Cherie Priest’s BONESHAKER
Cherie Priest is one seriously inventive fiction/alternate history/sci-fi author who pens books about witches and voodoo and airships and sea monsters and zombies and ghosts and werewolf-hunting nuns. Needless to say, me likes her lots! She has a new novel out today, called Boneshaker, which BoingBoing just aptly described as a “zombie steampunk mad-science dungeon crawl family adventure novel” and which I cannot wait to get my grubby hands on. A brief description from Publisher’s Weekly:
Maternal love faces formidable challenges in this stellar steampunk tale. In an alternate 1880s America, mad inventor Leviticus Blue is blamed for destroying Civil War–era Seattle. When Zeke Wilkes, Blue’s son, goes into the walled wreck of a city to clear his father’s name, Zeke’s mother, Briar Wilkes, follows him in an airship, determined to rescue her son from the toxic gas that turns people into zombies (called rotters and described in gut-churning detail). When Briar learns that Seattle still has a mad inventor, Dr. Minnericht, who eerily resembles her dead husband, a simple rescue quickly turns into a thrilling race to save Zeke from the man who may be his father. Intelligent, exceptionally well written and showcasing a phenomenal strong female protagonist who embodies the complexities inherent in motherhood, this yarn is a must-read for the discerning steampunk fan.
Go, Cherie, go!
Order Boneshaker and other Priest titles here, or here, or better yet, from your local mom & pop bookstore.
September 30th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Woo, sounds brilliant! *runs off to find*
September 30th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I’m halfway through Dreadful Skin and I love it. Great style.
I’ll definitely be getting Boneshaker and the rest in the future! That cover kicks ass, too!
September 30th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
[…] Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker – I've been meaning to read something by Cherie Priest for a while now. – (books media ) […]
September 30th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I’m no great fan of steampunk by any means but this does sound like a good read.
Zombies sure seem to be everywhere these days though don’t they? If only they would invade the land of Twilight and give us the orgy of undead violence we all crave to see…maggot eaten and rotting corpses feasting on the perfectly pale flesh of the immortals.
I’d pay good money for that.
September 30th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Evan, isn’t Dreadful Skin great? She has such a gift for crafting characters that are unusual yet easy to identify with.
T, while I myself am not fond of the cosplay-as-uniform, clamoring-to-be-defined-by-a-clique-aesthetic side of the current steampunk subculture…. I’ve always, ALWAYS dearly loved it as a literary genre, from The Difference Engine to Perdido Street Station to His Dark Materials to Mortal Engines. Have you read any of those? Highly recommended.
If anything, I’ve been worried that the zombie mania was dying down. :)
I’d pay good money to see Stephenie Meyer’s prairie muffin bake sale bullshit overrun with an orgy of undead violence, or any kind of orgy, really. The Twilight series inspires wrath in me like no book has since The DaVinci Code. What a load of sexist, mindless tripe.
October 3rd, 2009 at 12:53 pm
@Mer…The Difference Engine I enjoyed quite a bit. The others listed I’ve not read but will make an effort to since you’re right…as a literary genre it does seem much more fun. Wouldn’t mind playing in that pool myself at some point…though more during the civil war era.
The cosplay angle just seems like it’s trying too hard with few really understanding and taking advantage of it. Those that do are impressive though…my hats off to them. Musically I’m curious what falls under it or is that just a non-issue?
Twilight just bugs me the way so many things in this current crop of vamps, werewolves, and monsters do…they take out the actual monstrous side in favor of fake angst and teen drama. The real romance and taboo side of it all has been gutted in favor of soap opera mechanics and cliche’s.
Zombies on the other hand are having a blast from film comedies to high quality comics, books, and art. Long Live The Undead :P
Ah The Da Vinci Code…I’d have no issue with it if some people didn’t praise it as truthful or worse factual. That is what happens when History Class gets gutted to trivia with no depth or context.
I best get started on my new book…it’s about teen models turned vampires who try to take down a Vatican army of giant robots piloted by zombie saints by looking for a secret holy weapon whose whereabouts are hidden in the works of Thomas Kinkade & Jean-Paul Gaultier.
October 6th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
T, Boneshaker actually does take place during the Civil War era. More incentive to read it!
I think your new book idea would make a great SciFi channel miniseries. MAKE IT SO.
So far, I haven’t enjoyed the output of a single band that actively touts itself as steampunk. The current musical “brass standard” does fuckall for me. Meanwhile, there are plenty of other acts who aren’t clamoring to be defined by a subculture that contain distinctly retro scifi elements –strange homemade and antique instruments, cultural/musical diaspora, futuristic electronic weirdness, pre-television style theatrics– that I adore.
And while I’m venting a little steam (hurr hurr), here’s my (rather infamous) DaVinci Code review over on Goodreads.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
@Mer…Oh your review is priceless! I’ve not gut laughed that much in ages. Plus the comments and just all of it…way better than the book itself. You nailed it though, it wasn’t about it being a bad book by literary elitist standards…it was just insulting to anyone with brain cells.
The John Tesh to Igor Stravinsky line was beautiful.
I look forward to pouring through the rest of your reviews and recommendations. Though a few are already painful to look at as I had to sell them off when I was moving about. I hate having to sell good books.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Haha, thanks, T. Sorry to disappoint, but none of my other Goodreads reviews hold a candle to that DaVinci Code rant!
October 10th, 2009 at 6:06 am
This book arrived in the post this morning; I’m looking forward to getting stuck into it this evening! I had a quick flip through (if nothing else, I love the feel – the weight and texture and level of flexibility and all the rest – of books) and upon doing this I was delighted to discover that Boneshaker is printed in brown ink. Brown! Looks excellent on the not-over-white paper. Not too harsh on the eye.
I don’t even like brown, but it does appear to have its uses.