My rating:

add to my books

Boneshaker (The Clockwork Century #1)

by Cherie Priest (Goodreads Author)

3.57 · rating details · 7,215 ratings · 1,680 reviews

Cherie Priest's much-anticipated steampunk debut has finally arrived in the form of a paperback original. Its plot features the sort of calibrated suspense that readers of her Four and Twenty Blackbirds would expect. Boneshaker derives its title from the Bone-Shaking Drill Engine, a device designed to give Russian prospectors a leg up in the race for Klondike gold. Unfortu...more

Paperback, 416 pages

Published September 29th 2009 by Tor Books

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

Best Steampunk Books

3rd out of 311 books — 1,359 voters

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

Best Book Cover 2009

34th out of 547 books — 2,805 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 16,728)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Dec 22, 2010

Michael rated it

Shelves: 2000s, horror, fantasy, steampunk, hugo-losers, meta-reviews, reviews-with-the-most-votes, aaaaaahh-zombies

``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 co...more

like 114 likes

· see review

Mar 20, 2010

± Colleen of the Crawling Chaos ± rated it

Shelves: steampunk, dark-fantasy

(1.5)

Steampunk and zombies and mini-apocalypse, oh my. How could you go wrong?

For starters, you could have lead characters that I never really connected with or cared that much about. Protagonists whose most active role was to get themselves into the city, and then who became fortunes of fate, as things happened to them.

I did like some of the secondary characters better, especially Swakhammer. (Though it seemed weird to me that Briar called calling him Mr...more(1.5)

Steampunk and zombies and mini-apocalypse, oh my. How could you go wrong?

For starters, you could have lead characters that I never really connected with or cared that much about. Protagonists whose most active role was to get themselves into the city, and then who became fortunes of fate, as things happened to them.

I did like some of the secondary characters better, especially Swakhammer. (Though it seemed weird to me that Briar called calling him Mr. Swakhammer. It was probably meant to be an affectation to remind us of the time period, when men and women were more formal, but since these characters are so informal, it was just kind of weird. Just another layer of distance in a book which keeps you at yours...

I think, really, that's what it is. The characters are never really developed - it's more an actiony-adventure type story, which could be fine, except it seemed like it almost wanted to be a deeper, more thoughtful story at times, it just never quite managed to be so.

Oh, and the brown font on the off-white paper killed me at first, but I did mostly get used to it.

Anyway, I never felt truly frightened or saddened for these characters and their exploits, though I did sometimes feel annoyed that they seemed so ingrateful for the help people were giving them (Briar), and that they kept running off and getting themselves in trouble without finding out what was going on first (Zeke). And I never really connected with them, so didn't much care.

And the whole thing with the big bad was meh. And I don't just mean the anti-climactic end, I mean everything about it. The build-up, the reveal, everything. There's something which happens at the end which Briar is said not to care about because her focus is on something else. Well, I didn't care, either.

Wow - do you think I could say "I didn't care" any more?

The only thing I did sort of care about is the fate of Swahkhammer, which we're left not knowing. I read somewhere that this is the first of a planned trilogy, but I doubt I'll continue unless I hear really good things about the follow-up.

All that said, I do agree with one reviewer who said that this story could make a good movie, though. Visually it would be pretty awesome, and you can get away with less develoepd characters and more haphazard happenings in movies.(less)

like 35 likes

· see review

Dec 09, 2009

Nancy rated it

Shelves: sf-fantasy, zombies, post-apocalyptic-dystopia, library-books

Dazzling inventions, air pirates, evil bad guys, underground vaults, goggles, daring rescues, gold, Blight gas, a one-armed bartender, a princess, zombies. Oh, what fun!

The setting was vividly described and rich in details. The main characters were well developed and fascinating. Briar Wilkes, widow of Leviticus Blue, eccentric inventor, searches for her teenage son, Zeke, in a walled-off section of Seattle, where a dangerous yellow gas shrouds the city, forcing the remaining inha...more

like 31 likes

· see review

Feb 22, 2011

Cassy rated it

Shelves: physical-own, 2011, fiction-scifi-fantasy-paranormal, event-met-author, region-america

This was my first foray into steampunk – unless Golden Compass counts. This may not be my genre. I am willing to keep going for a book or two, but the prospects are poor. And according to the clerk at the bookstore, Soulless must be my next read.

