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.
The story of the book follows the widow of Leviticus Blue, Briar, and her son Zeke, who now live a life of poverty and hardship outside the city walls.
Zeke, having been born after the death of his father, is eager to learn more of his past and sneaks off into the sealed off Blight infested area inside the walls to look for clues about his past. Clues that might prove that his father wasn't actually a horrible villain after all.
When Briar learns that Zeke has gone off on this near suicidal quest, she quickly decides that she must follow him and make sure that he gets out alive.
And so the majority of "Boneshaker" takes place inside the sealed off disaster area, where anyone moving around outside must constantly wear a gas mask in order to survive the blight gas that hangs as a thick yellow cloud.
We quickly discover that it is not only the zombie-like "rotters" that make their home inside the walls. A small group of hardy people have decided to stay and live out their lives in there, even though every day is a fight for survival.
It's a story that is very much a personal tale about Briar and Zeke and their encounter with a world they didn't even know existed. Zeke is a headstrong kid that quickly is forced to realize that he has gotten himself in way over his own head, and Briar is a mother overcome with worry and grief that finds herself propelled out of her dreary life by the primal instinct for protecting her child.
I think that both of the main characters are pretty well written and especially Zeke undergoes an interesting character development over the course of the story. I didn't think that Briar came out as quite as interesting a character by comparison but she's still perfectly acceptable.
Speaking of the characters I also have somewhat of a problem with the inhabitants of the walled off city. The book goes out of its way to demonstrate how hard and dangerous it is to live inside the walls, but I don't think it does a great job of justifying why all these people would still live there despite these hardships. Some of the inhabitants are people of questionable morals that you could argue would be persecuted on the outside, but there are also more or less "normal" people that should be able to do just fine in the outside community. Why would they choose a life of constantly fighting for survival? I wish that the author had made it more believable that these people would still be around inside the city walls after 16 years.
The steampunk elements are mixed in throughout the book, from airships and voice augmenting gas mask to mechanical arms and noise guns. But the book rarely goes into much details with the contraptions and I think that too little time is spent on "steampunk-ifying" the gadgets. In particular I would have liked some more context about how these steampunk devices set themselves apart from a modern on futuristic gadget.
The story is paced well for most of the book and keeps you interested in what will happen to Zeke and Briar next, but it does break down a bit near the ending. There are a few threads that you would think are pretty important that sort of just run into the sand and the very last part of the book seems like it could have been tightened up a bit.
Overall I found Boneshaker to be somewhat of a mixed bag that ended up being an enjoyable read despite some annoying issues.
If you are interested in a personal story about facing the harsh realities of the real world and the dangers that a mother will go through to protect her child, and you're partial to a bit of zombies and deadly gas, then I think you should go ahead and give Boneshaker a read.
If you need big explosions and intense action on every second page however, then you can safely give this book a pass.
Thanks again to Trin for the recommendation!
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