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Boneshaker
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BS: (Spoiler) What did you think of the ending?
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As far as the revelation that Briar killed her husband, it was hinted at all along. She struggled with the guilt of it. I don't think it should have been told sooner than it was myself.
I agree that the ending was a bit of a letdown, but I did appreciate the jump in packing around the 75% mark. Until then, despite the great setting, it was a bit of a slog to get through.Dr. Minnericht was also a bit of a letdown. When he first tried to convince Zeke that he was Blue, my first thought was, "He can't be Blue. Briar killed him when the city fell for undisclosed reasons I assume will be revealed later."
Now, if it turned out that he was Blue, or, like Mpauli says, some form of automaton, that would have been an interesting twist.
The actual ending was okay, but I think it's going to be polarizing. It doesn't so much end as it just...stops. The reader is left to decide for themselves what happens to Briar and Zeke after they leave the city.
Some people like open endings where they write the own ending in their minds (unless Briar and Zeke show up in later books), but others prefer to have everything wrapped up so the curtain can close. It's a subjective thing, but I like a little more closure than was offered.
Overall, it was a pretty good book. The setting was great, and I liked seeing familiar places all wrecked and zombie-fied. The idea of a group of survivors living in the Seattle underground and avoiding zombies is definitely a cool one.
I just wish there had been more character growth and such along the way, rather than all of it coming at the end.
I was surprised and a little put off by the revelation at the end that the rotters were scared of fire, and that a handful of the Chinese men could hold them off with it. Kind of made me wonder why you see nothing of this until the very end. It just makes all the fighting with the rotters senseless. Bonfires and torches easily solve the problem.The ending wasn't bad it's just the whole book just never really took off for me. I should have enjoyed everything about the book but it just ended up feeling a little flat. I think I just didn't click with Mrs. Priest's writing style or something.
The ending was pretty straight forward - no twists I didn't see coming. I didn't mind it. I would really have liked there to be more focus on the steampunk elements in the story explaining the tech more. It seemed a little steampunk lite.
I was disappointed by the lack of pay off at the end. I expected Dr. Minnericht to be more than some random guy. And I the revelation that her husband was exactly what everyone thought he was I found to be anticlimactic.A bunch of people are killed and they rotters invade the bad guy’s base just so a mother and son could be reunited because she never told her son the truth about his dad. And then they all go home with bags of stolen money. I don’t know I guess I just was hoping for more.
I must have missed earlier when it was revealed that Briar killed Blue. When that was revealed at the end I was shocked and a bit disappointed. I never got the feeling that Blue had hurt her enough during their marriage that she should kill him. In fact, most of her memories about him are good - talking about having a baby, building a nursery, gifts he got her, etc. It seemed the murder was done by a childish woman who was angry that her husband didn't tell her about his work - at a time when women didn't have those rights.
Jillian wrote: "I must have missed earlier when it was revealed that Briar killed Blue. When that was revealed at the end I was shocked and a bit disappointed. I never got the feeling that Blue had hurt her enough..."It wasn't revealed till the end, but Briar's absolute confidence that he was dead hinted at what might have happened. It's vaguely suggested through the book that some sort of emotional abuse was involved from Levi but it's not that clear cut. The closest thing we come to suspecting Levi was an evil bastard is if we suspect Minnericht is Levi Blue. If Levi was like him then that may have been some justification - but then he wasn't and we are still left to wonder why Briar killed him before realising the full consequences from his joyride in the Boneshaker.
And this was one of the things I was wondering about. When someone would tell me (as Briar) that Dr.Minnericht might be Levi I would think "Impossible, cause I killed him".So the whole "he reminded her of him, but it couldn't be" was just stretched out for the reader to be revealed in the end. And that felt artificial.
Jillian wrote: "I must have missed earlier when it was revealed that Briar killed Blue. When that was revealed at the end I was shocked and a bit disappointed. I never got the feeling that Blue had hurt her enough..."When Briar found him she interrupted him preparing to flee the city with the money that he had stolen, leaving her in the process. He's committed a colossal crime, accidentally created a huge disaster and he was going to leave his wife holding the bag for all of it.
And when she picks up a gun and points it at him he just laughs ...
