I’m currently reading a number of books, as is often the case. I’m sure there’s a word for it.

These include but are not limited to, UnMarketing, Trust Me I’m Lying, A Tale of Two Cities, Fire in the Hole and The Half-Made World.

The following is a passage from The Half-Made World, a steampunk fantasy by Felix Gilman. In the passage below, Creedmoor, an agent of the Gun (one of the warring factions in the book), is in a small western-type town, on stage of a travelling snake-salesman show. He has just spotted an enemy across the street and a demon that possesses him though his gun takes over and grants him superpowers. He has been smiling at a pretty girl who was in the company of an “oaf” of a boy, and is on the stage to impress her when he spots an enemy, just as the oaf attempts to give him a stern talking to. Prose ensues.

“But the stupid blond boy lunged out of the crowd and grabbed Creedmoor’s arm with a drunken crushing grip and would not let go. Creedmoor looked into the oaf’s dull eyes and saw there was no reasoning with him; so he flashed one last smile at the oaf’s pretty young lady, wide-blue-eyed in the shade of her green parasol, and he twisted the oaf’s arm – and there was a burning in Creedmoor’s blood and there was cordite and sulfur in his nostrils as now Marmion’s dark strength flooded his veins – he twisted so that the big boy spun like a ballerina and went down on his back with a wet snapping sound and a limp arm flopping at his side.

Creedmoor shrugged and jumped down from the stage. The girl met his eye again and recoiled; his eyes were shot with blood and darkness and he was not smiling now, not at all.”

That book again, ladies and gentlemen, is The Half-Made World.