Silver on the Road

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The field of “Spaghetti Western Urban Fantasies” seems to be burgeoning. I really enjoyed the alt.hist/western/fantasy of John Horner Jacobs' [[ASIN:B00JEIPHOI The Incorruptibles]], with its what if there was magic in the world, the Indians were actually Elves, and the Roman Empire had survived into (our) 19th century.

Laura Anne Gilman's Silver on the Road seems to be another entry into this field. The setting of the book is in the Louisiana Purchase territory of the Plains and Rocky states. From internal clues, it seems that the period is during the early 18th century, perhaps during the Jefferson administration.

But from there the similarity ends. The Louisiana Purchase territory is “The Devil's West” and a person identified as the “Devil” lives there. Is he Lucifer? There is no indication of that, but the Devil seems to have magical powers that even other powerful entities are fearful of.

The Devil is not the main character of the story. That role falls to Isobel, a sixteen year old girl indentured to the Devil, who has spent her life working in the Devil's saloon and hotel in Flood. At sixteen, her indenture is about to end and she must decide what to do with the rest of her life. She has a chance encounter with a “rider” named Gabriel Kasun, who offers to mentor her into the life of a rider. Isobel refuses, but decides to become “the Devil's left-hand,” which involves traveling the Devil's Territory as an agent of the Devil. This means that she has to become a rider after all, and Kasun becomes her mentor in this role.

The story becomes and introduction to Gilman's world, as well as something of a coming of age story. We learn that there are demons and magic in this world. Magicians exist, are well-nigh impervious and wildly unpredictable and dangerous. There are demons that are more predatory animals than demonic powers. Magic exists and some people have gifts, but walking through an unchecked crossroads can kill.

Isobel discovers that an evil entity has been loosed on the West and makes it her mission to fit the evil. We learn that this evil is the result of a magical working in the Catholic Spanish territories and Isobel and Kasun meet up with and form an uneasy alliance with Catholic monks and a magician to end the evil.

This story felt long and slow-moving. Questions were raised but never answered, e.g., what's the deal with Gabriel's binding to the territory? What role do riders play in the economic system? Why does it seem like the settlement patterns and technology of the West in 1800 seem more like the West in 1880? Who is the Devil?

This is, however, Book 1 of a longer series - trilogy, quadrilogy, who knows?

I didn't like this story as much as I liked The Incorruptibles. Perhaps, Isobel was a more passive character, or maybe there was the feeling of “Mary Sue” as Isobel discovered new powers without explanation.

Another point I didn't like was the sudden hostility of anti-Catholic prejudice. The story depicts a sort of “live and let live” ethos where magic users are tolerated, and the occasional bible-thumper is treated with patronizing contempt, but when Catholic monks appear - who are, to be fair, trying to help the Devil's West by undoing a Spanish curse - we get treated to prose like this:

“The friar who had been doing the actual fighting took a step forward at that, raising his staff, and Gabriel stepped between them, arms outstretched. “Pax, pax. Farron, close your mouth.” Then he turned to glare at the men in robes. “Not that I've any love for your kind, Spaniard or Church. Tell me why we shouldn't call that demon back and let it finish you.”

And:

““Thank you,” Manuel said to the three of them, also rising. “I know . . . This place, this land, it makes us uneasy.” He shifted uncomfortably, glancing at the other fire, where his companions gathered. “It presses at us in our dreams and does not let us rest. Bernardo, you do not see him as he is, a good man, an honest man. . . . He wishes only to stop this so that souls may be saved from eternal damnation.”

Gabriel wanted to scorn the man, to pity his uselessness, but there was something in his words that rejected both scorn and pity. But they were still fools. “Do you have any idea how to do that, or did you race in here thinking that the purity of your souls was all that was needed?””

And:

“They're religious men,” he said dryly. “I've no doubt they'll be up and on their knees before we wake.” The thought made Isobel wince, and Farron let out a quiet snort.

I understand that in this work of fiction, it is stipulated that these monks would burn the good folk of the Devil's Territory as ungodly, satanic witches, but there is something in the change of tone - on the part even of Isobel who has never met a Catholic or Spaniard before - that is surprising and grating to anyone who doesn't start with the buried assumption that those Catholics are the Satanic Other....which is a strange tone for a book that features the Devil as, perhaps, an attractive character. We need some “bad guys” to vent some spleen on, and it seems that it would be politically incorrect to make demons and the Devil the bad guys.

My concern, also, is that we see this kind of conventional prejudice that comes out of the blue in other books. I noted it in [[ASIN:B00DIJYFBA Ghost Detective (A Myron Vale Investigation Book 1)]]. It is not as bad in this book, but it just seemed to much of a modern agenda anachronistically expressing itself in the views of the characters (albeit anti-Catholicism would have been entirely appropriate among Protestant Christian Americans of the period, but it would not have sounded like modern anti-Catholicism by mocking kneeling and concern for the purity of souls.)

This is really a nit, on my part. This point doesn't undermine the generally well-crafted story. I am curious about how this story will develop, but I think I would want more development of the history and logic of this alternate reality in the next book.