Trade Paperback, 416 pages
English language
Published Nov. 7, 2009 by Tor.
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.
I liked boneshaker. The pacing is good. The charachters are good.
Tbh the book could have done without the "zombification".
Tolerable. I'm not really into Steampunk, but this book doesn't dwell so much on weird technology. Also not a huge fan of zombie stories, but again, those aren't really the main focus.
Very surprised I didn't enjoy this. I though Ezekiel was quite possibly the most irritating character I have read in a really long time. I get that he is a teenager, but some of the things he said were just so blatantly stupid it felt like the author was very awkwardly trying to get the reader to understand something (I'm sure there's a word or two to describe what I mean, but whatever). I find this odd, because I read "Maplecroft" by this author and adored it. So this was definitely not my favorite.
I still think I'll try to read the others in the series, because I find steampunk fascinating. And I've heard the second book is really good.
This book was way more fun than I expected it to be. But I love the idea of a walled, secret steampunk Seattle full of zombies. I had some trouble keeping the supporting characters straight, and for a book with a lot of moments that are supposed to be tense and scary I never really felt pulled into the narrative. Nonetheless, I had low expectations, and it was a good rainy weekend afternoon read.
Entertaining read. Nothing to deep or revolutionary.
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 …
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.
Not so much zombies than I was expecting, bit of a slog to finish.
This was a quick read and a lot of fun.
I expected to enjoy this book a lot more than I actually did. The Steampunk/Post Apocalypse/Zombie blend is a really great idea. I think the main problem I had was the simple fact that the characters didn’t mean anything to me and I didn’t care if they lived or died, also I do think the story droned on a little bit and could of been trimmed a little more to make the story more exciting.
Boneshaker is one of those novels that you just can't put down. From the opening premise through to the last paragraph I felt like I was right there with the characters as they moved through the city. And what great characters they were too! From the main characters of Briar and her son Zeke through to crew of the airships, everyone had personality and I felt like the author really put effort into developing each of them.
Like others, I found Briar's "secret" pretty obvious. Usually that would put me off a novel, but in this case there was enough detail and depth in the novel for it not to matter so much. And sure, there were a few little things that you could pick on but you'd find small problems in almost any novel.
On the whole it was a great and pleasurable read. I can't wait to read …
Boneshaker is one of those novels that you just can't put down. From the opening premise through to the last paragraph I felt like I was right there with the characters as they moved through the city. And what great characters they were too! From the main characters of Briar and her son Zeke through to crew of the airships, everyone had personality and I felt like the author really put effort into developing each of them.
Like others, I found Briar's "secret" pretty obvious. Usually that would put me off a novel, but in this case there was enough detail and depth in the novel for it not to matter so much. And sure, there were a few little things that you could pick on but you'd find small problems in almost any novel.
On the whole it was a great and pleasurable read. I can't wait to read the next novel in the series!
�Steampunk. The first 20 or so pages are painfully depressed, but if you keep going you will get to the action-packed part.
Steampunk and Zombies in Civil War era Seattle. What's not to like?
This book was pretty good. I think it was deeply steam-punk, and yet while I haven't read a ton of steam-punk themed books, it felt a little stereotypical. Almost like I was reading the script to some of the original final fantasy games. Not to say overall it didn't have some cool concepts. I would recommend this book, however I was not left with the desire to find more of this authors work.
A good little book. Fast-paced and entertaining, it was filled with both action and light-hearted moments. But I just cannot get into a "steampunk" world. The futuristic-type inventions in the 1880s, during a fictitiously extended US Civil War, did not add to, or subtract from, the story. It was just there. A nice foray into the genre, I don't see myself reading any more, nor picking up the other books of Priest's "The Clockwork Century" of which Boneshaker is the first.
Still a free book to sample the "steampunk" genre isn't a bad thing.
This was my first experience with Priest's work, and it was a pleasure. I found it to be a brilliantly imagined steampunk novel set during an extended Civil War, and in Seattle, a catastrophic event has brought the Blight upon the city, which causes the dead to walk. The story focuses on a mother seeking to save her son, whom has charged off into the city to find out about his father. Along the way she encounters air pirates, zombie rotters, and the other people who choose to brave the Blight, living beneath the ground and in sealed vaults for protection. However, its also a mystery, for the son's quest will lead them both on a journey to answer the questions raised by the Blight, and to learn once and for all the real history of the experiment that started it all.
The book is well written, the action is …
This was my first experience with Priest's work, and it was a pleasure. I found it to be a brilliantly imagined steampunk novel set during an extended Civil War, and in Seattle, a catastrophic event has brought the Blight upon the city, which causes the dead to walk. The story focuses on a mother seeking to save her son, whom has charged off into the city to find out about his father. Along the way she encounters air pirates, zombie rotters, and the other people who choose to brave the Blight, living beneath the ground and in sealed vaults for protection. However, its also a mystery, for the son's quest will lead them both on a journey to answer the questions raised by the Blight, and to learn once and for all the real history of the experiment that started it all.
The book is well written, the action is tight, and it's just a hell of a lot of fun to read. The only complaint I have is that the last chapter seemed a little flat to me, almost an unnecessary epilogue, that answers none of the questions that still remain, but without actually building any sort of wonderment or cliffhanger. This is the only reason that I'm only doing four stars.
