}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/2363-1/{1C232846-64B7-4569-8DE3-D4802299A508}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/2363-1/{1C232846-64B7-4569-8DE3-D4802299A508}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/2363-1/{1C232846-64B7-4569-8DE3-D4802299A508}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781466846340
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B00LRWIDK4
- name: Kindle Book
- id: ebook-kindle
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781466846340
- name: OverDrive Read
- id: ebook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781466846340
- name: Open EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-open
- identifiers:
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780765375247
- mediaType
- eBook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Elizabeth Bear
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- Karen Memory
- seriesId
- 533531
- dateAdded
- 2015-12-04T22:04:23.05Z
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com?websiteID=141&titleID=1862247
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
- id: 1151
- sortTitle
- Karen Memory
- crossRefId
- 1862247
- series
- Karen Memory
- id
- 1C232846-64B7-4569-8DE3-D4802299A508
- starRating
- 3.6
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- fileName: KarenMemory_9781466846340_1862247
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 970757
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781466846340
- rights:
- type: Copying
- value: 0
- type: Printing
- value: 0
- type: Lending
- value: 0
- type: ReadAloud
- value: 1
- type: ExpirationRights
- value: 0
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- onSaleDate: 7/2/2024
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/karen-memory?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: KarenMemory_1862247
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B00LRWIDK4
- name: Kindle Book
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-kindle
- onSaleDate: 7/2/2024
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/karen-memory?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: KarenMemory_9781466846340_1862247
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781466846340
- name: OverDrive Read
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 7/2/2024
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/karen-memory?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: KarenMemory_9781466846340_1862247
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 793425
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781466846340
- name: Open EPUB eBook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-epub-open
- onSaleDate: 7/2/2024
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/karen-memory?.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- keywords
- value: Seattle
- value: speculative fiction
- value: Prostitution
- value: Steampunk
- value: Women Authors
- value: weird fiction
- value: LGBT
- value: Historical Fantasy
- value: Alternate History
- value: western fiction
- value: science fiction books
- value: bestselling authors
- value: american science fiction
- value: science fiction and fantasy books
- value: science fiction best sellers
- value: best science fiction
- value: best sci fi
- value: alternate histories
- value: weird westerners
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: Bear, Elizabeth
- bioText: Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. She is the Hugo, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial, Locus, and Astounding Award–winning author of dozens of novels and over a hundred short stories. She has spoken on futurism at Google, MIT, DARPA’s 100 Year Starship Project, and the White House, among others. Find her at www.elizabethbear.com.
- name: Elizabeth Bear
- imprint
- Tor Books
- publishDate
- 2015-02-03T00:00:00-05:00
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- Karen Memory
- fullDescription
- "Bear pumps fresh energy in the steampunk genre with a light touch on the gadgetry and a vivid sense of place . . . Karen and the ladies kick ass." —Library Journal (starred review)
Set in the late nineteenth 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 Memery ("like memory only spelt with an e") is a young woman on her own, 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 for 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.
"[A] rollicking, suspenseful, and sentimental steampunk novel . . . [Karen's] story is a timeless one: a woman doing what is needed to get by while dreaming and fighting for great things to come." —Publishers Weekly - seriesId
- 533531
- reviews
- premium: False
- source: Kirkus Reviews, starred review, on Range of Ghosts
- content:
"This lean, sinewy, visceral narrative, set forth in extraordinarily vivid prose full of telling detail, conveys a remarkable sense of time and place, where the characters belong to the landscape and whose personalities derive naturally from it.... Gripping, perfectly balanced and highly recommended."
- premium: False
- source: Publishers Weekly on Range of Ghosts
- content: "Elizabeth Bear launches a trilogy in a fantastic new world with this compelling tale.... Bear creates a vivid world where wizards must sacrifice their ability to procreate in order to control magic and the sky changes to reflect the gods of the land's rulers."
- premium: False
- source: Library Journal on Range of Ghosts
- content: "Her characters possess depth of feeling as well as political acumen, bringing a personal element to a broad-scale epic fantasy.... Highly recommended."
- premium: False
- source: The DC Spotlight
- content: "Her language, a celebrated feature in all of her writing, shines here in her descriptions of the setting.... Like George R.R. Martin, Bear presents third-person limited viewpoints from multiple characters, a strategy that allows her to delve deep into their heads without losing her own distinctive poetic narrative voice."
