For many people steampunk equals Victorian London. Not so for Cherie Priest who has firmly established herself of the queen of American steampulp. In Boneshaker she introduces us to a world where, by 1880, the American civil war has rumbled on for over twenty years. This prolonged conflict has meant that technology has developed to new levels and airships rule the skies while sonic weaponry is being developed below.
But for the citizens of Seattle every day is a battle. 16 years previous an inventor known as Leviticus Blue was commissioned by Russian prospectors to build a drilling machine that could open up the rumoured reserves of gold in Klondike. But the experimental Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine malfunctioned on its first test run, taking the bank district of the city with it and unearthing something far deadlier than gold. The blight gas that poured from the wound in the earth not only killed, it transformed its victims into shuffling, cannibalistic revenants. The city was evacuated and a massive wall constructed around its limits, trapping the blight and the rotters inside. The trouble was not everyone got out.
Briar Wilkes, Blue’s haunted widow, has lived with her husband’s mistake ever since, but when her son decides to break into the walled city to restore his father’s reputation she must return to the place where her nightmare began.
From the moment Briar’s son, the resourceful Zeke, runs away from home the action never lets up. We are treated to cliffhanger after cliffhanger, urging us to turn the page ever-faster to see if our hero survives. Along the way we have air-ship pirates and dogfights, double-crossing allies and shady chinamen and just when you thought author Cherie Priest couldn’t possibly cram in anything else, there’s a masked mad-scientist controlling each and every aspect of the doomed city.
In fact, this relentless pace is one of the few weaknesses of the book. Every now and then you wish that Priest would let you breathe and drink in the rich and detailed world she’s imagined. Everything moves at such pace that you never really get chance to take it all in.
Perhaps this is intentional. After all, it is never really explained why people choose to live in such a vile environment, in constant danger from insane Doctors and hungry rotters alike. It certainly seems easy enough to get in and out of Seattle’s confines at the start of the novel, so why stick around. Yes, there’s a war outside but that conflict seem half as hellish as life in the blight-stricken city.
You certainly wouldn’t want to move there, but if you ignore the niggling fact that people would more likely be trying to get out rather than making do, the addition of the blight gas is a stroke of genius, further adding to the claustrophobic atmosphere that weighs heavily on every page. Breathe a mouthful of the blight and you can begin to zombify. Corpses with contagious chompers are one thing, but here every breath will be killing you. To make matters worse, because humanity is by its very nature self-destructive, some blighter has even starting making a drug out of the stuff. Zombies and steampunk are in danger of becoming a cliché any time soon, what with The Affinity Bridge and Wildstorm’s Victorian Undead comic book, but this notable innovation introduces keep the rotters as fresh as walking cadavers can be.
Boneshaker is a white-knuckle ride through a convincing alternate-history – one that deserves a return visit. You can’t help but wonder what the protracted Civil War has done to the rest of the States. It looks like we’ll soon find out as Priest has announced two new books in the same universe: Clementine and Dreadnaught, both out later this year.
But that’s the future. Let’s concentrate on the present for now. Full of believable, if not always likeable characters – much like real life – Boneshaker is definitely recommended. Hold your breath and dive in.
THE STEAMBLOG BOOKSHOP
Boneshaker
by Cherie Priest
Tor (2009)
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. For those who aren’t in the know, the TARDIS lands in 1911 to find a priory somewhere in England menaced by robotic mummies, servants of the Osirian extra-terrestrial and part-time Egyptian god Sutekh the Destroyer who is banged up on the Red Planet.