She may well have been childish and immature, but I think she had plenty of reason to do what she then did.
T.R. wrote: "Dr. Minnericht was also a bit of a letdown. When he first tried to convince Zeke that he was Blue, my first thought was, "He can't be Blue. Briar killed him when the city fell for undisclosed reasons I assume will be revealed later.""Yes, I had the same thought. This one was telegraphed a little too hard. Briar was just too sure that he wasn't Minnericht and there just didn't seem to be any other reason she would stay in Seattle after the Boneshaker event if it wasn't for guilt. Why else would she put up with the constant abuse from her community if she wasn't doing some sort of penance?
Gotcha, I guess I didn't pick up on that or the fact that Levi Blue had done something bad enough to deserve to be murdered.David Sven wrote: "I would really have liked there to be more focus on the steampunk elements in the story explaining the tech..."
I agree with this, I wish there would have been more focus on the steampunk. If anyone has a recommendation on a good steampunk book I'd appreciate it.
Did anyone else find Zeke super annoying and whiny? I don't remember being so whiny as a 15 year old (and perhaps there lies the problem...)
Yes, I found Zeke very whiny. I also became quite annoyed with all the talk of bile and throwing up. I would have felt a lot better if some one would have just went ahead and blew chunks.
Lindsay wrote: "Yes, I had the same thought. This one was telegraphed a little too hard. Briar was just too sure that he wasn't Minnericht and there just didn't seem to be any other reason she would stay in Seattle after the Boneshaker event if it wasn't for guilt. Why else would she put up with the constant abuse from her community if she wasn't doing some sort of penance? "I had the same thought, that her staying in the Outskirts instead of going back east was a form of self-punishment. If she took enough money from the house for her and Zeke to live for the first several years of his life, she could have left town easily enough.
Jillian wrote: "Did anyone else find Zeke super annoying and whiny? I don't remember being so whiny as a 15 year old (and perhaps there lies the problem...) "
Sooo whiny. I can understand being an annoying teenager, but it just made him unlikable. He also didn't seem to grow or change at all over the course of the book, except maybe a bit at the end.
I didn't think the end was ambiguous, though maybe I filled in the details in my imagination. I assumed they stayed in Seattle, and lived happily ever after.
That's a good point why did she have to leave money behind in the first place? She could take enough to raise her kid and didn't know she was pregnant at the time if I remember, so she could have just gone east and started a new life where no one knew her. Why stay in town where you are hated?
I got angry at one point during the story, thinking that maybe Briar hadn't' killed her husband. It seemed such a narrative necessity about halfway through for her to have done it.
Alex wrote: "if I remember, so she could have just gone east and started a new life where no one knew her. Why stay in town where you are hated? "I think the reasoning was that the country was at war and the outskirts of Seattle was out of the way enough to stay out of the war. I think she did talk about leaving when the war finished
kvon wrote: "I got angry at one point during the story, thinking that maybe Briar hadn't' killed her husband. It seemed such a narrative necessity about halfway through for her to have done it."Yeah, there was a point where her certainty that the Doctor wasn't Levi seemed to waver.
I finished the book yesterday and am still trying to figure out how I felt about the ending. The actual ending was fine. As others have noted, I thought the fact Briar killed Levi was fairly obvious, considering that it was implicitly stated that the Boneshaker was still in the city. I did like how Priest characterized the guilt Briar felt, and her tirade urging Zeke to say and/or feel something moved me. I was a fan of her character throughout (not so much her son, but he didn’t annoy me as much as he did some) and really liked how vulnerable she is in the end.I think the Princess’s monologue and backstory is the thing that I found most off-putting. Priest never hints at Dr. Minnericht’s identity until the Princess’s info-dump in which we find out that the villain is rightfully hers. Briar and Zeke are simply pawns who stumbled into the situation which is not a situation I typically like for main protagonists to be caught. With the exception of possibly dying (a threat also posed by the rotters), neither character has any personal connection to the main villain, and there are no real emotional stakes to his death.
