Karen Memory

Listeners met the irrepressible Karen Memory in Elizabeth Bear's 2015 novel Karen Memory and fell in love with her steampunk Victorian Pacific Northwest city and her down-to-earth storytelling voice. Now Karen is back with Stone Mad, a new story about spiritualists, magicians, con men, and an angry lost tommy-knocker - a magical creature who generally lives in the deep gold mines of Alaska but has been kidnapped and brought to Rapid City.

Every cowboy story needs a horse no man can ride. No man—but Miss Karen Memory is all woman. When she and her beloved Priya sign on to do stunts for a motion picture about a rogue Mechanical named Cowboy and a Wild West show, she finds the horse of her dreams: Angel Maker. Her plans to rescue him from a deadly stunt are ambitious enough, but she’s soon beset by even greater threats when two men are murdered brutally. Cowboy and Priya are arrested for the crime, and Karen must prove them innocent—and save the life of the wild stallion too!