Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Hi all,

Next up on my Hugo reading list was Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. It's the first of a series of steampunk books that the author intends to be a magnum opus for the sub-genre. I liked it because it had zombies and airships.

This book is a rollicking, fun adventure story set in an alternate 1860s Seattle. A large portion of the city has been rendered uninhabitable by a terrible accident involving the Boneshaker, a sort of subterranean tunnelling machine which had earlier pierced a vein of poisonous gas which rose out of the ground and turned the city's residents into zombies.

To halt the spread of the gas, which is heavier than air, and the plague of zombies, the affected area of the city has been walled off.

It turns out, thought, that people still live inside despite the zombie threat. They are either folks who don't want to leave or others involved in a spinoff trade in drugs distilled from the gas. As a result, there is a strange outlaw culture that has arisen in the plague zone.

The hero of the story is the wife of the man who caused this calamity. She lives with her teenage son who sneaks into the city to find out what really happened to his despised father who is presumed to have died at the time. The boy wants to find out the truth so that he can clear his father's name.

Mom is not too pleased to find the boy is gone so she hitches a ride with some sky pirates into the city where she has all sorts of adventures fighting zombie hordes as she seeks out her son.

This is a highly entertaining book and will please most science fiction fans. The pacing is good, the characters well drawn and the steampunk era superbly imagined and believable.

Of the three nominees I've read so far, this one was my favourite, but I still have three more to go!

Capt. Xerox