Review: The Soul Bottles by Jay Lake (2004)

Posted on February 20th, 2008

This novelette was originally published in 2004 and popped up in a couple of places since then. It also serves as the backstory for Lake’s 2006 novel Trial of Flowers.

It is a story about redemption in a fantasy setting that includes magic and hints of goth horror. At the age of fourteen, Jason watches as his father is killed, his sister is sold into a harem, and his mother skips town all as a result of a turn in his father’s business fortunes. Jason is left only with the collection of soul bottles that was the cause of his father’s misfortune.

Of the characters we see from the City Imperishable, an inordinate amount seem to be obsessed with dwarves (created by shutting growing bodies in boxes) and the practice of sewing dwarves’ mouths shut. Therefore, Bijaz, who is Jason’s father’s former house/business dwarf, getting a chance to exercise his own set of kinks, agrees to let Jason live with him for a year as long as Jason agrees to have his mouth sewn shut. In case you’re wondering, as I first did, there is a little pucker left in the middle so you can eat gruel and fish soup through a straw.

Jason agrees, serves his year, and then goes to work for Bijaz’s relative at the port where Jason begins to work his way up in the lower class business world, although his character leans more towards the sordid as time passes.

Eventually, an upper class ruling-type with some magical talent comes looking for Jason’s soul bottles, which contains a bit of the souls of each person who breathed into them. Jason faces a choice of whether to commit his first unselfish act in a long while or tell the magic-type to beat it, a choice that will lead to either redemption or a continuation of his downward spiral.

This novelette got a little freaky for me with all the dwarves and mouth-sewing. Not a call-the-Little-People-Anti-Defamation-League type freaky, but certainly weird. If that’s your thing, hop in your little box and thread your needle.

You can read it online here or you can download it at Manybooks.net in a number of formats.

Tags: Review
Filed under Fantasy, Free Stuff, Lake, Jay, Review |

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