Book Joy: First Chapter of Upright Women Wanted

[raven_cromwell]

I first encountered Sarah Gailey's work in STET which's an absolutely gorgeously constructed little stiletto about the perils of our smart tech.

I then proceeded to gush about the first five chapters of her novel Magic For Liars in a cold-induced delirious rush that's still remarkably coherent despite that, and which I still intend to "meta the shit out of" upon finishing--look, I'm a gadfly and got distracted. It's one of those books I won't have to reread a bit of to remember precisely! where I was.

So you can imagine I've been looking forward to her novella Upright Women Wanted like an impatient kid at a candy store, especially when you read this summary:

The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing.

“That girl’s got more wrong notions than a barn owl’s got mean looks.”

Esther is a stowaway. She’s hidden herself away in the Librarian’s book wagon in an attempt to escape the marriage her father has arranged for her—a marriage to the man who was previously engaged to her best friend. Her best friend who she was in love with. Her best friend who was just executed for possession of resistance propaganda.

And then, y'all, the first chapter came out as excerpt. And it opened with:

As Esther breathed in the sweet, musty smell of the horse blankets in the back of the Librarians’ wagon, she chewed on the I-told-you-so feeling that had overwhelmed her ever since her father had told her with the news about Beatriz. She’d known that none of it would come to any good. She’d told Beatriz as much. Tried to tell her, anyway.

But Beatriz never did listen. She always was stubborn, as stubborn as a hot day, the kind that comes too long before a storm breaks, and so she hanged. She swung by her neck while Esther’s father, Victor Augustus, made a speech about the dangers of deviance. Silas Whitmour had stood a few feet behind the podium with his fists clenched in his pockets. His lips had been pressed together tight, his eyes on Esther.

Not on Beatriz. He wouldn’t hardly look at Beatriz at all.

His eyes were on Esther, who had lied to her father and told him she’d make the whole thing right.

The Head Librarian didn’t find Esther Augustus until they were two whole days outside of Valor, Arizona. She swore so loud and colorful that it snapped Esther right out of the Beatriz-dream she’d been having, and by the time Esther was sitting upright, the Head Librarian’s revolver was pointed right at her face.

“Don’t shoot me,” Esther said, her voice raspy. Her mouth tasted foul from two days without only the bottle of water she’d brought, two days without a toothbrush and without food. “Please,” she added, because her mother had raised her right and because manners seemed like a good idea when a gun was involved.

and just kept getting better.

Comments

[delphi]

Oh, this looks highly relevant to my interests!

[chamerion]

!!!

Definitely putting this one on the list of possible future reading.

[raven_cromwell]

February 3rd, A. K. Larkwood's The Unspoken Name--which's being billed as orc-inspired swordswoman whose queer as they come plays assassin and spymistress in a high fantasy world--. It'll be the perfect antidote to moodily staring and refreshing the Iowa caucus results and praying that we don't get stuck with Biden. And then, the very next day, this one comes out. This year--the last three or four, really--have felt like a queer cornucopia in science fiction and fantasy. It will never. ever get old, seeing queer protags of all kids of orientation and gender; never get old, and hasn't quite stopped feeling like a surreal dream I'm about to be brutally woken from. But yeah, I don't see how you couldn't be hyped! about queer librarian spies. <3333