Briar Wilkes, daughter of a folk hero and widow of the criminal mastermind responsible for the zombie plague, embarks on a rescue mission when her teenage son Zeke sneaks into the walled city of Seattle.
Briar & Zeke must navigate the underground labyrinth Seattle has become, decide who they can afford to trust, and stay alive long enough to find each other & get back home safely.
Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker came up first when I searched ‘Steampunk’ on Audible. I’ve been trying to read and watch more Steampunk lately, to get a better idea of the genre hopefully some inspiration for The Paradise Swarm.
I remembered hearing very positive feedback about Boneshaker on a couple of podcasts I follow, I really loved the cover, and saw that Wil Wheaton was one of the narrators. That’s pretty much all it takes to make me click ‘Add to basket’, Wil Wheaton is a damn good narrator, and did I mention the cover?
The story is extremely engaging from the beginning, Briar’s very relatable motivation to find her son brings urgency and tension to the narrative, and the cluelessness displayed from Zeke’s point of view only reinforces it. This is the book for you if you want to read dual point of views, deceiving appearances and partly unreliable narrators done right.
There is a great other-wordly dimension to the setting throughout, plus a rich and intriguing lore, supported by airships, gas masks, pirates, mechanical body parts, evil geniuses and zombies galore.
The cast of secondary characters was impressive, and I especially loved the moments when neither the reader nor the character knows who to trust for certain.
I was especially struck by the feeling of imminent danger that was ever present throughout the book from the setting and environment. Most of the action takes place in tunnels underneath the city, as the simple act of going above ground is so dangerous. The idea that walking in the street is such a deadly enterprise particularly inspired me to ramp up the tension and danger in my own writing.
I am now waiting impatiently for my next Audible credit so I can buy the sequel, in which we follow an airship captain.
I am currently redinag The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest , the last book in the triology by Stieg Larsson. I have been captivated by this series; it is one where I literally cannot put the book down. It is with great difficulty that I finally have to do so when I go to bed. It is a rare book that has been translated from its original language and does not lose a thing in the translation. It is truly a terrific read!
Hi, I was also drawn to your blog title. Kudos!Hey, I am fifty and still love YA. Plus, I have no inner child.Hope you’ll come by- I am featuring Laura Anne Gilman all weneked to celebrate her new book, Pack of Lies. There is a US/Canada giveaway from Laura Anne.email: twitter: @fangswandsfairy
Hi, Sam!If I were writing faifnc for NaNo, it would be so much faster! But this is a nice challenge. But I do think it’s great advice of hers for writers to begin with faifnc if they haven’t got an idea for something of their own. I had to smile, though and I loved the acknowledgment that a lot of writers of some stature (in their genre, anyway) wrote faifnc (and some still do!), and that it’s a good way to get the writing bug, as well as to learn a little something about how to put a story or dialogue together.Even though I still really like RaM, there are huge swaths that I would mercilessly edit down almost all of it introspective scenes. But that’s also one of the pitfalls of writing serialized fiction (of any sort) as you write it: you discover only later what you should have cut out (or put in a different place), or what you should have included earlier and ended up having to shoe-horn in. And I had outlined RaM really early in my writing, but that only helped with the overall structure, not for the occasionally over-long internal musings of some of the characters.Ah, well! It’s still a fun read I go back every now and then to check some detail or description or whatever, and end up reading several chapters. One of my favorite sections is still the Gamp house party section.I have way too much to do today to get much writing done until this evening, but I hope I can keep up with the pace. I’m managed to keep up with the target total number of words, but it can be painful! I figure I can go back to it in December and begin cutting and moving stuff around and adding scenes, or whatever.