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The Rise of Ransom City, by Felix Gilman
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This is the story of Harry Ransom. If you know his name it's most likely as the inventor of the Ransom Process, a stroke of genius that changed the world.
Or you may have read about how he lost the battle of Jasper City, or won it, depending on where you stand in matters of politics.
Friends called him Hal or Harry, or by one of a half-dozen aliases, of which he had more than any honest man should. He often went by Professor Harry Ransom, and though he never had anything you might call a formal education, he definitely earned it.
If you're reading this in the future, Ransom City must be a great and glittering metropolis by now, with a big bronze statue of Harry Ransom in a park somewhere. You might be standing on its sidewalk and not wonder in the least of how it grew to its current glory. Well, here is its story, full of adventure and intrigue. And it all starts with the day that old Harry Ransom crossed paths with Liv Alverhyusen and John Creedmoor, two fugitives running from the Line, amidst a war with no end.
- Sales Rank: #309675 in eBooks
- Published on: 2012-11-27
- Released on: 2012-11-27
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
“On my being handed the book now in your hands, I promised myself - tacitly, of course - I'd only take a peek. But will you look at what's happened? Mr. Gilman's appeal promptly poured itself all over me, and I, by golly, in superb reciprocity, pored all over his pages from first to last. Is this not the joy in reading, no less in being? - enforced attention, the delightsome entrapment, a thorough-going filling and the rare repose of one's having been emptied -- utterly, gratefully - out?” ―Gordon Lish on Rise of Ransom City
“Felix Gilman has a sly wit and an assured hand. He is a fresh and original voice in fantasy.” ―Lavie Tidhar, author of Osama on Rise of Ransom City
“A fantasy that Mark Twain would have been proud to write. Felix Gilman's theme is nothing less than the Matter of America, the story at the root of the whole continent. Never has fantasy been darker, cleverer, more sly, or more touching in its refraction of our own world. I scratch my head in awe.” ―Francis Spufford, author of Red Plenty on Rise of Ransom City
“This sequel to The Half-Made World stands well alone; written like an old-fashioned memoir, it seamlessly blends whimsy with deadly seriousness.” ―Publishers Weekly on Rise of Ransom City
“Like The Half-Made World that came before it, The Rise of Ransom City brings us a re-imagined tale of America's Old West, mixing steampunk and magic realism to great effect.” ―Kirkus Reviews ("Best SF/F Reads In November") on Rise of Ransom City
“Gripping, imaginative, terrifically inventive . . . We haven't had a science fiction novel like this for a long time.” ―Ursula LeGuin on The Half Made World
“The Half-Made World takes the brutality of the wild west and twists it into an epic fantasy that left me staggered. It brings the sense of wonder back to fantasy by creating a complex and visceral world unlike anything I've read. This is a stunning novel.” ―Mary Robinette Kowal on The Half Made World
“'Refreshingly unlike any other novel I've read. Felix Gilman writes like a modern-day Dickens drunk on rich invention and insane war.” ―Stephen Donaldson, author of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant on The Half Made World
“A much-needed breath of fresh air in dystopian fiction. Utterly compelling. Trembling with invention and adventure. Reads as if it's the love-child of McCarthy's The Road and Le Guin's The Dispossessed. Highly recommended!” ―Eric Van Lustbader on The Half Made World
“Felix Gilman's third novel is his best, and a somewhat stunning mix of Cormac McCarthy and Steampunk.” ―Jeff Vandermeer on The Half Made World
“Great fantastical fiction has a way of suggesting metaphorical connections without insisting on them . . . The Half Made World does this with an exhilarating level of self-assurance. . . Reading this novel will make anyone who cares about dark adventure giddy.” ―The Onion AV Club (A) on The Half Made World
“Represents everything great science fiction should aspire to.” ―The Cleveland Plain Dealer on The Half Made World
“New and exciting and well worth reading” ―io9 on The Half Made World
“This enormously creative, complex tale uses every trope - and transforms it - in the service of a greater vision that never really forgets its roots. . . . Alternately lyrical and scatalogical, brutal and haunted . . . For all its wild adventures, the object of [Gilman's] attention in The Half Made World is no less than America itself.” ―Locus on The Half Made World
“A page-turning narrative, engagingly complex characters, and deftly descriptive prose. . . . The Half-Made World is custom-made for those looking for a dark dystopia filled with weird west, gritty steampunk, and literary intertexts.weird west, gritty steampunk, and literary intertexts.” ―Tor.com on The Half Made World
About the Author
FELIX GILMAN has been nominated for the John W. Campbell and Locus awards for best new writer. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Thunderer and Gears of the City, and The Half-Made World, which was listed by Amazon as one of the ten best SFF novels of 2010. He lives with his wife in New York City.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTIONS
My name is Harry Ransom. Friends call me Hal or Harry, or by one of a half-dozen aliases, of which I have had more than any honest man should. Don’t let that shake your confidence in me. I was a victim of circumstance. Often I went by Professor Harry Ransom, and though I never had anything you might call a formal Education I believe I earned that title. For the last few years it’s been Excuse me, Mr. Ransom, sir, from those beneath me and just plain Ransom from those above. I never cared for any of that and now I am free and on the road again with nothing but my name and my wits and my words.
