The Girl Who Sang Rose Madder by Elizabeth Bear
My rating: 5/5 cats
Oh, sure. There was hope. While there was life, her mother used to say, there was hope. And if hope seemed more like a punishment than a protection, that was hardly God’s fault, was it?
elizabeth bear is just so good.
with a lot of these free tor shorts, they’re fun, but they’re ultimately just diversions for me. they’re a great way to sample an author’s style and skills, or as a little snack for me to read before continuing with whatever full-length book i’m reading at the time.
but this—this is a STORY.
it’s not as long as many of the tor shorts, but it manages to develop character and atmosphere and explore a more important question than many of the longer novelettes appearing on the site.
i’m trying to make a day of reviewing the fifteen free tor shorts i’ve neglected to review so far this year, and this is the fourth one i’ve reread today, with reviewing and notetaking in mind. and, unlike the others, with this one i just got sucked into the rereading of it, enjoying the story all over again without really thinking about how to review it. and i’d happily read it again. it’s that good. this is actually the third of bear’s tor shorts i’ve read, and they’ve all been excellent, but there’s something about this one that i thought was particularly strong and it goes beyond the actual story, which isn’t something i’d be drawn to ordinarily: aging, long-grieving former rock legend faced with her own mortality makes a difficult decision centering around the question Do you make art or do you make life?
which seems almost banal when laid out like that
and yet, there’s something about this character that is so powerfully appealing. she’s not at all one-note, even though she lives within so few pages. her perspective is very world-weary and mature, but she’s still got such a bratty punk rock girl-spark to her, laced with pride and bitterness.
Yeah. She used to be a Warlord. Some days, she got up, showered, walked the dogs, made scrambled eggs and was on her second or third mimosa before she remembered.
It was one of the reasons she lived alone. She’d had enough of fucking rock stars for two lifetimes, and the last thing she needed was some doe-eyed young creature padding across her terrazzo floors barefoot in silk pajama bottoms, looking at her like she used to be Emma Case before she’d had time to drink a pot of coffee and tie a good buzz on.
and the story is everything from funny to elegiac to resigned to hopeful. the sister stuff is wonderfully complex, the elder statesman/mentor responsibility is subtle and beautiful, all the loss and change and sustained mourning rings true, and it’s a story that matters, as hyperbolic as that sounds.
so, while i still haven’t really “reviewed” this one, i’ve at least tried to speak to how much i liked it, and how i’m sad that i only have one free tor short by her left to read.
but i renew my vow to read some of her long-form stuff soon, because she’s really remarkably talented.
read it for yourself here:
http://www.tor.com/2008/09/11/rose-ma…
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