I was on the fence about reading this one. It was officially on my to-read list, but the ho-hum reviews were making me doubt the placement. Then I heard Cherie Priest was coming to a local bookstore, Murder by the Book (great name, right?) in...more

like 10 likes

· see review

Sep 26, 2010

Aerin rated it

Shelves: apocalyptic, sciencefiction, zombies, pnw

Without a doubt this is the very best steampunk-zombie-pirate-dirigible-madscientist-subterranean-postapocalyptic adventure set in 19th-Century Seattle that I have ever read.

Basically, this book exists to answer the question: What happens when you take a bunch of disparate awesome things and cram them all together into a single book? The answer, it turns out, is this: A book with exponential levels of awesomeness! It is awesome to the nth degree! In a word (which I got from my fri...more

like 25 likes

· see review

Oct 02, 2010

Brad rated it

Shelves: adventure, counter-fantastical, doing-the-dishes, steampunk, young-adult, zombies

I dug Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker, but I wanted so much more.

I dug Blighted Seattle and the Outskirts, but I wanted more detail in the former and more time in the latter.

I dug the Rotters, but I wanted more rot, more zombie madness, and more exploration of their potential ability to communicate and problem solve.

I dug the pseudo-history and Hale Quarter, the fictional biographer, but I wanted more installments of his history.

I dug the back story of...more

like 28 likes

· see review

Apr 07, 2010

Stephen rated it

Shelves: award-nominee-hugo, award-nominee-nebula, multiple-award-nominee, audiobook, science-fiction, 2006-2010, punked, alternative-history, ya

2.5 stars. I liked the set up of this steampunk story and I thought the characters were well developed (especially Briar who I thought was great). That said, for some reason I did not get "hooked" on the story and found myself just getting through the book. For me, I would have liked to have learned more about the "alternate" world in which the book is set in and have the story tie into (or at least hint at) bigger issues to come. There were some nice tidbits about the large...more

like 14 likes

· see review

Apr 13, 2010

Zeek rated it

Shelves: steampunk, urban-fantasy, chick-fantasy, fantasy-modern, post-apocolyptic

This one was, so many times, almost a dnf for me. It took the author far too long to engage the audience as her characters wandered around meeting more and more characters, all the while tryinig to find others.

But I liked the ending, and the promise of how it might end is what kept me reading.

Briar Blue has a big secret- oh not that her husband and his dreaded machine known as the Boneshaker set off an explosion that caused a blight to occur which turns people into Zombi...more

like 3 likes

· see review

Dec 07, 2010

Stephanie rated it

Shelves: fiction, read-in-2010, steampunk, alternate-history

No longer a vital city, Seattle is now completely walled off to contain a poisonous gas that now seeps from the city's underground areas after a man-made disaster caused havoc to the city center. The gas, called Blight, killed thousands of Seattle's inhabitants then caused them to be resurrected as flesh-craving zombies. A giant wall was erected to contain both the zombies and the gas.

Briar Wilkes lives with her son in the Outskirts, a dreary, poisoned place on the fringes of what us...more

like 8 likes

· see review

Mar 15, 2010

Sandi rated it

Shelves: sci-fi, 2010, hugo-nominees-2010

Cherie Priest has done a wonderful job with this novel. It's fun, exciting, and fun. The pacing is perfect, the dialog is good, and the exposition is well done. Priest is very good at letting the background story unfold via the characters' dialog, the action, and the setting. Even though this story has zombies, I chose to call this steampunk masterpiece science fiction rather than fantasy or horror because it is about the use and misuse of science and technology. I really had a lot of fun r...more

like 2 likes

· see review

Oct 10, 2009

Erika rated it

There are several really cool things about Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker: the first is the eye-catching cover; the second, that it’s steampunk; the third--only noticeable when you peek inside--is the brown- (née, sepia) colored font. Reading Boneshaker is like looking into an old Victorian photograph--the exact effect I’d want if I was writing a book to fit a genre influenced primarily by that era. This isn’t the first book I’ve read with a font color other than black (an edition of Michael Ende’...moreThere are several really cool things about Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker: the first is the eye-catching cover; the second, that it’s steampunk; the third--only noticeable when you peek inside--is the brown- (née, sepia) colored font. Reading Boneshaker is like looking into an old Victorian photograph--the exact effect I’d want if I was writing a book to fit a genre influenced primarily by that era. This isn’t the first book I’ve read with a font color other than black (an edition of Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story that I own comes to mind), but it was surprising and fit well with the genre.

