I recently finished Cherie Priest’s novel Boneshaker. This article won’t be a
review of it, but I did enjoy it a lot and want to give a quick appraisal in
case anyone is interested. The book is essentially three main ideas combined
into a single narrative: An American alternate history story (1), which grants
the setting a Steampunk (2) version of technology, which in turns causes a
zombie outbreak (3). If you’re a fan of any of those three genres, you will
probably like it. It’s not particularly groundbreaking in its use of any of
those three genres, but it does all of them well. I ticked off two of those
boxes, so that was more than enough to sway me.
If you aren’t a fan of those three genres, you might still
want to consider giving it a chance. It takes a while to get in to, but once it
does, the pace starts rolling right along. The characters aren’t as interesting
as others that I’ve read (the two leads are fine, which is really the most
important part, but the supporting cast isn’t as fleshed out as in other
works), but the setting is more than interesting enough to make up for that
lack. It also deserves props for centering around a middle-aged woman rather
than the more standard younger man protagonist (her son is also a major
character, but he’s still on the younger side of things than is usual). And
like I said, if the premise is enough to hook you, it’s worth reading.