It's another day in the steam- and battery-powered dystopia of Boston, one of the most important trade and cultural centers in the Great States of America, and this time demons are afoot. In Boston, at the summit of society are the Great Houses, which function very like the city-states of ancient Greece, laws unto themselves and either making pacts with or warring against the other Great Houses, whichever is more likely to maintain or increase their power and wealth. The inhabitants of the Great Houses look down upon the vast majority of their city, the tradesmen, craftsmen and workers who do their part to support the Great Houses. Those people in turn look down upon the free Negro population of Boston, who dwell n the eight square blocks of Liberty Row. And upon whom do the Negroes look with a sense of superiority? Well, there's always the Irish, isn't there?
In "The Demons of Liberty Row" we meet several characters introduced in her other stories, but time has passed and changes have been wrought in their lives. Former Pinkerton detective Samuel Hunter is now a widower whose time is taken up mostly by demon hunting. Medium and psychic photographer Andrew O'Sullivan (mediums are as hated as the Irish, so Andrew has few friends) has given up police work to devote his time to hunt demons. A new character, Granville Woods, a Negro scientist and inventor who also provides us a link to our timeline (Thomas Edison is a patent-stealing scalawag in their timeline as well), becomes a reluctant ally to Samuel and Andrew; he is fearful of his weapons being stolen and used against his own people, but the advent of a demon in Liberty Row (whose lair is in the White section of town) forces him to overcome not only his misgivings about letting others use his weapons but also his own bias against Whites, who have never done anything to earn his trust.
Demons. The story starts out with Samuel and Andrew hunting down a demon in one of the outlying towns and nearly not surviving the encounter, the genesis of their decision to seek out Granville and his weapons. The creatures they encounter in the cursed town, and later in Liberty Row, are called demons, and that summons a great deal of cultural baggage from the reader, but hints and observations are dropped throughout the story that demons may not entirely be what they seem to be. There are ancient tombs, mind control, supernatural feats and all the other things demons are known for, but there is also behavior more associated with a ghoul than a demon. Also, Granville brings a scientist's questing eye to them, making observations that bring them a bit closer to this world than the next, and the narrator also comments upon physical aspects of the various races of demons. In the end, the reader is left with the impression that there is more to demons than meets the eye and that revelations may be in store for future tales.
Madeleine Holly-Rosing continues to build her steampunk world in the alternate history genre, but the inclusion of demons gives it a bit more depth than it possessed previously. Her world-building efforts are second only to her characterization skills. Her plotting is tight, and her wordsmithing excellent. If there is any fault to be found it is that the world on her steampunk Boston would be better displayed on a larger canvas; while the brevity of her work is sufficient to contain the plot of her story, it strains at the size of her world and her larger-than-life characters. While I'd welcome another novella in the series, sooner or later the epic nature of her world and its inhabitants will outgrow the shorter format.
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