Last time, we brought you a bio of Scott Westerfeld, author of super cool, steampunktastic Leviathan. Today, following in those punky steam boots, we’ll discuss another author who rolls in that genre: Cherie Priest. Just a few weeks ago, her latest novel, Boneshaker, was released, replete with zombies, airships, and a walled Civil War era Seattle full of craziness; and from all I can tell, it’s pretty damned cool.

Born in 1975 and currently living in Seattle, Priest’s first novel, Four and Twenty Blackbirds, introduces Eden Moore, a girl living in the south who is visited by spirits as a child that guide her in figuring out the history behind her crooked ancestry. After this, Priest went on to pen two more novels involving Eden Moore, which conveniently became known as the Eden Moore Trilogy: Wings to the Kingdom and Not Flesh Nor Feathers. These novels all center around the South and mysteries therein. To date, Priest’s writing falls mostly within the horror/holy-crap-there’s-voodoo-and-stuff-in-this-novel-genre, but is now extending into the fields of the aforementioned steampunk (although according to the all-mighty Wikipedia she likes to describe these novels as an “alternate history,” but we’ll get to that).

More currently, as as mentioned above, Priest has released Boneshaker, about a son who attempts to clear the names of his grandfather and father and his mother who attempts to save his life. You see, the only way for the son, Zeke, to complete his goal is to go into a walled off part of 1870s Seattle that is full of zombies (a.k.a “rotters”). The reason Seattle is walled off just happens to be part of why everyone kinda hates his late father and grandfather. Zeke believes that they can’t be all that bad, and ventures inside to find some proof of that theory. Knowing that it’s essentially a suicide mission, his mother, Briar, sets off to bring him home, and goes within the walls herself.

Boneshaker is the first of a series that Priest is calling The Clockwork Century. Basically here’s the scoop:

Here, it is 1880 (or thereabouts). The Civil War is still underway, drawn out by English interference, a different transportation infrastructure, and a powerful Republic of Texas that discovered oil at Spindletop some fifty years sooner than real life allowed. The competition of war has led to technological progress and horrors unimaginable, and many people have fled the combating states, hoping for an easier life out west. Some of them have found it. Some of have found something else.

These novels are described as an “alternate history,” and so far that history is filled with zombies and airships. I’m currently about halfway through Boneshaker, and I must say it’s a very enthralling tale. Civil War history is fairly interesting in its own right, but what if there were ZOMBIES, you know? As far as I’ve come in the novel, I can’t help but think there could be a really interesting screenplay to come out of this. I’d watch a Civil War zombie movie.

And to end this all out, I want to briefly mention the novel itself, in it’s physical form. The paperback is a really solid, really sharp cut book that feels good in the hand. Most people probably don’t think twice about that sort of thing, but I like it when paperbacks feel sturdy. I’m going through a pretty large series right now, the current novel being upwards of 1,000 pages, and it just flip flops all around like a dead fish in your hands. And while that series is super epic, I wish I didn’t have to strain my weak nerd arms just holding the book upright. That is all.

Look for more about Boneshaker on a future episode.