''Karen Memory'' is a

steampunk Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or ...

novel by

Elizabeth Bear Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky (born September 22, 1971) is an American author who works primarily in speculative fiction genres, writing under the name Elizabeth Bear. She won the 2005 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the 2008 Hugo A ...

. It was published by

Tor Books Tor Books is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group (previously Tom Doherty Associates), a publishing company based in New York City. It primarily publishes science fiction and fantasy titles, and is the largest publisher of Chinese scien ...

, on February 3, 2015;Karen Memory
at

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

; posted online November 20, 2014; published December 1, 2015; retrieved March 30, 2016 a Japanese-language version was published on October 20, 2017."Serial Experiments Lain" Designer Covers "Karen Memory" Steampunk Novel
by Scott Green, at

Crunchyroll Crunchyroll is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Sony through a joint venture between Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex. The service primarily distributes films and tel ...

; published September 21, 2017; retrieved August 30, 2018 In 2018, a sequel, "Stone Mad", was released.Stone Mad
reviewed at''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

''; published March 19, 2018; retrieved August 30, 2018

Synopsis

In an alternate 1878, Karen Memery ("like memory only spelt with an e") is a teenage prostitute in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

, whose life becomes complicated by the arrival of a

serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

, by a rival

pimp Procuring or pandering is the facilitation or provision of a prostitute or other sex worker in the arrangement of a sex act with a customer. A procurer, colloquially called a pimp (if male) or a madam (if female, though the term pimp has still ...

's attempt to run for mayor, and by

mad science The Mad Science Group is an enrichment services company that specializes in delivering educational and entertaining science experiences for children by presenting concepts in a visual and interactive manner. Mad Science franchisees offer after-scho ...

Reception

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

described the novel as "a bracing yet charming adventure yarn," praising Bear for giving Karen a "strong, sympathetic, charismatic voice" whose "narrative is sharp, sly, and full of heart."'Karen Memory' Builds Up A Good Head Of Steam
by Jason Heller, at NPR; published February 3, 2015; retrieved March 30, 2016 '' Locus'' considered it a "delight" and a "''tour-de-force''", comparing Karen to Huckleberry Finn,Russell Letson reviews Elizabeth Bear
by Russell Letson, in '' Locus''; archived in ''

Locus Online ''Locus: The Magazine of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Field'', founded in 1968, is an American magazine published monthly in Oakland, California. It is the news organ and trade journal for the English-language science fiction and fantasy fields ...

'', January 28, 2015; retrieved March 30, 2016 while ''

'' found the characters to be "lively" and "engaging", with an "intriguing" and "steampunk-ishly surreal" plot.

Cheryl Morgan Cheryl Morgan is a British science fiction critic and publisher. She has won Hugo Awards for her work on the fanzine ''Emerald City'' from 1995 to 2006, and as non-fiction editor of ''Clarkesworld'' magazine from 2009 to 2011. Morgan was the f ...

commended Bear for "straddl(ing) the fine line between sounding authentic and being irritating", and for depicting a multicultural and

intersectional Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of adva ...

society, but found Bear's portrayal of a

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

character to be non-optimal, and conceded that readers "who identify more closely with other characters in the book's highly diverse cast" may find the portrayals of those characters to be similarly non-optimal.Karen Memory
reviewed by

, at CherylMorgan.com; published no later than September 19, 2015 (date of earliest version on archive.org); retrieved March 30, 2016

References

External links

Elizabeth Bear discusses ''Karen Memory''
at ''Skiffy and Fanty'' {{Elizabeth Bear 2015 science fiction novels Steampunk novels Works by Elizabeth Bear 2015 American novels Tor Books books