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Product Description
Cherie Priest s long awaited steampunk debut At the start of the Civil War, a Russian mining company commissions a great machine to pave the way from Seattle to Alaska and speed up the gold rush that is beating a path to the frozen north. Inventor Leviticus Blue creates the machine, but on its first test run it malfunctions, decimating Seattle s banking district and uncovering a vein of Blight Gas that turns everyone who breathes it into the living dead. Sixteen years later Briar, Blue s widow, lives in the poor neighborhood outside the wall that s been built around the uninhabitable city. Life is tough with a ruined reputation, but she and her teenage son Ezekiel are surviving until Zeke impetuously decides that he must reclaim his father s name from the clutches of history.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Surprisingly, the detailed blurb for this book doesn't give much away. Most of that background info is crammed into the first couple of pages. It is presented as an extract from a historical novel, which one of the characters is writing.
This character, Hale Quarter, is one of the first people we come across in chapter one. We see the world from a mixture of his and Briar's point-of-view. Then, Quarter disappears, and doesn't reappear again in the novel. Not a particularly smooth introduction to the story.
The novel is structured with two dominant view points: Briar and Zeke. Each have their own chapters. Briar's chapters are illustrated with a pair of goggles at the beginning, and Zeke's chapters with a gas lamp. A nice touch.
I felt Priest painted Briar's character quite well. Her history, her flaws, made her more human. However, she boarded on the stereotypical 'mother who will stop at nothing' to save her child.
Zeke, on the other hand, was an incredibly annoying character. He is meant to be an older teenager, but acts more like a ten or eleven year old. He lacks a sense of maturity, and his thoughts are simple. Often, he comes across as rather dumb, and I felt almost completely unsympathetic towards him.
Whereas Briar has a much more active stance in moving the plot forward, Zeke is lead around by others, making him passive and quite boring.
All four-hundred pages of the book take place within a few days. And this slow pace often takes its toll. The action scenes are well executed and exciting, but the spaces between them are often bogged down with unnecessary description, bantering, and time-fillers. It seems to me that there is no real control over the contours of action and suspense.
I commend Priest's original zombie ideas. The term 'rotter' is both apt and phonetically pleasing, and I liked the idea that these zombies were created by a poisonous gas. However, there is no attempt to explain why this 'blight' created the undead, or why or how it was being formed beneath the city. The characters don't even wonder about this, which I found strange. The role of the zombies in the plot is quite unoriginal. They are just there to loom, chase and destroy.
The steampunk elements are largely aesthetic. There are copious amounts of goggles, airships, weird weapons and strange devices. Nothing seems superficial in the sense that all the steampunk objects are important to the narrative. However, there is no real sense of rebellion in this text, no real sense of the 'punk'. This book doesn't really try to hold up a mirror to anything, to reveal any ugly truth.
The book itself bears a sepia text (as opposed to traditional black) which I personally found a little hard on the eyes. However, I adore the cover art and design.
Overall, I did enjoy reading Boneshaker, despite its flaws. Priest's imagined world is rich and dark. Perhaps with a little more editing and fine tuning, this book could have been even better.
This character, Hale Quarter, is one of the first people we come across in chapter one. We see the world from a mixture of his and Briar's point-of-view. Then, Quarter disappears, and doesn't reappear again in the novel. Not a particularly smooth introduction to the story.
The novel is structured with two dominant view points: Briar and Zeke. Each have their own chapters. Briar's chapters are illustrated with a pair of goggles at the beginning, and Zeke's chapters with a gas lamp. A nice touch.
I felt Priest painted Briar's character quite well. Her history, her flaws, made her more human. However, she boarded on the stereotypical 'mother who will stop at nothing' to save her child.
Zeke, on the other hand, was an incredibly annoying character. He is meant to be an older teenager, but acts more like a ten or eleven year old. He lacks a sense of maturity, and his thoughts are simple. Often, he comes across as rather dumb, and I felt almost completely unsympathetic towards him.
Whereas Briar has a much more active stance in moving the plot forward, Zeke is lead around by others, making him passive and quite boring.
All four-hundred pages of the book take place within a few days. And this slow pace often takes its toll. The action scenes are well executed and exciting, but the spaces between them are often bogged down with unnecessary description, bantering, and time-fillers. It seems to me that there is no real control over the contours of action and suspense.
I commend Priest's original zombie ideas. The term 'rotter' is both apt and phonetically pleasing, and I liked the idea that these zombies were created by a poisonous gas. However, there is no attempt to explain why this 'blight' created the undead, or why or how it was being formed beneath the city. The characters don't even wonder about this, which I found strange. The role of the zombies in the plot is quite unoriginal. They are just there to loom, chase and destroy.
