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Boneshaker
Apr. 16th, 2010 18:19Catching up on various things I ought not have let slide (see icon). In the meantime, a review.
Priest, Cherie. Boneshaker. New York: Tor Books, 2009.
This might be the first year ever that I have actually read the majority of the novels up for a Hugo Award, and I have to say, Cherie Priest's dark steampunk fantasy is a strong contender for the top honor in my opinion.
I suspect that at this point introduction may well be superfluous, but I shall introduce the book anyway: Boneshaker is the inaugural volume set in Priest's Clockwork Century, a reworked C19th in which the Civil War has lasted 20 years, with no end in sight, driving all sorts of mechanical innovations along in its wake. At the same time, in Seattle, just before the Civil War began, an unfortunate consequence of the Klondike gold rush in the person of the mad inventor Leviticus led to the Blight, a poisonous yellow gas that seeps from the ground of the ruined city and turns those who come into contact with it into 'rotters.' Sixteen years later the former Briar Blue lives with her son Ezekiel in the Outside, the settlement that surrounds Seattle's walls, but when Zeke goes in to learn about his own history, Briar has no choice but to follow him, catching a ride on the airship called Naamah Darling.
( Steampunk in Seattle )
Priest, Cherie. Boneshaker. New York: Tor Books, 2009.
This might be the first year ever that I have actually read the majority of the novels up for a Hugo Award, and I have to say, Cherie Priest's dark steampunk fantasy is a strong contender for the top honor in my opinion.
I suspect that at this point introduction may well be superfluous, but I shall introduce the book anyway: Boneshaker is the inaugural volume set in Priest's Clockwork Century, a reworked C19th in which the Civil War has lasted 20 years, with no end in sight, driving all sorts of mechanical innovations along in its wake. At the same time, in Seattle, just before the Civil War began, an unfortunate consequence of the Klondike gold rush in the person of the mad inventor Leviticus led to the Blight, a poisonous yellow gas that seeps from the ground of the ruined city and turns those who come into contact with it into 'rotters.' Sixteen years later the former Briar Blue lives with her son Ezekiel in the Outside, the settlement that surrounds Seattle's walls, but when Zeke goes in to learn about his own history, Briar has no choice but to follow him, catching a ride on the airship called Naamah Darling.
( Steampunk in Seattle )