If you know my name maybe it’s as the inventor of the Ransom Light-Bringing Process, or maybe you believe in all that secret-weapon stuff they wrote in the newspapers, in which case I intend to set you straight. Or you may know me as the man who lost the Battle of Jasper City, or won it, depending on where you stand in matters of politics. If you’re an Officer of the Line who has intercepted this in the mails, then you know me as a Wanted Person but maybe you know to think twice before coming after me.
If you’re reading this in the future maybe you know me as the man who founded Ransom City. It lies out in the unmade lands, or it will, one day. Maybe as you read this it’s a bright new century and Ransom City is a great and glittering metropolis and there’s a big bronze statue of me in a park somewhere—if I have any say in the matter there will be parks—well, who knows? I am an optimist. Maybe one day these pages will be read by every boy and girl in the West. Your grandfather will look over your shoulder and say, I remember old Harry Ransom, I saw him back in Nowheresville one time, that was a hell of a show but the bastard still owes me money.
* * *
I am writing from no place in particular. All I’ll say is that it is a big red barn not so different in architectural grandeur from one of those old-world cathedrals you see in picture-books sometimes, although I guess more full of straw and dung. I have never been in a cathedral but I have been in a whole lot of barns. There are thousands like it in the Territory. The fields all around and the mountains in the distance are brown like an old coat. The man who owns the barn and the cows and the horses and all the straw and the dung is a good fellow, not educated but one of nature’s Free-Thinkers, and when we strike out West again he will come with us.
I am writing on a typewriter that I salvaged from the old man’s office after Jasper City fell. Naturally it’s the very latest state-of-the-art machine. Nothing but the best was good enough for the old man. There’s a bullet-hole in its casing and some water-damage to its innards. Nobody thought I could get it working again but I did not get where I am today by being a fool, at least not in matters mechanical. In spite of my efforts the letter R still sticks one time out of four, and that is no small inconvenience for a man who likes to talk about himself as much as I do. On the other hand the machine types in triplicate, through an arrangement of carbon papers and clever little levers, so that when I type RANSOM it echoes across one-two-three sheets of white paper. The old man used this device to convey orders with the greatest possible efficiency. I want to talk to a lot of people as I go so this is a great time-saver.
* * *
Well, we moved on from the big red barn. One of the Line’s Heavier-Than-Air Vessels was spotted overhead. It circled, writing a kind of black-smoke question mark in the sky. Most likely it had nothing to do with us—there’s fighting not far south of us, or so I hear—but we’re taking no chances. We left by night and took the road west. I am sitting and typing under the shadow of a big old cottonwood tree in a valley of rank grass and blackberry bushes and old tin-plated junk and fat dragonflies. Our numbers have been swelled by the barn-owner’s younger son and two of his friends, and I have just eaten one of his first-rate apricots, but the man himself stayed behind to sell off his furniture and settle his affairs. If all goes well we shall all meet up at a certain location on the Western Rim.
I left a triplicate of letters in his care all about who we are and where we are going and what we are going to do when we get there, by which I mean the founding of Ransom City. We are going West. I waxed eloquent about the glories of the free city of the future and true democracy and the Ransom Process and the parks and the tall buildings I have planned in my mind’s eye and all the rest of it, and how every person who wants should follow us. One of the letters is to go to my onetime friend the famous Mr. Elmer Merrial Carson, formerly of the Jasper City Evening Post,* one is to go to the editor of the Melville City Gazette, and because I do not know any other journalists, the third is to go to an editor of Mr. Barn-Owner’s choosing.