Cherie Priest did a little (okay, a lot) of alteration to history for this book. The Civil War is instead the Great Rebellion and has been ongoing for the past 18 years. I’m not too familiar with Seattle’s history, but she mentions in the Author’s Note at the end that she took many liberties with that as well. If you can stand suspending your belief in historical accuracies and want to read a book that’s all about “a grand and dangerous adventure” (p. 62) then Boneshaker shouldn’t bother you at all.

In fact, if you like zombies, you’ll love Boneshaker; let me tell you why. The book opens with an excerpt from a book in progress written by Hale Quarter laying out the historical foundation of which we’ll need to know in order to understand the repercussions of certain events. It’s the 1860s and the Russians want to break up Alaskan ice to find gold, but haven’t got the means to do it themselves. Lucky Leviticus Blue wins the contest that follows and in a short amount of time, creates Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-shaking Drill Engine. Inspired by greed and power, the Russians pressure Blue to finish earlier than the deadline, but a test run for demonstration purposes goes awry and Blue’s Drill Engine winds up tearing through the underground of several blocks including those of a district lined with banks. Money is stolen, people are injured and killed, but when it’s all over Blue and his machine are nowhere to be found. Shortly after, healthy people otherwise unaffected by the Drill’s menacing journey start to fall sick and die, but they don’t stay dead for very long.

When the novel opens onto the first chapter, we meet Briar Wilkes and her son Ezekiel--Zeke for short--living in what’s now become the Outskirts. The drill’s haphazard run opened up an underground vein that’s been releasing dangerous fumes into the air for the past 16 years; the blocks ruined by this blight has been partitioned off from the rest of the city. A huge wall now separates it from unaffected grounds and it’s in the Outskirts Briar has been raising her son. As we soon find out, there’s a man named Hale Quarter nosing around for information regarding Briar’s husband and father--Leviticus Blue and Maynard Wilkes, respectively. Everyone believes Blue responsible for the Great Blight; Briar and Zeke have had the past 16 years as punishment, reminders from an angry public that won’t let Blue’s legacy die. Convinced of his father’s innocence, Zeke develops a plan to enter the old city and find evidence to prove his case.

Boneshaker is all action and suspense, with zombies. In fact, I felt at one point the zombies almost became the driving force of the novel, leaving Zeke and Briar’s journey to the periphery. It seems as if the book started with one purpose in mind--finding the truth about Leviticus Blue--and the zombies became the rouse for Priest to change tactics halfway through the book. As it turns out, there’s more to the novel than Leviticus Blue.

The suspense that looms over the mysterious Minnericht was written well--so well I was a little scared when he actually appeared; he was creepy, frightening, and forceful in all the ways Priest had led us to believe. He’s only one character out of an entire cast that all stood out amazingly on their own. If Priest can do one thing really well, it’s write interesting and vivid characters. My particular favorites were Lucy, Cly, and Jeremiah (although why his dialogue was always italicized when he wore his mask, I’ll never understand). The women in particular are strong-willed and independent. They’re as fierce as the next person in an environment I’d expect nothing less from. I was only confused because a lot of times Zeke came off as too immature and trusting for a boy of his age (15 going on 16). For the sake of the book, there wouldn’t be too much of a plot without him making certain decisions, but I couldn’t help thinking he was more like 12 going on 13 for as youthful as he acted.

In any case, there were a couple of other disappointments. I wish Priest had done more with lemon sap because let’s face it: a drug that, with chronic and prolonged use, will eventually turn you into a zombie is a really, really cool idea. I also was never quite sure what actually caused the blight--the reasons were given as suggestions, offered to the characters and readers as something logical to consider, but never in such a way that I trusted it completely as something to believe. Other than that, I loved Boneshaker.

