Cherie Priest

Boneshaker

Rebecca C Wright

I loved that the location of this story is as important as the characters. The story is exciting and the characters are well developed. I hated to see the book end. Such an amazing world:)

Michael Springer

``Miss Eliza Bennet, let me persuade you to follow my example, and take a turn about the room. -- I assure you the anti-gravity hoverchannel is very refreshing after sitting so long in one attitude.''
 
Eliza was surprised, but agreed to it immediately. She unstrapt herself from her leather seat restraints and stood, careful to maintain her balance as the airship encountered turbulence. When she entered the hoverchannel, she activated the polarity redistribution magnets within her combat suit and began floating comfortably around the perimeter of the foyer.
 
Miss Bingley's attention was quite engaged in watching Mr. Darcy's progress through his book, so much so that at one point she nearly navigated the ship into the side of Pemberley; and she was perpetually making some inquiry.
 
At length, finally exhausted by her tenacious attempts to force a conversation regarding his book, Darcy relented. "It's entitled Boneshaker. An American novel."
 
"What do you think of it?" Eliza said as she drifted by. 
 
"A bit nonsensical, really. Steampunk claptrap about the Civil War going on much longer than it actually did, which caused technological advances that didn't really happen until much later. And a zombie-infested city called Seattle. It has been blocked off from the rest of the country, and our heroine must go in to rescue her foolish son." 
 
Mr. Bingley crossed the room, his steam-powered mechanical legs stomping their way across the carpet to the cabinet where he refilled his glass. "Zombies in America? That does sound quite silly. Everyone knows that zombies are native to Britain. That's how I lost my legs."
 
"Please, Bingley, don't tell us that old story again," Mr. Hurst said, adjusting himself on the sofa before falling back asleep.
 
Darcy said, "The plot moves along at a good pace, but the characters are a bit uninspired. A teenage boy constantly doing something inadvisable; the protective mother, blasting zombies and trying to save him."
 
Eliza smiled. "Darcy, certainly you aren't saying literature is full of strong female characters who run around rescuing male characters."
 
"Nor should it be," Mr. Hurst said, drifting slowly in and out of consciousness.
 
Ignoring Mr. Hurst's interjection, Darcy said, "I suppose the fairer sex aren't shown in powerful roles that often, even in these books written in the far future about the distant past . . . er, or perhaps about the same time as now . . . When were we written?"
 
Miss Bingley inquired, "Are you sure the dinner agreed with you?"
 
"I feel fine, thank you," Darcy said. 
 
"Admit it," Sherlock Holmes said, standing in the doorway, Watson at his side. "You enjoy all the fashionable gimmicks flying left and right, and the pace keeps you entertained. Yet you wonder why nothing surprising was done with any of these elements."
 
Darcy moved over as Holmes sat on the sofa beside him, lighting a pipe. "You're right, Holmes. The whole reinvention of the Civil War is fascinating in theory. Then the author does nothing with it. The book has nothing to say. No reflections on the civil war, racism, or politics. Nor does it say anything about the true nature of zombies. In fact, it says little about love, which is the very heart of the story."
 
J. K. Rowling, refilling her glass of zinfandel, said, "And it's practically a young adult novel, isn't it? Other than one or two mildly violent zombie moments and one four letter 'S' word, this could be the next film from Pixar. There's not even a gay sorcerer to throw off the prudes." 
 
Darcy met Eliza's eyes as she orbited the room. "Have you read it as well, Miss Bennett?"
 
"Braaaains," Mr. Hurst moaned softly.

"I found it diverting," Eliza said. "I always read the books nominated for the Nebula awards. But, like you, I found the novel didn't meet my expectations. When you look beyond the stylish trappings, you have a run-of-the-mill adventure story written in a workmanlike fashion. I imagine the query letter was spectacular, though."
 
Darcy was on the verge of speaking when Mr. Hurst lunged up from the sofa, saliva splattering from his vicious maw, his eyes sunken in and rolled back into his head. He lurched across the room toward Bingley, whose back was facing him.
 
Eliza kicked off of the wall and rolled over to Darcy, pulling his pistol from his belt, and fired several rounds through Mr. Hurst's head. A splatter of blood, brain and skull chips showered down on Harold Bloom.
 
