Boneshaker

(The Clockwork Century)

by Cherie Priest

Paperback, 416 pages

English language

Published Nov. 8, 2009 by Tor.

ISBN:: 9780765318411

(12 reviews)

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 16 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 …

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 16 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.
-Goodreads

1 edition

saxnot reviewed Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Really liked this book ; second book in series is weak thought

4 stars

I liked boneshaker. The pacing is good. The charachters are good.

Tbh the book could have done without the "zombification".

Jonathan Arnold reviewed Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Review of 'Boneshaker' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

This will be a fairly short review as I have to admit I didn't finish the book. Heck, I didn't even make it halfway through it, sadly enough.

It tells the story of a woman and her son, as he tries to find out more about his father, inventor of the Bone-Shaking Drill Engine, in an alternative 1880s, which feature steam engines and dirigibles. Then engine went crazy, released some sort of gas that turned much of Seattle into a city of the undead.

16 years after these events, the boy decides (why? We're not sure) to head into the city to see their old house. The mother finds out and heads in to save him. Through a series of already hard to believe events, she can't use the same way in, so she gets to fly in.

Both characters made me think of the author - they are all in search for something. The boy for his old house, the woman for her son and the author for a story. I made it nearly halfway through and still not much had happened. Some exposition on the current state of things, but otherwise, the boy was wandering around and the mother wandering around somewhere else. I gave it a few tries and wanted to give it one more push, but life is too short and my To Read list is up around 800 books, so it was time to move on.