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
November 3, 2014
Bear’s rollicking, suspenseful, and sentimental steampunk novel introduces Karen Memery (“like ‘memory’ only spelt with an e”), a teenage “seamstress”—that is, a prostitute—at Madame Damnable’s Hôtel Mon Cherie in Rapid City. This Pacific Northwest city of an alternate 1878 is home to airships, surgical machines, and other mechanical wonders that can also be put to horrific use. As Karen meets and begins to fall for Priya, another sex worker who escaped from evil pimp Peter Bantle, they learn that Bantle has more dark plans than brothel competition. U.S. Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves and his Comanche partner, Tomoatooah, also tie Bantle to the gruesome murders of some of Rapid City’s most vulnerable women. Bear (The Eternal Sky) gives Karen a colorful voice, sharp eyes, and the spunk and skills necessary to scuffle with bad types as well as to win over people whose help she needs. Her story is a timeless one: a woman doing what is needed to get by while dreaming and fighting for great things to come. Agent: Jennifer Jackson, Donald Maass Literary Agency.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
December 1, 2014
Steampunk: Something of a new venture for Bear, whose previous output (Steles of the Sky, 2014, etc.) has ranged from heroic fantasy to science fiction, often with an embedded murder mystery.By the late 19th century, airships ply the trade and passenger routes, optimistic miners head in droves for the Alaskan gold fields, and steam-powered robots invented by licensed Mad Scientists do much of the heavy (and sometimes delicate) work. In Rapid City on the U.S. northwest coast, Madame Damnable operates the Hotel Mon Cherie, a high-class bordello, paying a hefty "sewing machine tax" for the privilege. Here, orphaned horse-breaker and narrator Karen Memery (Bear doesn't tell us why the book's title is spelled differently) works among similarly lively, engaging and resourceful girls. One night, Priya, a malnourished but tough young woman, arrives at the door carrying the badly wounded Merry Lee, who escaped from one of the grim brothels operated by brutal gangster Peter Bantle and has since made a career of rescuing other indentured girls from Bantle's clutches. Madame Damnable's steam-powered mechanical surgeon saves Merry's life-but not before Bantle himself shows up, wearing, Karen notes, a peculiar glove that somehow can compel others to obey his commands. Worse, the following night the girls discover the body of a murdered prostitute nearby. U.S. Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves arrives with his Comanche sidekick, Tomoatooah; they're tracking a serial killer who seems to have made his way to Rapid City. The story swiftly knots itself into steampunk-ishly surreal complications, with dauntless (and, by this point, love-stricken) Karen in the thick of the action. Supplies all the Bear necessities: strong female characters, existential threats, intriguing developments and a touch of the light fantastic.COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from December 1, 2014
The Gold Rush town of Rapid City is just about what you would expect in a frontier community catering to the mining trade: rough, violent, and full of prostitutes. Karen is a "soiled dove" working at Madame Damnable's establishment, where she and her sisters in trade serve a more respectable crowd than the poor girls who work the cribs at the waterfront. When one of those young women escapes and runs to Madame's for help, she brings the wrath of the crib owner, Peter Bantle, on the house. Bantle, in addition to being a vicious bully, seems to have a device that can control people's minds. VERDICT Bear (Steles of the Sky; Blood and Iron) pumps fresh energy in the steampunk genre with a light touch on the gadgetry and a vivid sense of place. Karen has a voice that is folksy but true, and the entire cast of heroic women doing the best they can in an age that was not kind to their gender is a delight. Ably assisted by a U.S. Marshal and his Comanche posseman, Karen and the ladies kick ass.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
December 15, 2014
If contemporary Seattle is an apt setting for cyberpunk thrillers, it stands to reason that nineteenth-century Seattle should serve just as well for a steampunk adventure. Bear's new novel follows the title character's life as a bordello girl working along Puget Sound, from which steam-powered airships take gold prospectors up and down the western mountain ranges. But in the seedy dockside world of the Pacific Northwest frontier, the opportunities for criminals with powerful technology in their hands are ripe. Fans of the steampunk aesthetic will appreciate Bear's affectionate treatment of the style. Weapons, gadgets, and their places in the characters' lives put together a charmingly inventive fictional Seattleespecially for those readers bringing along some knowledge of the city's nascent history. Karen's first-person narration can feel a bit inconsistent with her swapping between eloquence and intentionally ungrammatical slang, but she always manages to hit the spot when her descriptions need to set the mood.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
March 1, 2015
Life in Madame Damnable's isn't bad for a working girl in a frontier town, or it wasn't until Karen got on the wrong side of Peter Bantle--pimp, politician, and possibly murderer. Bear has created a vivid Old West landscape that teems with vice and violence, with marvelous steampunk touches. (LJ 12/14)
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- popularity
- 351
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/1c232846-64b7-4569-8de3-d4802299a508/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- shareInLibby:
- href: https://link.overdrive.com/share?q=Z2ocAMShdiw
- type: text/HTML
- self:
- id
- 1c232846-64b7-4569-8de3-d4802299a508
- starRating
- 3.6
- readingOrder
- 1
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/2363-1/{1C232846-64B7-4569-8DE3-D4802299A508}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/2363-1/{1C232846-64B7-4569-8DE3-D4802299A508}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/2363-1/{1C232846-64B7-4569-8DE3-D4802299A508}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/2363-1/{1C232846-64B7-4569-8DE3-D4802299A508}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: Fiction
- value: Mystery
- value: Science Fiction
- value: Western
- publishDateText
- 02/03/2015
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780765375247
- mediaType
- eBook
- shortDescription
- "Bear pumps fresh energy in the steampunk genre with a light touch on the gadgetry and a vivid sense of place . . . Karen and the ladies kick ass." —Library Journal (starred review)
Set in the late nineteenth 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 Memery ("like memory only spelt with an e") is a young woman on her own, 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 for sanctuary, followed by the man who holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take over anyone's mind and control... - sortTitle
- Karen Memory
- crossRefId
- 1862247
- series
- Karen Memory
- publisher
- Tor Publishing Group
- bisacCodes
- code: FIC028060
- description: Fiction / Science Fiction / Steampunk
- code: FIC033000
- description: Fiction / Westerns
- code: FIC028140
- description: FICTION / Science Fiction / Crime & Mystery