Boneshaker (novel)

Did You Know?

• Boneshaker is the first novel in Priest's Clockwork Century setting.
• Priest sought to create a literary magnum opus for the steampunk movement with this novel.
• Hammer Film Productions, along with Cross Creek Pictures and Exclusive Media Group, optioned the film rights, with John Hilary Shepherd writing the screenplay.

Plot

During the early years of the American Civil War, rumors of gold in the Klondike draw prospectors to the Pacific Northwest. Russian investors commission American inventor Leviticus Blue to build a machine capable of mining through Alaska's ice. Blue's creation, the Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine, or Boneshaker, instead destroys several blocks of downtown Seattle and releases a subterranean vein of blight gas that kills anyone who breathes it and turns some corpses into rotters, non-supernatural zombies.

A wall is erected to contain the gas, and Leviticus Blue disappears. Zeke enters the toxic city seeking evidence of his father's innocence. Briar follows after an earthquake collapses the drainage hole she intended to use, hitching a ride over the wall on an airship captained by the unnaturally tall Captain Cly. Inside, Zeke meets Rudy, a man claiming to be a decorated lieutenant, who offers to lead him to his parents' former house.

They encounter a Native American woman named Princess Angeline, who lightly wounds Rudy. Briar, attacked by rotters, is rescued by Jeremiah Swakhammer and his Doozy Dazer. He takes her to a bar where she meets Lucy O'Gunning. Rotters attack the bar, forcing a retreat.

A man named Minnericht caused the attack, and Lucy takes Briar to see him, as some believe he is Leviticus Blue. Minnericht has taken Zeke hostage. A battle between Minnericht's men and Swakhammer, Lucy, and Princess Angeline attracts rotters, complicating Briar's efforts to reunite with her son.

Characters

Briar Wilkes Blue is one of the two main protagonists, alongside her son Ezekiel. She is 35 and lives with him in the Outskirts. As the widow of Leviticus Blue, she bears the bad reputation of his work. Because her husband married her for youth and beauty rather than love, she uses her maiden name Wilkes.

Her late father Maynard is viewed as a folk hero, but Briar has mixed feelings about him. She is sharp, resourceful, stubborn, and unafraid to speak her mind. Her main goal is to retrieve her son from the city. At the novel's end, she reveals she murdered her husband to prevent him from escaping Seattle in the Boneshaker; her son holds no grudge.

Ezekiel Wilkes, usually called Zeke, is 15 and lives with his mother. He hates how she is treated due to his father's reputation. Believing his father did not intentionally cause the blight gas explosion, he enters Seattle to prove it. He is resourceful and stubborn like his mother, but sometimes naive.

He views his grandfather Maynard as a hero, to his mother's chagrin. Upon learning his mother killed his father, he is not angry and they embrace.