I Would Rather Be Reading

Like many people, my introduction to the steampunk genre was with The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Like many others, my experience with steampunk stopped there. I know that the book has its supporters, but it just didn’t do it for me. The book plodded for me and never really sucked me in. From that, I drew the completely inaccurate conclusion that I didn’t like steampunk.

Fortunately, Cherie Priest has come along and knocked me back on the steampunk path with a fabulous book Boneshaker. In his blurb on the front cover of the book, Scott Westerfeld describes the book as:

A steampunk-zombie-airship adventure of rollicking pace and sweeping proportions, full of wonderfully gnarly details. This book is made of irresistible.

Really, I can’t say it better than that. I fell in love with the book, the characters, and the setting (especially the setting) from the very beginning. This was one of those books that I hated to put down and I read it as much as possible until I finally finished it. Of course, once I finished it, I was upset because I wanted to read more about.

If you do not know what steampunk is, see here. To find out how the author describes the book and the idea behind it, see her Big Idea piece at Whatever. I think those links give you a good idea about the book.

There are a couple of things that I wanted to note about the book that I particularly appreciated. First, I thought Priest did a great job of pacing and keeping things interesting. Because of the setting, I never had more than a general idea of approximately what time it was in the book. I think this helps put the reader in the character’s situation. Nevertheless, there was plenty happening and the story moved forward at a great pace.  Second, (minor spoiler ahead) I thought Priest did a great job in how she brought the main characters together. Sure she had opportunities where she could have had them “bump” into each other. However, she avoided those cliches and set up a scene that made perfect sense with what was happening in the story.

Cherie Priest has injected the fun back into steampunk for me and I can’t wait to read the next book set in this universe.