There’s all sorts of extras that make the book worth reading, the least of which is the setting; the Civil War never looked so different when labeled the Great Rebellion and prolonged for 18 years. I think most of all, the characters fleshed out the personality of the city with their rough, no-nonsense demeanors, soft hearts, and determination. If you want to read a book about survival and hope with a menacing bad guy and weapons with names like the Doozy Dazer, then read Boneshaker. The zombies and the mad scientist don’t hurt either.(less)

like 12 likes

· see review

Jan 18, 2011

Sue rated it

Shelves: steampunk

This book is at its heart a really fun adventure novel, taking place in post-apocalyptic Seattle and full of zombies, crazy steampunk machines, and airships.

It's Seattle during the Civil War, and inventor Leviticus Blue has just released the Boneshaker machine on the city, a drilling monstrosity that frees the Blight--a gas that turns people into zombies. Fast forward to sixteen years later, and Seattle has been walled off to prevent further spread of the gas. But Leviticus Blue's so...more

like 1 like

· see review

Dec 02, 2010

Scott Marlowe rated it

Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest, is my first foray into the steampunk genre and the first book I'd ever read by Priest. While I have a few gripes, I was not disappointed. Boneshaker is a fun adventure, full of zombies (in this alternate history tale they're called 'rotters'), airships, mad scientists, and flawed heroes.

Boneshaker was selected as one of Amazon's Best Books of 2009 as well as a Publisher's Weekly Best Books of 2009. It is also a Barnes & Noble November Feature Book. In ad...moreBoneshaker, by Cherie Priest, is my first foray into the steampunk genre and the first book I'd ever read by Priest. While I have a few gripes, I was not disappointed. Boneshaker is a fun adventure, full of zombies (in this alternate history tale they're called 'rotters'), airships, mad scientists, and flawed heroes.

Boneshaker was selected as one of Amazon's Best Books of 2009 as well as a Publisher's Weekly Best Books of 2009. It is also a Barnes & Noble November Feature Book. In addition, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association awarded Boneshaker a PNBA Book Award for 2010.

The background we are given for the story is this: While the American Civil War rages on, prospectors flock to the Pacific Northwest pursuing rumors of gold discovered in the frozen Klondike. In an effort to reach this gold, an inventor, Dr. Leviticus Blue, is commissioned to create the Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine, or Boneshaker for short. But, on its maiden test run, the Boneshaker goes out of control, devastating downtown Seattle and releasing a noxious vein of Blight gas that turns any who breathe it into mindless flesh-eaters. In the mishap, Dr. Blue goes missing and is presumed dead, leaving his pregnant widow, Briar Blue, to fend for herself. Much of central Seattle is abandoned, left to the rotters as a hundred foot wall is built around the city center in order to contain them.

Briar escapes to the outside, making a home for herself and her soon-to-be born son, Ezekiel. Life is not easy for either of them, and as we enter the story sixteen years after the Boneshaker incident, we find Briar working a difficult industrial job, scorned by most, and with no friends but her own son. Zeke, who has grown up without a father and, worse, grown up listening to the accusations that float along with the mysterious tale of what happened that fateful day, nevertheless maintains faith that the incident was an accident, and that his father had nothing nefarious in mind when he inadvertently released the Blight gas into the city. So begins the story, with Zeke sneaking beneath the wall and into the Blight-infested Seattle, intent on finding evidence his father is innocent of people's many suspicions. Briar, upon learning of her son's dangerous adventure, has no choice but to follow.

Boneshaker is full of goodness: zombies, airships, polarized goggles (whose purpose is to detect Blight gas), gas masks, steampunk weapons (what better way to kick rotter ass?), a particularly mad and devious scientist/inventor, and a strong female lead who doesn't know when to quit. The story is fairly straightforward: boy gets himself into trouble, mom has to bail him out. Along the way, adventure ensues as one tries to find the other. Things get a bit more complicated when they each find that the city has not been abandoned completely, and that there is, in fact, a whole society of sorts who still call Seattle home. Not all of these denizens are friendly, either.

While I did find Boneshaker enjoyable, don't expect a riveting page turner. There's little real suspense, and while the Boneshaker mystery hangs over the story right up until the end, the nicely done twist in those last few pages comes quick. The remainder of the story is basically Briar searching the city for Zeke, while Zeke initially is seeking his parents' old house and clues as to what really happened to his father.

