Boneshaker is a steampunk thriller set shortly after the Civil War, but takes place in an alternate time period. It befits the genre well with its use of technology and a very industrial setting. I've read that this has drawn some comparisons to John Carpenter's Escape from New York.

The story begins in Seattle where a lot of gold seekers have established a city. An inventor builds an underground drilling machine called a ‘boneshaker' and plans to use it for getting into the mines, but instead it gets away from him. The resulting damage causes buildings and roadways to collapse and destroyed a large portion of the city while also releasing a gas that turns people into zombies. The survivors put a huge wall up around the damaged area and the rest of the city falls into financial ruin. After all, who wants to live next to that kind of mess?

The wife and son of the man responsible for ruining the city are still living nearby and struggling to make ends meet. When the son goes off exploring behind the walled area, his mother decides to go in after him. Neither had been on the other side of the wall before, and they find a treacherous world filled with villains both live and dead. It starts out like a search and rescue mission, then turns into a ‘run for your life' escape story set in the middle of a violent turf war.

I have always gotten a kick out of the steampunk genre and am enjoying its resurgence in the past few years. In case you didn't know, steampunk is a type of science fiction based on the idea that the use of fuel to power technology never advanced past the use of steam, so even though people might have vehicles and planes, they all use steam or coal power. The look of this type world typically involves lots of giant rivets and cogs like clockwork, and mechanical devices instead of electronic. It offers authors a wonderful playground in which to use their own creativity to invent steam-powered devices that work like modern day tech.

This book takes its time to establish the setting and characters and makes it pretty clear that the two main characters (a woman named Briar and her son, Zeke) are not very popular around town. Since everyone knows who her husband was, Briar is also pretty well known on both sides of the wall. She has done what she can to get past what happened, but her teenage son has already started falling in with the wrong people and this is what puts him on the idea to go beyond the wall.

Zeke manages to get behind the wall pretty easily, but a collapsed entrance tunnel blocks the way for Briar and she must enlist help to get inside. The result is that you get two different narratives told from each character's perspective as they traverse the crazy underworld inside of the walled part of the city. Both encounter air pirates in dirigibles, zombies called rotters, and various personalities both friendly and not.

I expected this to be more action packed than how it turned out. There is a good bit of action and violence, but mostly involving secondary characters while the main players try to avoid it. What I really liked was how atmospheric the whole story turned out to be. It takes place almost entirely underground so everywhere you find tunnels and small rooms. This makes each encounter something unique as you go along with Briar and Zeke through so many tight spaces where the unknown is behind every door.

The text of this book is written in brown ink, which lends to the rusty steampunk genre. Some readers have complained about the lighter colored ink being tough on the eyes, but I got used to it pretty quickly.

In the end, I really enjoyed Cherie Priest's Boneshaker. It's a wonderful combination of just about every type story there is, except maybe romance, and it takes place in such a fascinating setting that it's hard to put down.

Recommended: Yes