On the face of it Cherie Priest's Boneshaker should be a cracking read: steampunk, alternate history, sky pirates, zombies, honestly what is there not to like?
Unfortunately it sounds a little better than it actually is. It's set in an alternate 19th century US in Seattle and a US that is beset by a seemingly endless Civil War that has gone on a lot longer than the one in our world did.
Seattle isn't involved in the war that much, but they have bigger problems, ever since Dr. Leviticus Blue's Boneshaker machine destroyed much of the city and unleashed a noxious gas that turns those exposed to it into mindless shambling undead creatures with a desperate need to feed.
In most cases I don't really want to read zombie books where we see the zombocalypse take place. In the case of Boneshaker I'm willing to make an exception. Had I read a book where we saw the Boneshaker being built and causing a massive disaster, and actually met the mysterious and brilliant Leviticus Blue, I think I would have liked it more.
Having said all that I didn't actually dislike Boneshaker. I just found it a bit frustrating. I liked the character of Briar, but she was inconsistent. I did not like the character of Zeke (the son of Briar and Leviticus), he was 15, but acted 12 and was written as if he were younger than he actually was. He behaved much like many pre teen characters in fiction these days, and I find many of them to be suffering from TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) syndrome. Zeke was no exception.
Often the book itself read as if it were a steampunk extravaganza for the young adult reader, rather than the dark more epic thing it was meant to be.
Possibly the reason it sat on the shelf for as long as it did was because somewhere I knew the book probably wasn't going to ultimately be for me. Shame, because I generally tend to like Cherie Priest's work.
R is up next (can't find a Q) and I have something completely different planned.
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