Family history has
caught up with Hattie: her father’s past and connection to a terrifying demonic
revolver has lead to a lot of bad attention. Attention that robs Hattie of
everything and leaves her desperate to find her sister; in a trek across the
magical Wild West with a range of forces arrayed against her. She’s backed by a
group of allies - but how many of them can she trust and what is their real
agendas?
Well, this is
different. Well developed magical steampunk western. Ok, bizarre quirk? I hate
westerns but I love paranormal westerns and steampunk westerns. Especially if
you throw in some really excellent world building
And this world
building is excellent. The way magic is incorporated into the actual world and
businesses. Like the Pinkertons are a magical detective agency, the use of Zoom
tunnels not just as magical transport, but the way they’ve been controlled and
used basically in the same manner as railroad companies. We have magical rich
and poor areas but we also have a world where magic is very much integrated
into daily life with common ranchers using magic to protect their livestock,
competitions regularly checking if people are carrying magic and a general
assumption of magic as a common factor in everyone’s world without turning it
into an odd fantasy elves-and-wizards-story. There is a suggestion of greater
than normal technology as well - a definite steampunk edge but we don’t explore
that much because magic and technology don’t mix much and these characters are
all magical but it does promise a lot for future books.
But it’s also interesting
how the magical setting actually works with the prejudices of the era (which
continue to this day) and how it’s considered how magic would change history -
or not. Like there’s an exploration of massacred Native Americans and they talk
about how magic doesn’t generally work on metal (except very limited special
circumstances): and no matter how magically powerful Native tribes were,
because magic cannot stop bullets and modern weaponry is just deadly. This is
something we see reinforced a lot which does a great job of emphasising why the
Diablo is so special: magic is impressive but if men are pointing guns at you?
Or gatling guns are being brought out?
Or there’s how Ling,
a main character who is Asian not only faces lots of prejudice for being
Chinese but this is also linked to his magic - magic doesn’t free him from
prejudice but is in turn seen to be a reason to suspect him: his magic becomes
suspect because he’s Asian. Similarly there’s a scene where we find that one of
the reasons racists hate magic and are encouraging anti-magic sentiment is
because magic isn’t racist. They are outraged and furious that magic can give
Black people power, that it makes Black people equal or more than them (since
Black sorcerers also seem to have equal status in the world). They examine a
lot of the rage and prejudice and evil Ling faces as well. It’s interesting to
see magic not just erasing prejudice in the world; nor being ignored as a
factor in the world building that would affect magic.
Our protagonist is
Hettie and she’s pretty awesome. Her overpowering motivation is to save her
sister. She doesn’t have any super powers but manages to inherit the Diablo
revolver through the plot. She’s a pretty quintessential
ordinary-woman-thrust-into-extraordinary-circumstances and having to stand up.
But she does this while being neither an utterly useless burden in need of
carrying nor by being super-woman who effortlessly masters skills she shouldn’t
have. She relies on her team, but also contributes to it. She makes mistakes
and she makes bad decisions, but they’re bad decisions that are understandable
given the circumstances, emotion and lack of options. It’s also interesting
that she is described as unattractive or vaguely “plain” even before the book
starts and during the book gains a substantial facial scar. This appears
not to be a classic case of she-doesn’t-know-she’s-beautiful Urban Fantasy
thing but a character who just isn’t classically beautiful and is in denial.
Romance also doesn’t appear to be a major element of her story despite some
do-si-so between her and Walker.
There’s also a female
character who is classically feminine, rich, beautiful and doesn’t really like her. But what is
interesting is that the book is clear that this character isn’t objectively bad
(which is something a lot of Urban Fantasy and beyond gets wrong). Hettie
doesn’t like her at all. That’s not because she’s a bad person or deserves that
dislike - this is Hettie‘s issues
I like that Hettie‘s
quest involves a lot of dark places and Hettie having to do some pretty dark
things while continually trying to rationalise things and not always doing a
great job. Her quest to save her sister leaves a lot of bodies in her wake and
not all of them can be considered “good deaths”, throw in the actual nature of
Diablo, the cursed demon gun, the choices Hettie is forced to make and,
ultimately how this book ends for her tells me we’re going to have a powerfully
dark character for future books
I even like her
little sister Abbie and the little we see of her at the end because, again, it
points to a complex character who isn’t the morally pure innocent Hettie wants
to believe.
I also really like
how all of these characters seem to have their own very real personality and
history. Ling is revealed to have a
much more to his motivations than we originally see as well as having several
acts in his own storyline. Woodrow again has his own motivations and history
and Uncle Jeremiah’s whole relationship with Hettie is so complex and layered
and full of family drama and love/hate/loyalty/resentment that it’s a perfect
mess. All these characters feel real. Throw in a background world that has a
few POC and takes a little time to nod towards the effects of racism (though
the afterword of the book has a big piece on how the author consulted Native
American sources for authenticity etc which is really nice… but there
wasn’t actually a lot of Native American characters here barring a small band
of ghosts) and one of the main characters is Asian. There are no LGBTQ
characters
This book serves as
both an incredibly fun story with powerful characters, a great world and lots
of twists and hard choices. It also serves as a truly excellent foundation for
a series that I am so very very eager to explore as we’ve set up not just a
great protagonist but a very unique one. I’m looking forward to this series.
