Boneshaker (Sci Fi Essential Books)
3 journalers for this copy...
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 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.
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 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.
I guess I dropped enough hints to before Christmas as I received two copies of this book, so I am sending off my duplicate in emmejo's Steampunk Bookbox.
I'm taking this book from emmejo's Steampunk bookbox. Steampunk, zombies, and a Pacific Northwest setting (for a bit of a change from London) - how could I resist?
I enjoyed this localized-apocalypse/steampunk/zombie story, which is told from two viewpoints: that of young Zeke Wilkes, who's gone inside the wall to seek the truth about his father (the man whose invention, the Boneshaker, is considered responsible for the devastation that's taken over the city), and of his mother Briar, who's trying to find him before the blight or the zombies take his life. I liked the alternate-history elements, though as the action of this story takes place almost entirely inside the wall we only learn about such things as the ongoing Civil War via comments by the characters. The gritty, toxic-nightmare scenes inside the wall blend survival-horror with heartwarming tenacity on the part of those who've managed to live there. And while the actions of both of the main characters are often exasperating, there are reasons - and when we learn more about those reasons, the story takes an unexpected turn. Good story!
[There's a TV Tropes page on Priest's "Clockwork Century" series, of which this is the first book.]
[There's a TV Tropes page on Priest's "Clockwork Century" series, of which this is the first book.]
I'm adding this book to the Steampunk bookbox, which will be on its way back to BCer emmejo in New York today. Hope someone enjoys it!
*** Released as part of the 2012 Chills & Spills release challenge. ***
*** Released for the 2012 Spook-tacular Halloween release challenge for the embedded "bone" in the title. ***
*** Released as part of the 2012 Chills & Spills release challenge. ***
*** Released for the 2012 Spook-tacular Halloween release challenge for the embedded "bone" in the title. ***
This came to me in the Steampunk Bookbox. I've read it before, and found it a bit slow going, but I'd like to give it another go as I've read several of Priest's books and short stories since then, and really enjoyed them. Maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind the first time around.
The first time I read this book, two years ago or so, I was expecting much more of an action-heavy adventure story, which is what the cover makes it sound like. Re-reading it now, knowing it was more suspense-based and character driven, I enjoyed it a lot more. Priest's writing is smooth and elegantly restrained, suiting her characters and setting. The worldbuilding is solid and manages to avoid too many obvious info dumps, instead working in the info provided by one character to another in a natural seeming way. Every now and then the pacing stumbles, but it is generally not too jarring.
It was also nice to read a popular steampunk tale that didn't feel the need to work in a romantic angle. Sometimes it seems that a sweeping romance is considered as "necessary" an element in steampunk as in urban fantasy.
It was also nice to read a popular steampunk tale that didn't feel the need to work in a romantic angle. Sometimes it seems that a sweeping romance is considered as "necessary" an element in steampunk as in urban fantasy.
I was discussing this author with my mother yesterday and gave her this book to try.
I was helping my mother weed out some books and she gave this back to me, so it will head out for some more travels soon.
Journal Entry 10 by emmejo at Hotel Somerset-Bridgewater in Somerset, New Jersey USA on Sunday, May 17, 2015
Released 8 yrs ago (5/16/2015 UTC) at Hotel Somerset-Bridgewater in Somerset, New Jersey USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Left on a table in the lobby.