Few family feuds feature gem-studded automatons facing off against zombies, but this quirky short fantasy by Hugo-winner Bear (By the Mountain Bound) is the exception. When aging wizard Bijou the Artificer starts encountering people and animals infected with a flesh-decaying spell, she prepares for a long-delayed confrontation with her ex-lover, Kaulas the Necromancer. Each desires the allegiance of Brazen the Enchanter, Bijou’s former apprentice, and their weapons include Emeraude, a feral child raised by jackals. Bear provides a sympathetic portrait, drawn in part through Emeraude’s nonverbal perceptions, of a dedicated master coming to terms with the end of her life and determined to honor her commitments to the end. The vagueness of the (Persian? Turkish? Provençal?) setting distracts only a little from the exploration of love and loyalty at the core of this engaging tale. –Publishers Weekly

Having survived the events of 2007’s Dust, the crew of the generation starship Jacob’s Ladder, marooned for centuries, find themselves once more racing though space. Unfortunately, the ship is badly damaged, large sections are out of communication with the central computer, and the highly augmented Exalt who rule the ship and its merely human occupants have lost the knowledge of how to select a destination. Antagonist Arianrhod is still alive, free, and a potential threat. Dealing with these problems involves epic journeys across a massive, poorly mapped spacecraft and confrontations with forgotten and suppressed relics of the past. Bear enhances the usual generation ship themes—social amnesia, decaying infrastructure, and mission-threatening grand calamities—with enough new flourishes, including a biotechnology-based class system and cruel experiments based on misapprehensions of Darwin, to keep readers happily engaged. –Publishers Weekly

In this complex prequel to Hugo-winner Bear’s All the Windwracked Stars (2008), Ragnarok has already occurred, but the world must still be cleansed of the residue of the former realm. When immortal einherjar war-leader Strifbjorn rescues a strange woman from drowning, she claims to be the Lady, a long-awaited deity, and defeats Strifbjorn’s champion and lover, Mingan the Gray Wolf, to take command. The ensuing internal power struggles set the einherjar at odds while the Lady attempts to rally the community against a supposedly imminent attack by giants. Numerous fantasy authors adopt the tropes of Norse mythology, but Bear actively pursues them, channeling those myths directly rather than overlaying them on more familiar ones. The result demands much from readers, but repays it in vivid, sensual imagery of a wholly different world. –Publishers Weekly

Elizabeth Bear’s BONE AND JEWEL CREATURES and an untitled story set in the New Amsterdam series, to Bill Schafer at Subterranean Press, by Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

***

Earlier New Amsterdam books:

New Amsterdam (May 2007, trade reprint: May 2008)
Seven for a Secret (March 2009)

Bear returns to the team of the wampyr Sebastian and Abigail Irene Garrett, decades after the stories of New Amsterdam (2007). Abigail Irene is now in her eighties, not particularly mellowed with age. Sebastian, remembering his history in London, is protecting young lovers from the Schupo (i.e., police; England has been under the not-very-popular iron fist of the Prussians for some time), in the process finding a mystery begging solution. The smell of wolf—of two girls, yes, but also a wolf—and magic somehow relating to sevens sets Sebastian and Abigail Irene to finding out what terrible thaumaturgical experiments the Prussians are into now. Seven echoes, quite often, the events in Paris (i.e., in New Amsterdam), and Sebastian is prone to fits of soul-searching. He has a very small court and is old enough to have a lot of memories to work with. Bear again handles the combination of PI caper and vampire yarn with her usual unconventionality. Sebastian is a fascinating character, and the mysteries he becomes embroiled in are magnificent examples of alternate history. –Booklist

Buy Seven for a Secret (Subterranean Press)

Ragnarok has come and gone, and with it, the destruction of the world–except for the failed Valkyrie Muire and her valraven, Kasimir, the winged steed of the Valkyrie. Out of their survival arises a new world, in which magic and technology combine to create something new yet achingly familiar. Two thousand years pass, and the world is again dying, with one city remaining, ruled by the Technomancer. Muire dwells in the last city, awaiting her doom, for she has caught sight of Mingan the Wolf, on the hunt for the first time since the Last Battle. Bear’s (A Companion to Wolves with Sarah Monette) ability to create breathtaking variations on ancient themes and make them new and brilliant is, perhaps, unparalleled in the genre. Her lyrical style and heroically flawed characters make this a priority purchase for most libraries. Highly recommended.–Library Journal starred review

Buy Ink and Steel: A Novel of the Promethean Age now. Together with its companion book: Hell and Earth: A Novel of the Promethean Age

Bear creates a world with an astonishing depth of mythology in a tale that begins with Ragnarok. Though Muire was the least of her sisters, she is the only one who survived the battle between the Light and the Tarnished. One of the sisters’ steeds also survived, in part because of the last miracle of the Light. Two thousand years later, it is nearly the end of the world again. This time, Muire stands to fight to the end. In the last city remaining on a dying planet, her enemies are old friends, one of whom was there the last time the world ended. The Technomancer, ruler of Eiledon, has gotten her power from a most unfortunate source, and the swords of Muire’s lost siblings are reappearing, as are their spirits. In an epic battle for the survival of life, Muire must overcome her conviction that she is the least of the Valkyries and transform into someone who can take on ancient powers. Bear’s world building echoes the best of Zelazny and pulls the reader into the story and the history until it’s over. Muire is, despite a certain difficulty in the beginning, one of Bear’s more interesting and likable characters, and the mythology Bear deploys promises further satisfying stories based in it.

Spanish rights to Elizabeth Bear’s CARNIVAL sold to Icaro Ediciones, by Isabel Monteagudo of International Editors, on behalf of Jennifer Jackson of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.