In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born. But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, … awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.
Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.
His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.
At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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Boneshaker is a steampunk zombie adventure set in an alternate 1880’s America. A strong female protagonist, a diverse cast of characters, and a quest to save a son from a fate worse than death make this novel a gripping page-turner. Post-apocalyptic nineteenth-century Seattle is lovingly drawn and makes the perfect backdrop for this compelling family drama.
I listened to this one as an audio book and Wil Wheaton was one of the voice actors, which was a fun little surprise. It made the long hours of my road trip fly by!
What initially intrigued me about Boneshaker is that the story takes place around Seattle. Being somewhat familiar with the city, I wondered how an author of a steampunk fantasy describes the Emerald City. Well, the Seattle Cherie Priest describes is far different from the Seattle of today. The action takes place over 150 years ago in the early days of the Civil War. Adventurers hungry for fortune have flooded the Pacific Northwest, eager to reach Alaska with its promise of gold. Only there’s been a catastrophe in Seattle, an experimental mining machine has released a gas that essentially turns people into zombies. The city has been walled off with the one-time residents living hardscrabble lives in the shadow of the wall.
The descriptions of the city and surrounding environment include a few references people familiar with the greater Seattle area will recognize, such as Denny Way, Bainbridge Island, the Seattle waterfront, and the extensive underground. These references are pretty cool and, at least for me, add a bit of pleasant seasoning to the story.
The plot follows the attempted rescue of the teenage lad Ezekiel, who has unadvisedly entered Seattle to learn about his family’s past, by his mother Briar Wilkes. The narrative is divided between the two characters. Personally, I found the scenes from Briar’s perspective more interesting. Perhaps being a parent myself, I have a better appreciation of her emotional state. I really enjoy Briar as the protagonist because she is as tough as nails and no-nonsense. By no means is she a weeping violet, even when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds and various unsavory characters. That being said, the scenes from Ezekiel’s point of view are also highly entertaining.
One thing Cherie Priest does extremely well is line up the obstacles for Briar. In her attempt to rescue her son, she has to overcome violent drug dealers, all while surviving a hostile landscape of poison gas and ravenous zombies. The way these obstacles intertwine throughout the story is quite impressive.
In conclusion, anyone interested in fantasy or steampunk or alternate history will likely find Boneshaker an enjoyable read. Currently, I am reading the second book in the Clockwork Century series called Dreadnought, which features an entirely new protagonist but takes place in the same steampunk alternate history as Boneshaker. This book is just as entertaining as Boneshaker, leading me to believe the entire five-book series is worthy of reading.
Great escapist entertainment. Priest is skilled at blending historical atmosphere with alternative steampunk themes, along with zombies!
I normally don’t care for steampunk, but I’ve never actually read a steampunk novel, so I decided to give it a try — if only because half of it was narrated by Wil Wheaton. And also because it has zombies in it.
This is the kind of story suited for words (by which I mean books). Most books nowadays try to create vivid scenes in the reader’s mind, maybe because our culture is so movie-centered. I don’t like it; I prefer the medium to have something to do with the story, and that’s what Cherie Priest gifts the reader with.
We follow two stories here. The main protagonist is Briar Wilkes, the widow of the man responsible for destroying Seattle and the daughter of a criminal seen as a hero by the lowlife who still inhabit the zombie-plagued, walled in city. She’s shaken out of her stupor of a life after her son, Ezekiel (the other main character) decides to go into the dead city in search for clues about who his infamous father really was.
The zombies here are the usual: a looming danger just around the corner that will certainly kill you if you don’t keep quiet — usually by the sheer power of their numbers. They’re a little more than deadly set dressing for the actual adventure that takes place in underground Seattle. You’ll get your share of the action in the form of occasional shootouts (generally followed by a lot of running), but the crown of this fine novel is the steampunk gadgets, contraptions, and overall feel of a world with that kind of fantasy technology.
Zombies and steampunk. Who knew. It’s like peanut butter and chocolate!