The story takes place in an alternate, steampunk version of 19th century Seattle. The title of the book refers to a massive drill built by the eccentric genius Dr. Leviticus Blue, conceived as a response to a challenge from Russian investors looking for a new way to dig for gold under the Klondike. His first test run of the device, however, ended up destroying entire blocks of the city, precipitating the mysterious disappearance of both Blue and the Boneshaker. Even worse, however, was what the drill uncovered during its destructive test run: the Blight, a mysterious gas that pours out of the broken ground, killing anyone who comes in contact with it and transforming them into a ravenous undead creature. Seattle is turned into a sealed-off ghost town, and most of the survivors relocate to a shanty town outside the massive walls. Dr. Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes, lives a hardscrabble life in this refugee camp with her teenage son. Briar does her best to forget the past, but her son Ezekiel refuses to accept the shame of his father’s work (and, as an additional problem, his grandfather’s reputation for assisting criminals during Seattle’s evacuation). With typical teenage bravado, Zeke concocts a poorly designed scheme to slip into the toxic, zombie-infested city and redeem his family legacy. Briar follows him in, intent on nothing more than retrieving him, but discovers that the living residents of the Seattle wasteland may be even more dangerous than the dead ones.
Everybody I know who has read this book has gushed over it, without exception. I don’t know if I fell victim to an excess of hype, but I just couldn’t get as excited about this as everyone else seems to be. To be sure, the setting is fantastic and the writing is solid. I’m not so sure about the characters, though. Priest puts a lot of love into sketching them out; their mannerisms and dialects are perfect, their physical descriptions are evocative, and the masks and weaponry are a fun and intriguing touch. But underneath the surface, they all share a curious blandness. The story says they get emotional at all the right parts, but for some reason, it wasn’t really coming across. It didn’t help that there isn’t any real exploration of character motive, other than Briar (mother searching for her son) and Zeke (disaffected youth searching for meaning). Everybody else stumbles in and out of the story, without any real elaboration on why they do what they do.
Considering all the alternative history zombie airship goodness in this book, I would be fine with the dearth of introspection as long as there is plenty of excitement in the story. And there is, in a basic sense. The zombie attacks are sufficiently scary, and the creeping threat of the Blight lends a sinister, claustrophobic element. There is a treasure trove of added coolness, what with all the airship chases, gun battles, and hand-to-hand combat. The problem, though, is that there are no real surprises in the plot itself. Briar sets out to find Zeke, and finds him. The first person Zeke meets is bluntly foreshadowed as untrustworthy, and it turns out he is, but he’s removed from play before that revelation has any real impact on the story. Despite everybody’s well-founded suspicion that the book’s villain, Dr. Minnericht, is actually Leviticus Blue, Briar is grimly sure from the very beginning that he isn’t. This is set up as one of the book’s main mysteries, even though there’s one quite obvious reason why she might be so sure. Once we get to the big reveal at the end, we find that’s indeed the reason, exactly as constructed, and neither Briar nor the reader is a bit surprised. Bleh.
It’s incredibly frustrating to be so underwhelmed, because there really is a whole lot here to like. The secondary characters are really interesting, and the world itself is meticulously realized. The action sequences do not disappoint, and things start to get really good in the last third of the story. But there’s something robotic about the whole endeavor. I couldn’t get invested in the story, and wasn’t distracted enough by the shiny stuff. I did like it enough to be interested in the next Clockwork Century book, since I love the aesthetic and am curious to see if I’ll find a different story in this setting more engaging. But while this is a good book that is a great choice for steampunk and zombie fans, I just wasn’t as captivated by it as I thought I’d be.
Verdict: 3 / 5
No comments:
Post a Comment