BoneShaker legend article - Kindle Edition
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by: RobertKolr2
Numero Total de Visualizações: 34
Número de Palavras: 1011
Quick 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 charm book; excellent characters; wholly captures the flavors of the steampunk and zombie subgenres. CONS: Some fantasy elements might appear cliche?, but that's distressingly little potatoes next to the entertainment value this fiction provides. BOTTOM LINE: This is a staggering setting that needs more stories. I can't wait. Genre mash-ups are one of the cherished pastimes of the blogosphere. ("Hey, wouldn't a steampunk zombie fiction be marvelous?") The theory is that off-the-cuff statements like that are not automatically easy to pull off. Writers still have to stress about booktelling, characterizations, drama, and an assorted more elements that make up fairy tale -- and all towards the goal of generating something that has to be pleasing at the same time. It's no limited feat, to be sure. But damn, Cherie Priest makes it appear easy with her current novel, Boneshaker. The fable stems from a series of events involving the Russian quest for gold during the American Civil War. Seattle discoverer Leviticus Blue is declared to create a gadget that will dig for gold through Alaskan ice. While experimenting his computer (dubbed the Boneshaker) something goes badly wrong: Seattle is annihilated as the Boneshaker slices out the ground beneath the city. Worse still, the drilling has also unleashed a slow-spreading fumes that begins to turn people into zombies. A barricade is thus built around the city to keep the weighty "Blight" gas within doors while the survivors depart to the safer outpost. Year's later, Briar Wilkes (Blue's widow), who makes an inadequate living by laboring in a factory, is still shunned by association. Her son, Zeke, not content with the family's condition and his tarnished family name, sets out to adjust 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 field of the undead. That's an awesome hook; a steampunk/zombie mash-up is as soon as possible appealing. The question is whether it can last the length of a paperback. In short: in fact. Boneshaker simply pulls you in and doesn't let go. Here's why: * Boneshaker is all about the excitement of science legend and the essence inherent in the genres it mixes together: o It's an mystery epic that moves instantly, puts the stars in unrelenting risk, and makes the user avid to see what happens next. o It's a steampunk romance, set in the 19th century during the Civil War (although that's happening elsewhere). Noted here is that the author bends hifairy tale a bit, but as she says in the afterward, that's the point of steampunk, isn't it? o It's a zombie drama as evidenced by the "rotters" that inhabit the walled-in city of Seattle. Rigidly speaking, this legend element serves to a great extent as another piece of world building, but it definitely holds up more than its fair share of nail-biting action. * The author simultaneously accomplishes fabulous feats with Boneshaker: o She uses the genre staples to a decent degree; there's not just an dirigible balloon scene, there are a lot blimp scenes, and they're all as good as you'd hope they'd be. o She pays excellent attention to detail -- for example, having the characters constantly worry about wearing their fumes masks; or the initial epic background chapter -- without pushing the prose into fluff. o There's fine world building. One of the best examples is the underground nation that emerges from the disaster. * It's got laid-back characters o Briar Wilkes is an intelligent and determined female spice. Naturally, she tries to discover Zeke and follows him into the city. The piece in which she gets ready to go harvesting vapor disguise and machine gun) is evocative of Ripley in Aliens. Briar isn't playing anywhere. o Fifteen year-old Zeke is illustrated as a boyish, independent go-getter. No teen depression here, folks. Zeke Wilkes unquestionably makes the hazardous hike into the walled city of Seattle, hometown to the Blight that turns buyers into the rambling dead. Zombies, I express! * It's got a laid-back supporting cast: o Lucy O'Gunning - the resilient subterranean barkeep with a heart of gold and one (very) fine arm. o Dr. Minnericht - the precise and mystical leader of the latest underground nation that advanced after the loss of the city overhead. o Jeremiah Swakhammer - a professional soldier who knows how to download around the Blight-jammed city and dark underground tunnels. o Captin Cly - who quest by dirigible balloon into and out of the city. o Angeline - An adored member of the underground nation. * The family's hilegend incorporates fable that not only plays the "Whatever happened to...?" card, but ups the ante by wheeling it around and around until you don't know which way it'll go. And you'll delight in the way it goes. This is a remarkable setting that needs more stories. I can't wait.
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