Boneshaker
Boneshaker. By Cherie Priest (New York: Tor, 2009. 416 pp.)
Recommendation submitted by:
won Locus award for Best Science Fiction novel, was nominated for the Hugo and the Nebula (also sci-fi awards) and was a Pacific Northwest Book Association award winner the year it came out.
This elegantly written book is a steam punk novel set in an alternate 1880’s America. Seattle is now a walled city inhabited by zombie like creatures called rotters who are transformed from humans when they breathe a toxic gas which leaks from the ground. The toxic gas escaped when an inventor’s tunneling machine destined for the Alaska gold fields ran amuck and let the gas free by tunneling too deeply. The novel begins decades later when the inventor’s son Zeke Wilkes decides to venture into Seattle to clear his father’s name. His mother follows him to rescue him—in an airship. Derring-do combines with strong character development to produce a quality read.
NW 813.6 PRIEST 2009
(no html)
Recommendation submitted by:
Carolyn Petersen, Assistant Program Manager, Library Development
won Locus award for Best Science Fiction novel, was nominated for the Hugo and the Nebula (also sci-fi awards) and was a Pacific Northwest Book Association award winner the year it came out.
This elegantly written book is a steam punk novel set in an alternate 1880’s America. Seattle is now a walled city inhabited by zombie like creatures called rotters who are transformed from humans when they breathe a toxic gas which leaks from the ground. The toxic gas escaped when an inventor’s tunneling machine destined for the Alaska gold fields ran amuck and let the gas free by tunneling too deeply. The novel begins decades later when the inventor’s son Zeke Wilkes decides to venture into Seattle to clear his father’s name. His mother follows him to rescue him—in an airship. Derring-do combines with strong character development to produce a quality read.
NW 813.6 PRIEST 2009
(no html)