I thought everything would be easy to explain but it is not. I mean to set the story straight, because a lot of things have been said about me or by me that are not exactly true. It is not easy to tell a true story. Most of my practice with words has been selling things, which is not the same at all, it turns out.
I am not yet thirty but I have had an odd kind of life and I have a lot to say before I go. Anyhow this is my AUTOBIOGRAPHY I guess, and so I will call this CHAPTER ONE, and below that INTRODUCTIONS, just like a real honest-to-goodness book.
Copyright © 2012 by Felix Gilman
Most helpful customer reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
Defies categorization (4.5 stars)
By TChris
Harry Ransom made a brief appearance in The Half-Made World, as did his light-making apparatus. In the follow-up to that novel, Ransom's goal is to build the city of the future, with parks and tall buildings, where freedom and democracy reign. The Rise of Ransom City, Ransom's autobiography, recounts his travels and exploits, his successes and (more often) failures. As you would expect, the stories told in this novel and in The Half-Made World overlap, but only slightly.
The Great War between the Line and the Gun has been ongoing for two decades when Ransom sets out to make his fortune. Agents of the Line serve the Engines and know the secret of electricity -- an expensive secret monopolized by the Northern Lighting Corporation -- but Ransom has created an Apparatus that produces light without cost, based on ideas he acquired (or stole) from the First Folk. He calls it the Ransom Process, and it is a work in progress that he doesn't fully understand. The Ransom Process creates heat and light and magnetism but it also has unpredictable (and sometimes violent) impacts on time and gravity. In its later versions, it seems to attract phantoms.
In search of investors, Ransom travels with his mechanic (the secretive Mr. Carver) and, along the way, picks up two fellow travelers who introduce themselves as Elizabeth Harper and her father. We eventually learn that these characters are not who they appear to be. Ransom later meets a feisty woman named Adela who invented the player piano. Ransom's journey brings him into contact with both the Line and the Gun, as both forces (and others) would love to weaponize the Ransom Process.
The Rise of Ransom City is an odd but intriguing novel. I appreciated the relative absence of expository writing. It might not appeal to readers who need to be spoon-fed but I think it's refreshing to find a writer who doesn't feel the need to explain every detail of the world the writer has created. Felix Gilman thrusts the reader into the world as Ransom knows it. Ransom, writing his autobiography in the first person, assumes the reader lives in that world and therefore doesn't bother to explain much about it. The reader is left to puzzle out the background, a task that becomes possible as more information comes to light over the course of the novel. In that regard, having read The Half-Made World would be useful but not critical. The sequel stands nicely on its own.
The Rise of Ransom City incorporates a large dose of fantasy (or at least creates a world where the laws of physics as we understand them are a bit cockeyed) and a little bit of horror. There are echoes of post-apocalyptic fiction and of alternate histories. There are elements of steampunk and of westerns. The Rise of Ransom City is at various times an adventure story, a road novel, a romance, a political thriller, a comedy, a melodrama, and a twisted version of a rags-to-riches story. The novel's defiance of categorization is one of its most attractive features.
The book's success is largely due to the richness of Harry Ransom's personality. Part inventor, part philosopher, part con-artist, part adventurer, part dreamer, part schemer, Ransom is at times full of himself and at other times full of remorse. Often cowardly but occasionally brave, often confused but occasionally seized by a clarity of purpose, Ransom is engaging because, despite his all-too-common flaws, he is a good-hearted idealist who struggles (albeit with little success) to make the world better. His complexity is a welcome relief from the one-dimensional heroes who populate so many science fiction and fantasy novels.
Felix Gilman is an imaginative writer and a first-rate storyteller. In this wide-ranging story, Gilman pokes fun at religion by inventing one of his own (the Smilers), lambasts business tycoons, skewers the inclination of the judicial system to protect the powerful, and metaphorically comments upon Guantanamo-style interrogations. I'm not a fan of demons and spirits and supernatural characters of that sort, so I am happy to report that they play a relatively small role in the story (and the phantoms, at least, can be explained without relying on the supernatural). Ultimately, this enigmatic novel worked for me not just because the story is entertaining, but because it focuses on flesh-and-blood humans, with all their flaws, foibles, inconsistencies, and uncontrolled emotions. If I could, I would give The Rise of Ransom City 4 1/2 stars.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Harry Ransom is no John Creedmoor
By sean
The Half-Made World, the book that Ransom City is a sort of indirect sequel to, is excellent. Gripping action, great characters, nice vivid writing style. I enjoyed that book a great deal, so getting this one was sort of a no-brainer.
