Re: The Black Chamber

On 5/18/25 12:18, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

Hello again denizens of sf written,
                      Black Chamber by S.M.Sterling
       Have you found and followed the Sterling novels about the Black Chamber?
       I happen to have been quite lucky in that regard and I found one I did not
   believe I had read but turns out that I had done so but will spend some
   time with it again as the buses to the library do not run frequently on the
   weekend and we are having a windstorm this weekend..
     Oh and I am enjoying it  again.
       The background is alternate World War I, Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive
   Republican Party are running the USA and because of German intervention have
   had to conquer Mexico and Canada, annex Greenland and a bit more. Now from
   my 20th & 21st Century sensibility it seems a rather Fascist regime.
        The scientists of Germany have devised what they are calling "Annihilation Gas""
   which has been used to kill the population of London and Paris among other places.
       In the first book of the novel we are  introduced to heroines and villains. The
   heroes have a smaller but important part to play but the villains end up mutilated
   at best when they tangle with the Black Chamber operative. The Black Chamber
   is a Roosevelt invention and does undercover work where intelligence is needed
   and deadly skills are required. So in the course of her duties the BC Op. has to
   assault French Intelligence who want to kill the German Scientist she is traveling
   with to gain entry to the circles where she will meet the love of her life, an Irish
   maiden and gain valuable intelligence of an attack planned on the East Coast
   of the USA using the nasty gas. She meets a young JohnHoover who reacts quickly
   with some intelligence to her identity.
            If you want some spoilers and names you can go to the Wikipedia entry:
                    <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Chamber_(novel)>
 bliss would rather have gotten new books to read but I  picked out 3 I had read.

I just finished the last of the novels of the Black Chamber which is set in Mexico,
now an American administered dependency after the USA intervened in a Mexican
Civil War.
"Shadows of Annihilation" is the title and it stars the female couple again as
they head off a German motivated attack on the deadly gas plant being built there.
One or more of the villains are terminated and the women go on to plan a family
with the concurrence of TR.  I give away no significant parts of the story here
but I seem to remember reading it where the ending included the choice of
a male who impregnates both of the heroines. Then he is sent away from the
abode of bliss.
Yes Stirling is the author's last name but "S" stands for Sam possibly
Samuel.
bliss