The Scrape of Tooth and Bone

by Ada Hoffmann

Original Fiction, Novelette, Science Fiction

Available as epub & mobi downloads, or as a online read.

I hadn’t had a minute, since getting off the airship, to put down my carpet bag and close my eyes. But Dr. Clarence Fullerton was intent on showing me the entire encampment before I rested.

Genres: Short Stories, Steampunk, LGBT, Lesbian, Queer, Fiction, Autistic Spectrum Disorder

25 pages, ebook

First published February 1, 2016

Reviews

[Shira Glassman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was super cute! A quiet-until-something-sets-off-her-issues woman scientist is involved with dinosaur bone excavation in the 19th century era. There's another woman on the scientific team--a beautiful widow, and there's instant interest. The protagonist's adherence spiritualism leads to a seance that winds up communicating with the spirits of the dinosaurs they're digging up, and the story ends with the protagonist's heroism during a robot battle.

This is everything I'd ever want out of steampunk--queerness, feminism, and actual period flavor like spiritualism and an offhand mention of a 'hysteria' diagnosis. It is also femslash without explicit on-the-page erotica, for people looking for such things.

Also, as a writer who myself tries to depict many forms of real-world diversity without using contemporary vocabulary that wouldn't fit in the (in my case, fantasy) setting, such as bisexuality, transness, and food allergies, I appreciated the way the author made it abundantly clear and undeniable that the protagonist was neurodivergent and hypersensitive to texture and possibly social interaction, without using words like neurodivergent or autistic. People with the author's marginalization, or mine and my family's, for that matter, existed long before present-day terminology was developed and it's important to be able to show that the difference did not poof into being with the words we use today.

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dinosaur ghosts, duelling palaeontologist, and Victorian fits of the vapours. In Canada. With robots.

[Mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think I have much nice things to tell here. Well, the setting is cool, yes. And it's free.

But...

- The plot was shallow.
- The protagonist was a total pushover, was deceived, and basically, I couldn't see any growths, although there is supposed to be one.
- There's no chemistry between the MC and the other woman. I don't know what either sees in the other. Well, they are the only ones available, huh?
- The short format didn't work for this story. Maybe make it longer to bring more depth to everything or leave more out and open for the reader's imagination.

[Iben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh. My.

I have a book hangover from an f/f steampunk short story about a paleontological excavation. With robots. And dinosaurs. And a mechanic and a paleontologist. I'm not sure I actually have the words for writing about this, but I have to try.

The language/writing of the story is in awe-striking sync with the perfect technical delivery of a short story. The way the whole thing came together and collected the threads, gave me goose bumps. No, actual goose bumps - this is not a metaphor.

The world building is done so effectively, I felt fully immersed within a few pages. I mostly read contemporary these days, but this world was so much fun.

"I had actually been diagnosed with hysteria in my youth and given a vibrator, but while I didn't mind using it, it had no effect on the fits at all.

It is written in first person POV, and it actually recognizes that fact (I don't want to spoil it, but the ending...oh, the ending. So good). It is so believable that this woman, who we are so privileged as to get to know on page, would sit down and narrate this story for us. When the story is over, I feel like I have to say goodbye to this...wonderful woman, both fragile and so, so strong, who I have just met.

The narrator of the story is clearly described as neurodivergent throughout the text, and done so in the most moving ways.

"It was not that I fainted. It's more that I was overwhelmed into obliviousness."

This story is the reason why I read.
Oh, and it's free.

[Brownbetty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a steampunk lesbian spiritualist paleontologist novella, and I feel like it almost doesn't matter what I have to say about after that, you already know whether or not you want to read it.

But, further to that: the story is about a woman, hired for her robotic-mechanic skills, caught up in some Cope/Marsh (Yuletide's weirdest fandom?) type shenanigans, who learns, via her spiritualist religious practices, that the dinosaurs want to tell her something. Also, there is smooches.

[Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun little story found randomly from a trail of links on Goodreads. I'm just left wondering if the troodons at the end are some sort of ghost manifestation, or if they are supposed to be some remnant population. If the first, how do they act physically? If the second, how did they go unnoticed so long? Similarly, it feels a bit odd that the spirit troodon would need a device to communicate with the narrator during a seance; what use would technology have in such cases?