The rotters are always there, and they force certain actions by the characters, but they're never really a huge threat. Yes, our heroes must run from them and, a handful of times, fight them off, but no damage is ever really done. If you're wary of zombie fiction because of the flesh-eating characteristic, fear not: No flesh is eaten in this book.

I do have one gripe in particular about the plot. Zeke uses an old abandoned sewer tunnel to get underneath the wall. No problem there. But when Briar traces his steps and attempts to enter the city the same way… Look out! Earthquake! And, with that, the sewer tunnel is blocked, forcing Briar to seek other options. In my opinion, this was a poorly chosen, ill-timed plot device, and a fairly unbelievable coincidence.

I will say this about Boneshaker, though: It's a fun read. There's enough going on with the gas masks and the inventions and a cast of seedy, not-sure-who's-side-they're-on characters that I didn't put the book down for long. The ending, too, has a bit of a twist, with Zeke's question about his father answered once and for all. Overall, Boneshaker was a good, enjoyable read.

This review also at http://www.scottmarlowe.com/post/Book-Re...(less)

like 2 likes

· see review

Dec 03, 2010

Krystle Yanagihara rated it

Wow, this book was cool.

Zombies, steampunk, alternate history all rolled up into one? You can't get any better than that! I loved how instead of taking place Londom or Europe which all steampunk/alternate history novels do, this took place in Seattle! How awesome is that? And the history of how the zombies came about, which is not from some virus or medical experiment gone wrong, but from gas. Heh.

Instead of this being a romance, it focuses more on the relationship between a...more

like 2 likes

· see review

Oct 25, 2010

Nikki rated it

Shelves: speculative-fiction, historical-fiction-alternatehistory, zombies, steampunk

I'm vacillating between giving Boneshaker three and four stars. It mostly fell down for me for very, very subjective reasons -- liberal use of a trope I'm not fond of -- although there's also a bit of a problem with the pacing. In places it worked very well: beautifully tense and exciting. But after a while, the sneaking and hiding wears on you. It's like watching a movie consisting of nothing but scenes in which the characters crawl through tunnels. No matter how well-shot those scenes are, it ...moreI'm vacillating between giving Boneshaker three and four stars. It mostly fell down for me for very, very subjective reasons -- liberal use of a trope I'm not fond of -- although there's also a bit of a problem with the pacing. In places it worked very well: beautifully tense and exciting. But after a while, the sneaking and hiding wears on you. It's like watching a movie consisting of nothing but scenes in which the characters crawl through tunnels. No matter how well-shot those scenes are, it gets boring.

The trope that irritated me was the trope of 'they just missed each other'. Briar and Zeke could have met several times before they actually do, and while that might have shortened the book if they hadn't missed each other, I'm not sure that would have been a bad thing. Still, that's one of my pet peeves. It always reminds me of romantic comedies, which invariably make me want to beat my head against whatever's convenient (and I got dragged to a fair number as a teenager).

I also wasn't terribly pleased with Zeke. He ran when he should have stayed still, and stayed still when he should've been running. I know that he wasn't psychic and doesn't know what the reader knows, but even early on, Rudy is obviously not the kind of guy he should be running with. You take what you can get, I guess, but...

I was much more impressed with Briar. An older, working class single mother, kicking so much ass. She doesn't make the same stupid decisions as Zeke, so she's a lot easier to sympathise with. She's not perfect, no, but she does what she thinks is right.

The setting is well done -- quite vivid, and oddly realistic despite the fact that, yeah, it's full of zombies. It's not the most convincing explanation, I guess -- gas that creates the living dead? -- but it's not too necessary, either. The whole thing with Minnericht... I called it, to some extent: I guessed why Briar was so sure about who he was (or, rather, wasn't). I liked it, though.