Throughout the story the main character is absolutely certain that blue is dead, and the city of Seattle is *pretty* certain that he's minerecht. This presents a problem. The revelation of minnerecht's identity is not going to surprise the reader, or seem significant in many way. Either one side is right, or the other is. That's boring. For the revelation to have truly felt significant, some third, undiscussed option would have had to have been true. Like someone said earlier, have him not actually be blue but have him related to blue in some interesting/shocking way.
I was kind of thinking up until the end that the Dr might have been a partially rotterized blue. And the helmet was the only thinking keeping him from going full rotter. A twist like that would have been good.
Alex wrote: "I was kind of thinking up until the end that the Dr might have been a partially rotterized blue. And the helmet was the only thinking keeping him from going full rotter. A twist like that would ha..."Oh yeah - that would have been cool.
I vote we let Alex rewrite it.
I thought the same thing at one point Alex. Other things I thought might be a possibility at various points in the book included:- The Dr is a robot version of Blue created by Blue, an invention that Briar never knew about. Briar killed the real Blue but now the robot is taking his place. As far as the robot is concerned, he is Blue. When he tells Blue that she abandoned him, he means the flesh version of himself. I was so sure that the eyes under the mask (looking like blue points of light) were a big clue to this.
- There is no Blue. Briar was Blue all along. She's the super inventor, and she created Blue as an alias in order to enter the competition. She feels guilty because she caused the Blight, and she hides under the pretence of Blue having done it, because otherwise people would hate her even more. Perhaps Zeke is the child of a random guy she hooked up with at some point. I felt like some things were hinting at this earlier, but obviously I had to drop this idea fairly quickly. Oh well!
- ZombieBlue
I was also so sure that the Boneshaker was going to be used as a means of escape or attacking the Dr's base at the end of the book! The boneshaker itself never featured much though, despite that being the title.
I agree with others here that the end was a bit disappointing, and that it was clear that Briar had killed Blue. But I did still enjoy the story overall, and the atmosphere that the author managed to create.
One question about the end - the very very end, I mean. When Hale Quarter sits down to write about Briar and Zeke, he hasn't been able to find them or any info on what's happened to them. The beginning of the book suggests that the whole book has been written by Hale. Since he can't possibly know what happened, is this a slight suggestion that none of it happened at all, and that what we just read is his made-up version? Or maybe I just totally misread that bit!
Victoria wrote: "The beginning of the book suggests that the whole book has been written by Hale."I didn't get that suggestion. The beginning was an epigraph giving history in the context of the other historical notes before his section. I don't see that Hale serves any purpose other than as a device to introduce the backstory - and then his return in the end acts as a nice and tidy closing parenthesis.
Victoria wrote: "I thought the same thing at one point Alex. Other things I thought might be a possibility at various points in the book included:- The Dr is a robot version of Blue created by Blue, an invention t..."
Ahhh...the Remington Steele Blue. I love that option!
That would have fit perfect with the gender roles, the Briar brains, the only problem would have been Zeke's dad. I will now rewrite it that way in my head.
I actually liked the "let down" version of the ending. I felt that it wasn't so much a twist as a conclusion to a part of Briar's life that she had made a big deal of in her own brain, but that Zeke couldn't care less about. It fit in my mind with the flavor of the story. The adapting of a population, and I always believed that the Chinese had a better method of survival. The fire aspect made sense to me in that most of the lasting life improvements had come from and were operated by them.
The thing for me has to do a lot with the pacing. For so long the books makes it's way slowly about Blight Seattle, it's inhabitants, the mysterious Minnericht... and at some point it decided it was running out of pages, race to the end and got there out of breath.Minnericht, and his little empire turned out to be a letdown, was expecting a lot lot more there. Also the little chapter at then end in the house seemed way to rushed... a big drama reveal of Leviticus death that probably didn't surprised most.
Adding to the zombie comment (of how anti-climatic was the fire thing) also the last use of an airship was kind of a letdown... if you can manouver well enough to anchor to a tree next to a house... why is there need to go out on the streets? A small service of smaller aircraft/buses would have sufficed.
Over all I liked it a lot. The ending was ok. I was wondering why she kept saying Blue was dead, I'm glad it was revealed at the end. I wasn't sure if Minnericht was really Blue or not. I was thinking Brier figured he's dead to me, not necessarily physically dead. If minnericht was a actually a machine or a rotter being held alive by the mask, that would have been a cool twist. I wasn't going to read it, because it didn't sound great so I'm pleased.
