Review:Dreadnought

After reading Boneshaker I knew I had to read the rest of the Clockwork Century series. Don’t let the fact that they are part of a series fool you all three books can act as a standalone so you do not need to read all of the books to understand what happens in the next book.

Dreadnought takes place during the Civil War. Mercy worked in VA at a Rebel hospital when she receives two devastating pieces of news. First that her husband who was fighting on the Union side was killed. Second is that her father who lived in Seattle and is dying wanted to see her. So she sets off on the journey.

The journey should be easy right? Go south then go west. But it is anything but. Things start to go wrong from the get go. First her dirigible crashes then it is one thing after another. She finally reaches St Louis and manages to catch a train the Dreadnought west. The Dreadnaught is a Union train so she keeps her southern sympathies hid. They say that the Dreadnought is on a purely civilian mission but as things start happening it becomes clear that is not the case. Mercy but figure out what the real purpose of the train is before they are all killed.

I have to be honest I loved this book. I think I may have found a new favorite genre. There were some elements that were the same as boneshaker but you did not have to read boneshaker to follow this book. There were not as many zombies and such in this book as there was in Boneshaker. I felt that the reader felt there was more danger in boneshaker than there were in Dreadnought.

The author weaves the alternate history parts together seamlessly into the story so that you were not jarred every time something out of the ordinary happened. It all had a nice flow to it.

While I might not be a die hard feminist I do like a story that has a strong female character. Mercy in Dreadnought is a very strong character, She shows times and time again that she can take control and have people respect her for it. No matter the situation she does not wait for a man to come rescue her but rather does her own rescuing. I think character such as these are important in literate as they show that a woman can be capable of taking care of herself and others.

I look forward to reading more of this authors books.

Review: Boneshaker

I normally don’t take a week reading a book but this one was so good I just had to savor it. I think I found another favorite for books I have read this year.

The story starts with the boy Zeke and his mother Briar living in the outskirts of Seattle. Years before his father had run a machine called the Boneshaker through downtown Seattle. Originally the boneshaker was for mining gold under the frozen ice of the Klondike. However when it was run through downtown Seattle it caused a huge rift and the blight gas erupted. This gas burned anyone who came into contact with it. It also caused some people to turn into rotters. Zombies in other words. When Zeke goes into the walled off city to find the truth about his father who disappeared during the escape from the blight,  there is an earthquake that blocks the entrance and exit tunnels so his mother goes in by dirigible to try and find and save him.

At the start of the year I had told myself I was going to try new genres of books. I tend to stick with literary fiction with a side helping of self help. I felt the need to broaden my horizons. This book was my first foray into Steampunk. And what a delightful trip it was! I am now going to explore the genre farther. So if you have any suggestion feel free to leave them in the comments.

Back to the Boneshaker. This was a plot and character driven book. Things happen quickly while also giving you necessary background information. I felt that I really cared about the characters in the book and actually fantasized meeting them in real life!.Even the secondary characters come to life.

The plot was believable. Ok, it required you to forget about when actual events happened and to suspend actual history but reading it you felt that it COULD happen. That I feel is really important in this kind of novel. This shows that the world building was excellent. You had such a complete picture that you felt you could really “step” into that world and feel what the characters were feeling.

The plot was really fast. There were no dragging in this book. Things happened one after the other. I was glad because I for one find that as I get older my attention span for long explanations that go on for pages is getting shorter. I could blame twitter and facebook but oh well.

Over all this book had excellent writing, and an excellent story. I would recommend this book to all who like steampunk.