I enjoyed Boneshaker, yeah, but I'm not in a tearing hurry to read the other two books set in the same world.(less)

like 6 likes

· see review

Mar 05, 2011

Mary Beth rated it

This tale of an alternate Seattle, besieged by zombies(called Rotters), a mad scientist, and survivors(Doornails, as in "dead as a....") of a catastrophe orchestrated by the eponymous machine, is a fun read for the most part. I see that it is the first of a series(what is up with all of these dang series?), so maybe that explains why a lot of my questions went unanswered. It might also explain the rather quick ending, which felt sorta lazy; a bit more tidying up of loose ends would h...more

like 2 likes

· see review

Jul 17, 2010

Dav rated it

Shelves: books-i-quit-reading

I almost stopped reading this book 20 pages in when I realized there was going to be zombies. It was bad enough that it was a steam punk novel, but OMG zombies? Um, the Bandwagon came by, and it wants its memes back. Steam punk (which is "what happens when goths discover brown") has been strangely annoying to me since it exploded a couple of years ago. Strange because I should be into it as I do dig the aesthetic, but I just can't enjoy it because it turned into such a mindless hipster...more

like 9 likes

· see review

Nov 16, 2009

Jason Pettus rated it

Shelves: contemporary, weird, sci-fi, hipster, smart-nerdy, personal-favorite, alt-history

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

Ah, steampunk! The very definition of a literary subgenre, steampunk tales fit not only within the general category of science-fiction (in that the storylines usually hinge on technology that has not yet been invented), but then bury this uninvented technology within a past that never was...more

like 15 likes

· see review

Sep 26, 2010

Jared Millet rated it

Shelves: alternate-history, science-fiction, steampunk, dystopian

You have to stand in awe of the way Cherie Priest managed to tap into the pop culture zeitgeist with her steampunk zombie pulp-fest. Anyone who thinks she was simply following these trends doesn't appreciate exactly how long it takes to get a book from idea to the shelf. It feels as if Priest was trying to write the definitive steampunk novel, with solid, logical reasons for all of the standard trappings: goggles, airships, advanced weaponry, and mad science. It will be interesting to see whe...more

like 1 like

· see review

Oct 28, 2010

Emmett rated it

· review of another edition

The epilogue captured what I really liked about this book. At the end, Priest warned against writing her to explain how she'd gotten Seattle history all wrong. She knew she's done it all wrong.

I was impressed how well she actually knew Seattle history, to the point of using a Sanborn map (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanborn_Map...) to help develop her plot. She actually took Seattle history, dumped it out on the floor and remixed it. That's wonderful.

The plot/characters...more

like 1 like

· see review

Jun 05, 2011

Lorena rated it

Shelves: science-fiction

I have to admit that rather than read it, I listened to this on Audio in my car, here and there, bits and pieces, while running errands.

I liked this book a lot more than the other book I'd recently read by the same author. The characters were deliciously quirky and multi-layered, and I liked many of them. I really wanted more of their stories, especially the secondary characters, and that makes me enjoy a book all the more. I mean, come one! A one-armed bartender?! I see the author ha...more

like 1 like

· see review

May 16, 2010

your neighborhood librarian rated it

Shelves: adult-fiction, great-books-for-teens, young-adult, wypr-summer-reading

"That's why the best steampunk is about information - knowledge, technology, the acquisition and guarding thereof. Writers get so fetishy about their dreadnoughts and bowler hats, lavishing paragraphs and pages on descriptions of brass's "mellow gleam" under its "film of oil," and of course certain stories do work and are completely refreshed by a mere change of costume and vehicle (Stagecoach was just as good when the stagecoach was replaced by a Firefly-class spaceship...more

like 2 likes

· see review

Jan 31, 2010

Shanon rated it

Shelves: fantasy, steampunk, dfc-2, 2010, zombies

(3.5 stars)

Boneshaker is set in an alternate Seattle in the 1880's. There's a little history (though distorted), zombies, adventure and gizmos galore. It was a good read and I will be reading more of Cherie Priest's work.

At times, I found it to be slow. I also found the little mystery to be easy to predict. There's no secret that Briar was hiding something about her husband and it's not hard to guess what it was. Instead of wondering about what her secret was I found ...more

like 5 likes

· see review

Aug 09, 2011

Jen added it

I wanted to like this book. The premise seemed excellent, and I was drawn to Briar. Fantasy genres abound with plucky teenage heroines, but it can be difficult to find interesting adult female protagonists. Most of all, I was impressed by the glowing praise from Scott Westerfeld ("This book is made of irresistible") and Warren Ellis.

