Naked City is a very good collection of urban fantasy tales edited by Ellen Datlow and including Melissa Marr, Holly Black, Delia Sherman, Richard Bowes, Naomi Novik and really, many more fine fine authors. It is a darker collection then some, a bleaker vision of urban fantasy although honestly fantasy in general seems to be on a bleak turn these days (perhaps mirroring our own bleak vision of the world).

Oh, but wait - Jim Butcher writes about the curse on the Chicago Cubs and any fan of the team shall rejoice over that one (and it is not bleak at all and actually quite funny). (Hmm, maybe I overstated that bleakness bit.)

Anyway, the story I want to mention here is Caitlin Kiernan's "The Collier's Venus (1893)". Kiernan is a bracingly smart writer; she demands a level of smart from her readers as well which is something that I admire greatly. "The Collier's Venus (1893)" is an unexpected spin in the idea of urban fantasy as it takes place in the west (Colorado) during the frontier days (the title is a giveaway there) and thus forces a shift from the typical city setting. I liked this a lot* but what really made the story sing is how Kiernan ran with it while incorporating some of her professional knowledge of paleontology and museums and that which lies beneath.

I love to ponder what lies beneath.

Who we have is Professor Jeremiah Ogilvy, founder and curator of a geologic museum in Cherry Creek. He is a dedicated man often wearied by the inane conversation of those who surround him but nevertheless unwavering in his endless curiosity and determination to explore it with others. The story concerns something brought to his attention by Dora Bolshaw, an "engine mechanic for the Rocky Mountain Reconsolidated Fuel Company" who is the epitome of strong and mysterious and unmistakably sexy and who also has a past relationship with Jeremiah. Dora has been underground in the nearby mines, in Shaft Number Seven. She has come to Jeremiah because something was found down there, something that is not right. It came out of the rocks and it killed two men and she wants Jeremiah to see it and decide just what the hell it is.

And of course he can't say no.

This is not a horror story, not in the traditional sense of the word although there is certainly something horrifying at its center. What Kiernan has done with "The Collier's Venus (1893)" is some masterful world building in a remarkably few pages. She manages to pack in so much detail about both the past and present that readers quickly find themselves breathing the dust with Dora and sitting with Jeremiah, hearing Dora's tale, while pondering the skeletons of creatures from the past and the potential mysteries hidden in the rocks. Jeremiah has heard stories and he has paid attention and Kiernan shares the musings of this intelligent man's mind with such subtlety and care that you feel yourself lulled into the story, into the way in which it mixes what seem to be facts with what must be fiction. This is why the story works so well - the world she builds is so believable that when it rises up and terrifies you it's hard not to believe that it could or would or frankly, someday might.

I love it when a story makes me believe that.

I won't spoil things for the ending because that would not be fair but I will say that what comes out of the rocks is properly frightening but Kiernan does not pile on the gore or go all action movie on us. Jeremiah and Dora stay true to themselves from beginning to end and the way in which they are transformed by the events in the story - especially Jeremiah - is properly fitting and most satisfying. But really it is for passages like this one that I can not resist Kiernan's stories:

In the evenings, when her duties at the shop are finished, Dora Bolshaw comes to his bedroom. She sits with him there in that modest chamber above the Hall of Cenozoic Life and the mezzanine housing the celebrated automatic mastodon. She keeps him company, and they talk, when her cough is not so bad; she reads to him, and they discuss everything from the teological aspects of the theories of Alfred Russel Wallace to which alloys and displacement lubricators make for the most durable steam engines. Now and then, they discuss other, less-cerebral matters, and there have been apologies from both sides for that snowy night in January.

It might seem an odd passage to select out of a story that has some exciting moments but I wanted you to get a taste for the way Kiernan mixes history and steampunk (kind of) and science and very real humaness of the characters in such a unique way. This is a writer with a very active mind and curious soul and deep commitment to her characters' hearts and lucky for us, she writes just as she thinks. Bravo.

*(I think Kate Mitford coined the term "rural fantasy" about her novel The Boneshaker which I thought was great but she had a point - urban fantasies in rural settings seem to be orphaned somewhat in the fantasy conversation)

[Post pic of Mark Dion installation. Dion is fascinated by Alfred Russel Wallace and has worked on several installations about him. I can't help but think of Dion when I think of Wallace and now I think of Jeremiah Ogilvy as well!]