Boneshaker | Cherie Priest

Being Part 1 (purely by chance) of my yearly review of the books nominated for the Best Novel Hugo.

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I haven't read enough of the genre to know if steampunk always fits so snug against alternate history, but if Cherie Priest's Boneshaker is any indication, it's a marriage made in whatever concept of the pearly gates you wish to envision.  Part family action adventure, part what-if? scenario with a healthy dollop of zombies to boot, Boneshaker has a bit of everything, and works as a wonderful story for all ages.

The novel, the first in a planned series that focuses on what Priest dubs "The Clockwork Century", uses as its launching point the Alaskan Gold Rush, ramped up a good decade or so to allow for the Seattle we're introduced to in the beginning of the novel.  In the 1880s the Russians hold a contest to see who can create a machine to dig through the hundreds of feet of frozen ice to reach the deep deposits of gold so ruthlessly sought.  Leviticus Blue creates the Boneshaker, a massive vehicular drill that, for reasons not made clear, is driven prematurely through Seattle, causing the destruction of a large portion of the financial district and killing dozens of people.  But even worse, it's unleashed the Blight, a poisonous gas from deep underground that has the nasty habit of turning all who breathe into flesh-eating ghouls who seemingly can't die.  The city is evacuated, and a massive 200 ft. wall is erected to keep the Blight at bay.

This is the legacy Briar Wilkes has to live with: she was formerly Briar Blue, Leviticus's wife.  An outcast in both ner metalworks job and at home to her son, she lives every day with the pain of what her husband did and the secrets about that day she's never told a soul.  Not even her son Zeke, who is determined to discover the truth about his father, even if it means traveling into the city on his own, a city with a beating heart, run by the mad genius Dr. Minnericht, who may or may not be Leviticus Blue.  It's up to Briar to make her way by airship and other means to the heart of the city to rescue her son and come to grips with the truth of what really happened the day the Boneshaker came alive...

Over the course of the novel Boneshaker manages to keep a brisk pace even as it transforms itself again and again: an emotional story of a mother desperately trying to find and reconnect with her son, even as she reconciles with her past, a beautifully crafted example of world-building that evokes the dust and sepia tones of the past even as its action keep the reader firmly in the present, and - above all - a ripping adventure yarn in the vein of the stories I devoured as a kid, under the bedsheets, late at night, my only light source the slowly fading light of a flashlight.  It's a thrilling read and a testament to Cherie Priest that she manages the fine trick of writing a novel that can speak to anyone,and reach right in and grab those pieces of our heart that will forever remain the same age, the age we first discovered the power of out imaginations.

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* I didn't realize until I was about 20 pages from the end that this was nominated for the 2010 Hugo for Best Novel.  A quick look at the other nominees was enough to tell me I was in for a great surprising ride if I again tried to read and review all the nominees, so there you go.


** This was the first complete novel I read on my iPad, using the excellent Kindle application.  Worried about the glare of the bright white screen, I opted for the "sepia" setting, feeling it would fit right in with the tone of the book.  This afternoon I stopped by Barnes and Noble, where the book was prominently displayed.  Flipping through the pages I was happily surprised to see the physical pages were also sepia toned.  Huzzah!


*** Turns out, "boneshaker" is also the name given to the first "true" bicycle.  Did you know that? I didn't, and I find it awesome. 


**** Yes.  I am slightly drunk while writing this.  Why do you ask?