More of wot I have read…

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

This was a gift from friends who share an interest in the steam-punk genre. It has a cute premise and makes references to period details without detracting from what is a simple adventure yarn. There is nothing to complicated going on here and to rolls along at a good clip, however I wasn’t totally engaged throughout and I thought it could do with more. This writer has released some more books which carry on the theme and they may add more to the interesting world she has created. It seems that this story is to be soon made into a film by Hammer, so that might be fun.

‘In the early days of the Civil War, rumours of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.


But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.


Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenage boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.


His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overloards, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.’



The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt

Another gift from the same friends who gave me Boneshaker, this though takes place in an alternative world that bears more than a passing resemblance to Victorian Britain. There are many subtle and many obvious satirical jabs at our world as it was then and is now. There is a lot going on in this story and it is very full and occasionally confusing, but the pace is kept up and the story trips along quite well. This is another author who has gone on to add to the world he has created.

‘When streetwise Molly Templer witnesses a brutal murder at the brothel she has recently been apprenticed to, her first instinct is to scurry back to the poorhouse where she grew up. But there she finds her fellow orphans butchered, and it slowly dawns on her that she was the real target of the attack.


Oliver Brooks has led a sheltered existence in the backwater home of his merchant uncle. But when he is framed for his only relative’s murder he is forced to flee for his life, accompanied by an agent of the mysterious Court of the Air.


Molly and Oliver each carry secrets in their blood – secrets that will either get them killed or save the world from an ancient terror. Thrown into the company of outlaws, thieves and spies as they flee their ruthless enemies, the two orphans are also aided by indomitable friends in this endlessly inventive tale full of drama, intrigue and adventure.’