The premise is as excellent as is seemed. However, two problems plague the book.

First, a steampunk adventure story requires frequent and detailed descrip...more

like 2 likes

· see review

Feb 26, 2010

Lincoln added it

I'll lead this review off with the comment I left on Ms. Priest's blog post on the TOR website immediately after receiving Boneshaker in the mail:

"Got my copy in the mail today!! SQUEEEE! And I'm totally blowing off everything in my TBR pile after finishing the one review I've obligated myself to. SQUEEEEE!!

Oh, and before I forget...

SQUEE."

The easiest way to describe Boneshaker is to say that I read it in less than three days. I usual...moreI'll lead this review off with the comment I left on Ms. Priest's blog post on the TOR website immediately after receiving Boneshaker in the mail:

"Got my copy in the mail today!! SQUEEEE! And I'm totally blowing off everything in my TBR pile after finishing the one review I've obligated myself to. SQUEEEEE!!

Oh, and before I forget...

SQUEE."

The easiest way to describe Boneshaker is to say that I read it in less than three days. I usually save my reading for work or the bus ride there and back, but I read this one during my downtime as well. I didn't remember to download the new episodes of Dexter and Heroes until Wednesday. And the squee never stopped.

Boneshaker is set in an alternate version of Seattle around 1880. The Civil War is still dragging out back East, and the western frontier is more heavily populated than during our history due to the Klondike gold rush happening sooner. A twisted scientist is hired to create a machine to break through the Alaskan ice for gold, and things go awry, devastating Seattle and releasing a poisonous, zombie-creating gas from beneath the Earth's surface.

Enter Briar Wilkes, the widow of the aforementioned mad doctor, and their teenage son, Ezekiel. Sixteen years after the disaster that ended in two square miles of zombie-infested Seattle being walled off, Zeke figures he can prove his father's innocence by crawling under the wall and into the city his parents used to call home. Briar chases after, resulting in a nonstop adventure garnished with lavish imagery, clever inventions, steampunk technology, airships, pirates and the living dead.

I fell in absolute LUST with Boneshaker a month before it's release, at [...:]. You can read a short story set in Priest's steampunk universe, an excerpt from Boneshaker, and catch news and updates on related projects, to include the upcoming novella, Clementine, and the sequel to Boneshaker, Dreadnought.

5,000,123,890/10. There's still a couple months to go, but this might be the best book I've read in 2009. (less)

like 1 like

· see review

Feb 01, 2012

David rated it

I'd heard so much about this book going in that my expectations might have been too high. It's a good book with an engaging plot and a satisfying reveal at the end. Priest throws a lot of elements into the mix. As a result, most story parts are painted in light strokes. Anyone looking for heavy doses of steampunk, zombies, or alternate history will likely be disappointed. Readers simply looking to be entertained will enjoy it. In terms of prose, Priest is an excellent writer and gave me pause se...more

· see review

Jan 04, 2012

Shannon rated it

Shelves: historical-fiction, sci-fi, series, steampunk, favorites

First, let me start off by saying I'm not one for zombies. At all.

However, this isn't a typical zombie story in which a hero/ine is sitting at home on a Tuesday night and ALL OF A SUDDEN ZOMBIES COME IN THROUGH THE WINDOW kind of story. They're in there, but it's not the main focus. The story revolves around Briar Wilkes-Blue and her son, Zeke.

Yes, there are zombies, and death, and shooting things, and all that fun stuff in here. I really enjoyed the strained but respectful r...more

· see review

Jan 01, 2012

Betsy Vera rated it

Shelves: science-fiction, steampunk

http://betsyda.com/randomdewey/2011/10/10/boneshaker/.
Seattle, 1879. Sixteen years earlier, Leviticus Blue created a drilling machine — Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone Shaking Drill Engine — that destroyed the business district and released Blight gas that kills you undead. Seattle had been abandoned to the Blight gas and the “rotters” behind two-hundred-foot walls. Blue’s widow and her teenage son, Zeke, now live in the poor district just outside the walls where she makes a living in the water...more