The steampunk elements are largely aesthetic. There are copious amounts of goggles, airships, weird weapons and strange devices. Nothing seems superficial in the sense that all the steampunk objects are important to the narrative. However, there is no real sense of rebellion in this text, no real sense of the 'punk'. This book doesn't really try to hold up a mirror to anything, to reveal any ugly truth.
The book itself bears a sepia text (as opposed to traditional black) which I personally found a little hard on the eyes. However, I adore the cover art and design.
Overall, I did enjoy reading Boneshaker, despite its flaws. Priest's imagined world is rich and dark. Perhaps with a little more editing and fine tuning, this book could have been even better.
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
After enjoying Four and Twenty Blackbirds, I've been meaning to read more of Cherie Priest's work but my reading pile has simply been to large and diverse to come back. However, when Boneshaker came out, I simply had to get it and bump it up on top of the pile. I have no regrets doing so.
Determined to clear his father's name, Zeke runs away from home and finds a way into the city. His worried mother soon follows him and the narrative switches back and forth between them and their desperate struggle to find what they are looking for. They make friends and enemies alike until they are finally confronted with the the ruler of the inner city who might hold all the answers...
There have been few books in recent years that have captivated me as much as Boneshaker, it is simply unputdownable. The plot chucks along nicely, constantly little bits of the background are revealed but never too much so the reader is always left guessing at the truth until it is finally revealed in the end.
The setting isn't classic steampunk in that it isn't Victorian England or the Empire but it has all the elements. Belching furnaces, wonderful and horrible machines and gadets made from brass and wood, dirigibles and airships and of course goggles in all kinds of shapes and sizes, creating an interesting world away from the stereotype. Also unlike the stereotype it is a dark and depressing world, everyone is fighting for survival or making ends meet.
Both plot and characters are very well written and vividly described so it's easy for the reader's mental eye to imagine what's going on.
Well done Cherie, I can't wait for the next book in this universe.
Determined to clear his father's name, Zeke runs away from home and finds a way into the city. His worried mother soon follows him and the narrative switches back and forth between them and their desperate struggle to find what they are looking for. They make friends and enemies alike until they are finally confronted with the the ruler of the inner city who might hold all the answers...
There have been few books in recent years that have captivated me as much as Boneshaker, it is simply unputdownable. The plot chucks along nicely, constantly little bits of the background are revealed but never too much so the reader is always left guessing at the truth until it is finally revealed in the end.
The setting isn't classic steampunk in that it isn't Victorian England or the Empire but it has all the elements. Belching furnaces, wonderful and horrible machines and gadets made from brass and wood, dirigibles and airships and of course goggles in all kinds of shapes and sizes, creating an interesting world away from the stereotype. Also unlike the stereotype it is a dark and depressing world, everyone is fighting for survival or making ends meet.
Both plot and characters are very well written and vividly described so it's easy for the reader's mental eye to imagine what's going on.
Well done Cherie, I can't wait for the next book in this universe.
Format:Paperback
In an alternate 1860s Seattle, Briar Wilkes and her son Zeke are living hand to mouth on the outskirts of a once bustling city of the gold rush. Sixteen years previous, the city was literally torn asunder by the Boneshaker, a great drill-engine built by Briar's then husband, Dr. Blue, to mine through Alaska's ice in search of gold. This terrible disaster not only caused many deaths and ruined livelihoods but unearthed a blight gas that turns anybody who breathes it into the living dead. Now Zeke wants answers. Was his father really to blame? He heads off to the other side of the wall with an old gas mask and an antique rifle and only Briar can bring him back.
Last but not least in Discovering Steampunk: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. Boneshaker is a cleverly weaved nail-biting story full of intricacies and hidden history. Beginning with a catastrophic event that shakes the very foundations of Seattle and its' people, causing them to have to wall off the main part of the town to remove the possibility of blight contamination from the strange gas that was unearthed all those years ago, it reminded me a lot of an action-horror film.
It is a fantastically written piece of fiction. It's atmospheric, chilling, and dark. The entire story has layers and hidden depths that I can only hope are explored in later books and the rich description paints such a clear picture of the environment that it is just the story and you. It is told from two perspectives, those of Briar and Zeke, and their stories are so tightly connected yet distant with entirely different voices that it really keeps the narrative ever-changing and fresh.
The relationship between Briar Wilkes, and her son Ezekial is explored in depth as he runs off to recredit his family name from beyond the wall, and Briar strives to rescue him from a world of `rotters' (zombies), blight gas which turns people into rotters if breathed, and the criminals who have made a life for themselves there. It is heart-rending and gripping to the very end.
