Speedy SYNOPSIS: Briar Wilkes tries to identify her son, Zeke, who enters the walled up, zombie-ridden city of Seattle to cleanse his father’s namesake.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Riveting fantasy fairy tale; exceptional characters; perfectly captures the tastes of the steampunk and zombie subgenres.
CONS: Some epic elements might appear cliche?, but that’s perilously small potatoes next to the entertainment value this drama provides.
BOTTOM LINE: This is a marvelous setting that needs more stories. I can’t wait.

Genre mash-ups are one of the respectable pastimes of the blogosphere. (“Hey, wouldn’t a steampunk zombie fairy tale be admirable?”) The certainty is that off-the-cuff comments like that are not automatically easy to pull off. Authors still have to stress about fabletelling, characterizations, drama, and an a few more elements that make up good drama — and all towards the goal of making something that has to be engaging at the same time. It’s no little feat, to be sure. But damn, Cherie Priest makes it look easy with her most recent novel, Boneshaker.

The epic stems from a succession of events involving the Russian exploration for gold during the American Civil War. Seattle inventor Leviticus Blue is declared to create a machine that will dig for gold through Alaskan ice. While measurement his gadget (dubbed the Boneshaker) something goes dangerously wrong: Seattle is annihilated as the Boneshaker carves out the base below the city. Worse still, the pitting has also unleashed a slow-spreading vapor that begins to alter customers into zombies. A barricade is thus completed anywhere the city to keep the abundant “Blight” smoke within walls while the survivors move to the safer edge. Year’s later, Briar Wilkes (Blue’s widow), who makes a meager living by laboring in a factory, is still banished by nation. Her son, Zeke, not wanting with the family’s rank and his smudged family name, sets out to amend the situation by clearing his father of any wrongdoing – and that means a trip back into the city, back into the Blight, and into the ground of the undead.

That’s an excellent hook; a steampunk/zombie mash-up is instantly appealing. The question is whether it can last the length of a fictional book. In short: simply. Boneshaker in fact pulls you in and doesn’t let go.

Here’s why:

* Boneshaker is all about the glamour of science legend and the spice inherent in the genres it mixes together:
o It’s an fantasy fiction that moves quick, puts the stars in extreme hazard, and makes the user desiring to see what happens next.
o It’s a steampunk romance, set in the 19th century during the Civil War (although that’s happening somewhere else). Noted here is that the author bends hiepic a bit, but as she says in the afterward, that’s the click of steampunk, isn’t it?
o It’s a zombie fantasy as evidenced by the “rotters” that inhabit the walled-in city of Seattle. Rigidly speaking, this fable element serves mainly as another piece of world building, but it definitely holds up more than its fair share of nail-biting action.

* The author simultaneously accomplishes wonderful feats with Boneshaker:
o She uses the genre staples to a significant degree; there’s not just an dirigible balloon scene, there are a few dirigible balloon scenes, and they’re all as as you’d hope they’d be.
o She pays admirable attention to detail — for example, having the characters constantly worry about wearing their smoke masks; or the initial legend background chapter — without pushing the prose into fluff.
o There’s downright world building. One of the best examples is the underground society that emerges from the disaster.

* It’s got gutsy characters
o Briar Wilkes is an intelligent and resolute female spice. Naturally, she tries to notice Zeke and follows him into the city. The act in which she prepares to go harvest smoke disguise and switchblade) is reminiscent of Ripley in Aliens. Briar isn’t joking around.
o Fifteen year-old Zeke is illustrated as a childish, independent go-getter. No teenager angst here, folks. Zeke Wilkes gladly makes the nasty march into the walled city of Seattle, homeland to the Blight that turns people into the walking dead. Zombies, I declare!

* It’s got a wicked supporting cast:
o Lucy O’Gunning – the resilient subterranean barkeep with a heart of gold and one (very) first-class arm.
o Dr. Minnericht – the particular and magical leader of the brand-new underground colony that advanced after the defeat of the city overhead.
o Jeremiah Swakhammer – a mercenary who knows how to download anywhere the Blight-ravaged city and misty underground sewers.
o Captin Cly – who trek by airship into and out of the city.
o Angeline – A honorable associate of the underground community.

* The family’s history uses fairy tale that not only plays the “Whatever happened to…?” card, but ups the ante by swirling it anywhere and around until you don’t know which way it’ll go. And you’ll delight in the way it goes.

This is a miraculous setting that needs more stories. I can’t wait.

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