I had just come off the Warhammer 40k book Savage Scars, which I did not much care for at all. So I was in the mood for a real palette cleanser that was completely different from the 40k universe.
Twitter user Trin quickly came to the rescue and recommended that I take a gander at Boneshaker, which is a steampunk novel that ups the ante by mixing in a bit of zombies with its world of airships and grinding gears.
I haven't really read much in the way of steampunk before, so this book sounded like just the thing to break up my series of Warhammer 40k disappointments.
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| Goggles? Gotta be steampunk then, I recon! |
It's the late 19th century as the sparks of a civil war began in America, the Russians had their eyes on Alaska and the rumors of large gold deposits hidden in the frozen underground. To mine the gold in these harsh conditions the Russians contracted the brilliant inventor Leviticus Blue to create "The Boneshaker", an incredible mining machine that would be able to drill out the gold in the hostile Alaskan wastes.
But the Boneshaker never got to mine any gold in Alaska, as Leviticus instead drove the machine out from the basement of his home in Seattle and used it to drive straight through the underground vaults of the city banks and steal their money.
After the dust settled it became clear that Blue had not just performed a spectacular bank robbery but had also caused the release of some unknown gas that seeped up from the underground.
Fast forward 16 years later and a huge wall has been erected to seal off the gas from the rest of Seattle. The gas, now nicknamed "Blight" has the unfortunate side effect of not only being deadly, but also reanimating the victims as shambling monsters with a hunger for flesh.