Briar might actually be one of my favourite heroines in modern fiction. She reminds me of a Ripleyesque 80's action heroine, kicking arse and not just for the sake of it but because she has to. There is no romance, just a grim fight for survival of herself and her son and she is willing to do anything to save him. The strong female heroine is a very difficult trope to manage because very often it is taken too far and you know it's been used just to make a statement, or they aren't that strong at all, however, Briar is neither and I love that about her character.
I would recommend Boneshaker for folk who enjoy a good adult novel. There's no sexual content but if you don't enjoy adult fiction, you won't enjoy this as it can be quite slow-going in parts. However, if that doesn't bother you, then it comes highly recommended from me as a steampunk staple. There's a bit of a horror element to it, though nothing that will have you hiding under the covers if you read it at night, there are a few zombies, a strong criminal underground, and everything fits together so well. It's easy to lose yourself in the story and forget that you're reading a work of fiction.
Last but not least in Discovering Steampunk: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. Boneshaker is a cleverly weaved nail-biting story full of intricacies and hidden history. Beginning with a catastrophic event that shakes the very foundations of Seattle and its' people, causing them to have to wall off the main part of the town to remove the possibility of blight contamination from the strange gas that was unearthed all those years ago, it reminded me a lot of an action-horror film.
It is a fantastically written piece of fiction. It's atmospheric, chilling, and dark. The entire story has layers and hidden depths that I can only hope are explored in later books and the rich description paints such a clear picture of the environment that it is just the story and you. It is told from two perspectives, those of Briar and Zeke, and their stories are so tightly connected yet distant with entirely different voices that it really keeps the narrative ever-changing and fresh.
The relationship between Briar Wilkes, and her son Ezekial is explored in depth as he runs off to recredit his family name from beyond the wall, and Briar strives to rescue him from a world of `rotters' (zombies), blight gas which turns people into rotters if breathed, and the criminals who have made a life for themselves there. It is heart-rending and gripping to the very end.
Briar might actually be one of my favourite heroines in modern fiction. She reminds me of a Ripleyesque 80's action heroine, kicking arse and not just for the sake of it but because she has to. There is no romance, just a grim fight for survival of herself and her son and she is willing to do anything to save him. The strong female heroine is a very difficult trope to manage because very often it is taken too far and you know it's been used just to make a statement, or they aren't that strong at all, however, Briar is neither and I love that about her character.
I would recommend Boneshaker for folk who enjoy a good adult novel. There's no sexual content but if you don't enjoy adult fiction, you won't enjoy this as it can be quite slow-going in parts. However, if that doesn't bother you, then it comes highly recommended from me as a steampunk staple. There's a bit of a horror element to it, though nothing that will have you hiding under the covers if you read it at night, there are a few zombies, a strong criminal underground, and everything fits together so well. It's easy to lose yourself in the story and forget that you're reading a work of fiction.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Don't Order the Kindle Version Unless You Speak German
I have been waiting for this to come out in eBook format, and ordered it by one-click when the kindle edition came up as a buying option. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Peter
Slightly flawed but readable nonetheless
Some interesting ideas but characterisation is not great and the storyline is jumpy and poorly plotted. Read more
Published 12 months ago by M Lamb
of mountains and molehills
I was so excited to read this novel. Steampunk, zombies and airships. The package looked great, awesome front cover art and even the font colour indicated that this novel could be... Read more
Published 15 months ago by M. P. Brown
Too many pages, not enough story.
I bought this because I heard it described as 'the perfect steampunk novel'.
Well, OK, it has a lot of the expected steampunk elements. Read more
Well, OK, it has a lot of the expected steampunk elements. Read more
Published 17 months ago by J. Scott
A fun book that could have been much better...
This novel promises much with a really interesting steampunk scenario. It is the late 1870s and the American Civil War is still raging. Read more
Published 19 months ago by A. J. Poulter
Readable and entertaining, but not without flaws
Seattle, 1880. Sixteen years ago the inventor Levictus Blue built a machine to tunnel under the Klondike ice to help mine gold. Read more
Published 19 months ago by A. Whitehead
Steampunk Seattle crossed with some zombies, airships and a big...
In 1800s Seattle Levi Blue's 'Boneshaker' (essentially a huge drill) wreaks havoc on its test outing, churning up the streets and releasing a highly poisonous yellow gas into the... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Read Me
Excellent novel
Ignore the detractors - this is an excellent novel - full of action and excitement, and a gen-u-ine 'page-turner'. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Ms. L. Chambers
Cracking steampunk, Gromit
Cherie Priest's clanking choking world in Boneshaker is awesome. As a steampunk fan it ticked most of the right boxes for me, merging thrown together technology with robust and... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Peej Maybe
Poorly written and boring
Despite I like steampunk genre quite a lot I have to say that this novel is not the best for the genre. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Fizio
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