I wasn't shocked by the ending, but I wasn't disappointed by it either, because it made sense with the characterisation and the story development leading up to it. That there was no sudden twist with the revelation of Minnericht's identity is also just as well; I'm happy to read a story where the main villain does not have an intimate connection with the hero's backstory, but instead pretends to have one. The ironic twist that by forcing Zeke and Briar into his plot he hastened his own downfall led to a pretty satisfying conclusion, in my opinion.
I felt rather middle of the road on the book overall. As for the ending specifically I agree with many of the previous postings on this thread. Briar's certainty that Minnericht wasn't Levi made it pretty obvious that she killed him, and that about half of the book was the reader hearing her thoughts, there really wan't a good reason not to tell us sooner, because it doesn't give away who Minnericht really was anyway. And speaking of that, yes I felt that was something of a letdown as well. Not to spoil something that isn't this book, but I recently watched a show that was a murder mystery. It was very good, but in the end when you find out whodunnit, it was no one that there was any clue/hint/etc about...so there was no way you could have guessed. I feel the same way here. You set up the mystery of this guys identity, and then it ends up being something mundane that you couldn't have guessed.
Also, I may have missed it, but I would have liked to have heard the complete story of Briar's dad and why he was villian and folk hero.
All in all I think I much preferred the world she created to the actual story in the book. I'll probably try reading one of the other books in the same world to see if I like them better.
After reading this will anyone read the sequel? For me it just wasn't good enough to justify wanting to spend more time in that world. I was a bit disappointed after lots of people raved about it.
Kim wrote: "After reading this will anyone read the sequel? For me it just wasn't good enough to justify wanting to spend more time in that world. I was a bit disappointed after lots of people raved about it."I already bought Dreadnought and Ganymede in a sale last year and I liked the setting enough to give those stories a try.
I have to admit "Boneshaker" was a slow read. I got the next books in the series and they are great in an interesting alternate view of the Civil War and Texas. I think of book one as the necessary evil you have to read as a foundation to understand the rest.
Kim wrote: "After reading this will anyone read the sequel? For me it just wasn't good enough to justify wanting to spend more time in that world. I was a bit disappointed after lots of people raved about it."I will. I think one takes place on a train, and I'm a sucker for train narratives! Sorta wish the book had ended with Briar and Zeke jumping an airship for the horizon.
I thought the world was interesting but couldn't get into any of the characters at all and the ending was a bit rubbish. Also had some issues with the prose in a few places where descriptions and dialogue seemed to be repetitive or flat-out contradictory. It just wasn't for me but glad many seem to have enjoyed it.
Kim wrote: "After reading this will anyone read the sequel? For me it just wasn't good enough to justify wanting to spend more time in that world. I was a bit disappointed after lots of people raved about it."I honestly don't think so... there's so much stuff out there to read, and so little time with work and stuff. The setting is nice, but no enough - if a lot of people here say the other books in the series are better, I might give them a go
The only thing I have to say is- What happened to Swakhammer!! He was so charming and what, he just may or may not be dead?
I had assumed the final resolution of this type of story would just be Briars big, guilt relieving, reveal to her son and their reconciliation. Everything seemed like it was easily swept up to bring us to that point in the basement. Some parts almost seemed too convenient or neatly wrapped up just to get there that much faster. Lucy knowing a doctor for Swakhammer, finding the ship pretty quickly, and the convenience of the trees for mooring at the house... Just too tidy of an ending for me. Overall, I did enjoy this book.
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Dreadnought (other topics)Ganymede (other topics)
I expected more from the revalation of Dr.Minnericht's identity. I was hoping that he would be some sort of automaton or something more related to Briar/Zeke.
Also his demise was a bit anti-climactical.
And also the scene beneath the old Wilkes house in the end left me cold. This is something Briar could have told in her pov way earlier and it felt a bit constructed to hold it back. I understand why she held it back from Zeke, but from a reader's pov it felt unnecessary.
The book's setting and overall feel was on a 4 star course for me, but the ending brought it down to 3.