· see review

Dec 24, 2011

Calochortus rated it

I'm not really sure what to think of Boneshaker by Cherie Priest -- despite the wonderful imagery and exotic-for-its-genre location, the story itself needed a bit... more. Most everything was set up really well, but there wasn't enough movement of the characters within their scenes. I read the book within a week of starting it, and it's not that short -- but I think it could have been longer. Certainly, more about Seattle could have been used -- or perhaps more interaction with the different fac...more

· see review

Nov 30, 2011

Emma Thompson rated it

At first glance it seems that what this book was an idea in someone's brain what they did was sit down and come up with as many chiches as they could then cram them in sideways. We have an evil genius, a downtroden but plucky duo for the protaganists, a death-gas, zombies, airships, and pirates in the airships. Not to mention a post-apocalyptic city where people choose to live though there are perfectly valid other options.

But, out of this hodge-podge of ideas, we get a good book. Ok, ...moreAt first glance it seems that what this book was an idea in someone's brain what they did was sit down and come up with as many chiches as they could then cram them in sideways. We have an evil genius, a downtroden but plucky duo for the protaganists, a death-gas, zombies, airships, and pirates in the airships. Not to mention a post-apocalyptic city where people choose to live though there are perfectly valid other options.

But, out of this hodge-podge of ideas, we get a good book. Ok, it has it's downsides. The zombies are badly explained and, frankly, unnecessary (in that they were the magical zombie type, but supposably made by a gas so they should still exist within the realms of biological possibility and not be able to sprint around the place when down to only bones) but the walled-up city was a nice idea, as was the underground, though I would have liked more idea why the people were still there though it was obviously horribly dangerous.

The thing that really made this novel, though, is Briar Wilkes. We get two protagonists, Briar and her son. The son, Zeke, runs of to find his father and get a typical coming-of-age story with ludicrous plot twists and insight (I can't get over how he KNEW the guy claiming to be his dad wasn't, though he had no way of knowing. He did test it and that clued him in but I don't get how he knew before that). But his mother, who is a normal woman trying to get by in a world that hates her, goes after him. And Briar is awsome. She'd the most well developed character in the book by far. She'd interesting and compelling and shows real human fears that she bolsters behind the determination to find her son. She forms real connection and learns to operate in what is, esentially, hell, and she does it all realisticly. I loved how they didn't shoe-horn in a romantic plot for her as people tend to, but let her get on with doing her own thing and keeping her own priorities.

So, a little rambly but, yes, I did enjoy this book, and a lot of the reason was the very believeable, very well drawn out protagonist.(less)

· see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 557 558 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Joseph Beth Sci-F...: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest	1	2	Dec 12, 2011 09:06pm

combine
Other Editions (10)

More editions...

Genres

Science Fiction > Steampunk

1,034 users

Fantasy

281 users

Science Fiction

233 users

Horror > Zombies

213 users

Science Fiction > Alternate History

87 users

Horror

74 users

Adventure

65 users

Young Adult

70 users

Historical Fiction

56 users

Science Fiction Fantasy

34 users

See top shelves...

Readers Also Enjoyed

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Pin It

About Cherie Priest

CHERIE PRIEST is the author of nine novels, including the steampunk pulp adventures Dreadnought and Boneshaker. Boneshaker was nominated for both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award; it was a PNBA Award winner, and winner of the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Cherie also wrote Fathom and the Eden Moore series from Tor (Macmillan), and her novellas Clementine, Dreadful Skin and Those ...more

More about Cherie Priest...

More quotes…

Groups That Shelved Boneshaker

Young Adult Reader Club

415 members

last activity Jan 22, 2012 05:03am

shelf: currently-reading

SciFi and Fantasy Book Club

6051 members

last activity 34 minutes ago

shelf: read

title link	preview: Boneshaker
avg rating	preview: Boneshaker Goodreads rating: 3.57 (7215 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1137215.Boneshaker?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312047238m/1137215.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1137215.Boneshaker?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Boneshaker by Cherie Priest[/url]

Boneshaker (The Clockwork Century #1)

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (10)

Genres

Readers Also Enjoyed

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

About Cherie Priest

Books by Cherie Priest

Trivia About Boneshaker

Quotes from Boneshaker

Groups That Shelved Boneshaker