Book Review: Boneshaker

Boneshaker

By:  Cherie Priest

Publisher:  Tor

Publish Date:  2009

Format:  Paperback, 414 pages

Genre:  Fiction, Steampunk

Series:  Stand-alone novel

Recommendation:  YES!!!!  To anyone who loves reading some action in a historically amazing twist of a setting.

Book Synopsis:
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, 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 teenage 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 ou alive.

First Sentence:
She saw him, and she stopped a few feet from the stairs.

My Review and Synopsis:
The story starts right out with a bit of history, written by Hale Qaurter, of what happened to the city of Seattle in 1863.  Hale then tries to talk with Briar Wilkes, who will NOT share any part of her story with anyone - not even her own son.  Briar not only lost her husband, but her father as well when the city was evacuated from the blight gas spreading.  Both of these men play important parts in history and in the current.  The blight gas is gas released from in the earth, thanks to the Boneshakers test run, which caused the living to turn into the undead.  This story takes place sixteen years after ward, when the East coast is in a civil war and Washington wasn't even a state yet.

I loved the writting style in this book, because the story was constantly moving and you where always learning.  There are many things for now and the history of the city learned in the book, and they were very easily noticed as seperate times.  The current story along with the history was almost like two stories for me in one book.  I loved the creativeness in the story line and idea.

I have to admit I am not a person who really wants to read of zombies.  I don't know what it is about the decaying gray skinned dead humans trying to eat live human skin, but I just find them to turn my stomach.  But the undead in this book are not the main characters or problems.  And yes I said problem with an "s".  There are a few troubles to get through as the book goes on.

I loved the characters from the start of the story.  They are struggling to get by, and as many parents may experience no matter what year it is - the growing space between parent and child as they go through the teen years to become independant adults they are yet not quite ready for.  The relationship between Briar and her son is a great tie in the book and accented very nicely with the story.



This book and review qualify for two of my Challenges.
1.)  February Mini-Challenge New Authors: The League @ Literary Escapism
2.)  Speculative Fiction Challenge @ Book Chick City