"Well," Mr. Harold Bloom said, wiping blood from his face and wiping it on the sofa, "that was entirely unnecessary, but what HASN'T been? The whole book review is sound and fury, signifying nothing. And how many times is this hack going to parody Pride and Prejudice? He seems to think it's much more funny than it is, just as Oscar Wilde thought himself hilarious, when he is in fact highly over-esteemed."
 
Holmes puffed his pipe, a gray cloud of smoke rising above him. "I can't believe I didn't notice Mr. Hurst was turning. Usually I'm so attentive to details."
 
"Nobody's perfect," Darcy said. "Would you mind putting that pipe out? We are in a zeppelin, you know."
 
Holmes sighed and stood up, pulling on his overcoat. "I'm going next door to the Kurt Vonnegut review. Pipe smoking is encouraged over there." 
 
And as Holmes left the room, suddenly the review stopped.

Janice Hopper

I didn't buy the premises of this book at all. 

Giant walls built around the city to hold in a zombiegenic gas? Gas that was toxic enough that a loose mask strap could turn a person into a zombie. The gas was apparently toxic enough that it could damage skin and hair, but people still chose to live there?

And even though the zombie gas is heavier than air, people live in tunnels. Because they have some kind of air system that's strong enough to ventilate all those tunnels??

I didn't buy a bit of it. I only hung on reading it because I bought it ages ago and thought I should bull through to see what it was all about. 

I also didn't think much of the characters, but they were better than the setting. 

Maybe I'm just not cut out for steampunk. 

But the airships were kinda cool, though I couldn't really visualize how they worked either. 

You can tell that the author was trying to create some larger-than-life characters, though the main characters remained ordinary folks. I was reminded of the '60s series The Wild, Wild West more than once. But the whole thing just didn't work for me.

Stephanie Ridiculous

Full transparency: the 4 stars is probably more nostalgia than genuine appreciation for the book. It's decent, but not mindblowing. I did cringe a lot regarding the very dated language/portrayal of certain ethnicities, and that probably should warrant a lower rating than I'm giving it.

Libby G

** spoiler alert **
           (Review has spoilers)I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I'm not much of a steampunk fan personally but the cover of this one caught my eye. I was almost discouraged by the little introduction, it was too bland for me but I pushed through to the first chapter and I was sucked into the world. But for me the saving grace was the ending. 
I LOVED the ending. Briar Wilkes my friends is the definition of a bad ass. She never let the fact that her husband basically created a zombie wasteland stop her from working to take care of her child. In the end of the book when the man posing as her husband is in the process of dying she looks away. Not because she's squeamish. At that point in the book we've learned that Briar will kick ass and take names in order to find her son. No she looks away because she "didn't care about his death." She didn't even give the bad guy the luxury of a death scene. It was pure gold.
It gets better though, because while all these people inside the wall were trying to convince her that Dr. Minnericht was her assumed dead husband she always said "no it's not him." because as it turns out she shot him because he lied to her and used his invention to rob a bank, didn't care about her just how pretty she was. He though she was helpless and weak and she proved him otherwise. 
Also there was no romance in this book. No Briar finding true love after she shot her jerk husband. Just Briar sneaking into a walled city to find her son no matter what.
Briar is just the most amazing character and as I flipped the last page I realized that I'm really gonna miss her.

Harriet Moar-Smith

I really enjoyed this book overall, it had everything I wanted in it and it was an easy read.

A couple of things took me out of the time period or place which was jarring but for the most part a great read that was just a fun romp for the most part.

Pam Sartain

This was a steam-punk with zombies adventure, which worked very well. Seattle is the place, and the zombies are made by the Blight - an underground gas thought to have something to do with volcanoes! 

There is a lot that you are told very quickly - that Levicitus Blue was an inventor, and that he entered the contest to build a machine that could mine for gold in the ice of the Klondike - the prize put up by the Russian government. He wins, and then tests the machine (the Boneshakes) that he makes earlier than anticipated. The Boneshakes apparently goes wrong, and he ploughs through the financial disctrict, and then back to his house, with the machine having gone so deep in one place, that it has unleashed the Blight gas, which isn't known about for a couple of days.

Most people flee the city, not wanting to become Blight zombies, and all blame Blue, and his wife.

The actual story is set 16 years later, and it's the story of Blue's widow - Briar Wilkes, and her son, Ezekial (Zeke), and of his thirst for knowing what happened, and clearing his father's name, and so making life a little easier for himself and his mother.

Interesting, terrifying, and fun!

Boneshaker

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