Boneshaker: A Novel of the Clockwork Century

Front Cover
Macmillan, Sep 29, 2009 - Fiction - 416 pages

In the early days of the Civil War, rumors 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 teenaged 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 overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.



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Selected pages

Contents

Acknowledgments
7
Chapter One
21
Chapter Two
29
Chapter Three
32
Chapter Four
42
Chapter Five
59
Chapter Six
69
Chapter Seven
78
Chapter Sixteen
224
Chapter Seventeen
244
Chapter Eighteen
256
Chapter Nineteen
271
Chapter Twenty
281
Chapter Twentyone
297
Chapter Twentytwo
307
Chapter Twentythree
324

Chapter Eight
92
Chapter Nine
98
Chapter Ten
119
Chapter Eleven
132
Chapter Twelve
158
Chapter Thirteen
172
Chapter Fourteen
185
Chapter Fifteen
205
Chapter Twentyfour
339
Chapter Twentyfive
347
Chapter Twentysix
361
Chapter Twentyseven
376
Chapter Twentyeight
392
Epilogue
411
Authors Note
415
Copyright

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About the author (2009)

Cherie Priest's Boneshaker was nominated for a Nebula and Hugo Award, won the Locus Award for best science-fiction novel, and was named Steampunk Book of the Year by steampunk.com. She is also the author of Dreadnought, Boneshaker's sequel, and of the near-contemporary fantasy Fathom. She debuted to great acclaim with Four and Twenty Blackbirds, Wings to the Kingdom, and Not Flesh Nor Feathers, a trilogy of Southern Gothic ghost stories featuring heroine Eden Moore. Born in Tampa, Florida, Priest earned her master's in rhetoric at the University of Tennessee. She lives in Seattle, Washington, with her husband, Aric, and a fat black cat named Spain.

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