This book was a disappointment. Not because it was bad, or because there's anything unforgivably wrong with it, but because it's just not as interesting as its predecessor, the totally badass Boneshaker.

It's not a sequel per se, though it takes place in the same world and focuses on a minor character from Boneshaker. Clementine takes us out of the cloistered walls of zombie-occupied Seattle, and eastward across the country on a dirigible chase. With pirates! And a six-shooting, smack-talking, double-crossing southern belle! And a mad scientist with a crazy steampunk superweapon! It all sounds great in theory, and I must say, the writing is generally better and the story less bloated than in the first book. Still, it was a pretty boring read.

Mainly, it just felt rushed. This thing barely clears 200 large-printed pages, with extra blank sheets between chapters and everything. Technically, I doubt the word count is high enough to get it out of novella territory. Brevity isn't a bad thing, but there's enough story here to fill at least a hundred more pages, which would have allowed for better character development and a more fleshed-out setting and backstory. As it is, it's just action-action-action, and then it's over. I've got nothing against a good fast-paced yarn, but there has to be a foundation upon which I build my giving-a-shit about what happens to the characters. This book didn't have it.

And related to that, my other major complaint is that the worldbuilding is lacking. In Boneshaker, the setting and the history were well thought out and well integrated into the story itself, and as a result steampunk!Seattle became a real place to me - dark, claustrophobic, gritty, and terrifying. In this book, the various locales are hastily drawn, and worse, we're in the middle of a protracted Civil War that is barely described. So we have these characters whose various allegiances define both themselves and their uncomfortable alliances - an escaped slave, a confederate loyalist - but we know virtually nothing about the war that has influenced their lives for so long. Sure, we can assume it's sort of similar to the historical American Civil War, but the fact that it's dragged on for 20 years, and there's - you know - steampunk technology necessitates some huge divergences. Why is it dragging? Who's winning? What kind of toll is it taking on each side? We're never told.

The basic plotline of Clementine is that our heroes are trying to stop the aforementioned steampunk superweapon from being completed and used to flatten the Confederate stronghold of Louisville*. So this war that we know virtually nothing about is at the very center of this story. Man, I wish I knew what this weapon actually did, why it's being targeted at Louisville, why that would mean the end of the war, why an escaped slave would try to stop the Union from trouncing the Confederacy, and what any of this means in the context of the sociopolitical climate of the time!

On the plus side, however, the book is fun and fast-paced and breezy and there are lots of explosions. And it manages to work in one more bit of historical awesomeness from Seattle's past - Mother Damnable puts in an appearance. Or at least, her corpse does.


* D'oh! I just remembered it's the Union stronghold of Louisville, where the weapon is being built, not targeted. I can't even remember which Confederate city they were trying to blow up! Either I'm getting forgetful in my old age, or the storyline was just not memorable enough.