It turns out this book is rather tedious. Honestly, I wanted to like it, but it's just not that much fun. The first book (The Half-Made World) gave a great over-the-shoulder look at the world from Creedmoor's point of view, the whole curse/gift thing about fighting on the side of the Gun, and also mixed in bits of Liv's and one of the Linesman's experiences of the world and really fleshed out the world in a vivid way (and it's a pretty strange -in a good way- world...). It also stuck with characters who had a good view of the action.
This book, on the other hand, gives you a first-person journal/diary telling of what is probably a good story, but the narrator doesn't see most of the good parts. If you haven't yet, go read Half-Made World, and skip this one.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Stylish sequel
By inner exile
although I think it's less effective as a stand-alone novel if you have missed the background context provided in The Half-Made World. Not unlike other readers, I'm also a bit disappointed that good ole Creedmoor - albeit a shadow of his former self being bereft of Marmion's power - and Miss Alverhuysen (sounds a Dutch name to me in the real world) together make only an episodic appearance, roughly a year after where the story concluded in the first book.
What we've got here instead is a steady paced, occasionally quaint, (mock-)memoir in which self-taught inventor and utopian Harry Ransom relates how his life-long aspiration to make a better world, preferably alongside fortune & fame, through the application of a free energy device has played out, while traveling from town to town on the Rim separating the made and unmade worlds, then ending up in booming Jasper City in pursuit of the initially lionized self-made man, investor Mr Baxter.
In the wake of an ill-fated demonstration of his Apparatus' working and resultant mayhem generating unsolicited rumours, the Ransom Process - mistaken, not without some basis, for a weapon or bomb of some sort - draws the unwelcome attention of both the Line and the Gun: "It operates by cycling power between one world and another - one time and another - one state of being and another - it drags some things with it" (p. 343).
Find out if he is able to evade his pursuers and realize his dream, or the unrelenting forces of War eventually destroy him as well.
Except for the last four chapters (pp. 321-63) assuming a grimmer tone befitting the oppressive hive-like milieau of the Line HQ at Harrow Cross, charming irony is also detectable here and there in the fluid prose. For instance, speaking of the editor of the memoir, one journalist named Elmer Merrial Carson's impressive eyebrows: "Throughout our conversation they bristled and flattened as he spoke so that they could express good humor at one moment, curiosity the next, fulminating wrath when necessary. Sometimes I felt I was conversing with the eyebrows and he was merely taking notes" (p. 193). To which the gentleman so depicted laconically remarks in a footnote: "Worse things have been said" (p. 200).
As the talented storyteller that Gilman is, elsewhere he exhibits a keen sense of being fully aware of his rapt audience: "It is very strange this business of turning flesh-and-blood people into words" (p. 28), or "No yarn of world's-edge adventure and daring is complete without wolves. If I ever got this far into a story-book without wolves I would demand my money back" (p. 91) - and accordingly, the reader gets exposed to a ferocious attack of lupi.
Given the limits of the memoir, that is the absence of an omnipresent narrator, we are offered only glimpses of brief recollection of other events - citing hearsay of Creedmoor's or Miss Alverhuysen's involvement - taking place in the Delta baronies, Juniper City, the revival of the Red Republic, etc., all of which may serve as a synopsis to be elaborated, hopefully, in the third installment of this steampunkish weird western saga of alternative America. You may also notice veiled references to what is uncannily pervasive in our real world, namely the bankster-military-industrial cabal/triumvirate or the mindless arms race.
One Laura Miller, staff writer for , may well have captured the underlying message in her assessment, thusly: "It's possible to see [the novel] as a rumination on the hubris of the American Dream, if by "dream" you mean a form of individualism that holds it possible for a man to be all three things - rich, grand and free - at the same time...a diagnosis of the American character as alternately possessed by ruthless utilitarianism and nihilistic self-aggrandizement..." (quoted at the author's website)
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