Boneshaker is a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel by Cherie Priest

Cherie Priest

Cherie Priest is an American novelist and blogger living in Seattle, Washington.-Biography:Priest is a Florida native, born in Tampa in 1975. She graduated from Forest Lake Academy in Apopka, Florida in 1993. She moved around quite a bit as a child of an Army father, living in many places such as...

 which combines the steampunk

Steampunk

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Steampunk involves a setting where steam power is still widely used—usually Victorian era Britain or "Wild West"-era United...

 genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

 with zombies in an alternate history version of Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

. It was nominated for the 2010 Hugo Award

Hugo Award

The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...

 for Best Novel

Hugo Award for Best Novel

The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...

.

Plot

Early in the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, rumors of gold in the Klondike

Klondike, Yukon

The Klondike is a region of the Yukon in northwest Canada, east of the Alaska border. It lies around the Klondike River, a small river that enters the Yukon from the east at Dawson....

 have brought would-be prospectors to North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

's Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...

. Anxious Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n investors commission American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 inventor Leviticus Blue to create a machine which can mine through the ice of Russian-owned Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

. Blue's "Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine" (or "Boneshaker" for short, named after boneshaker bicycles of the era), instead destroys several blocks of downtown Seattle and releases a subterranean vein of "blight gas" that kills anyone who breaths it and turns some of the corpses into rotters (non-supernatural zombies). A wall is erected to contain the gas within the affected part of the city. Leviticus Blue is nowhere to be found.

Sixteen years later, Leviticus's wife and son, Briar and Zeke (Ezekiel) Wilkes, live in the impoverished outskirts of the former metropolis. Life is difficult, but Briar manages to support herself and Zeke by working a physically demanding blue collar

Blue collar

Blue collar can refer to:*Blue-collar worker, a traditional designation of the working class*Blue-collar crime, the types of crimes typically associated with the working class*A census designation...

 job. However, one day, Zeke enters the toxic city in search of evidence proving his father is innocent of the intentional destruction. Briar intends on following, but the drainage hole collapses in an earthquake

Earthquake

An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...

. She then hitches a ride over the wall by a captain of an airship, the unnaturally tall Captain Cly. Meanwhile Zeke meets Rudy, a man who claims to be a highly decorated lieutenant who says he will lead him to his parent's former house. The pair of them encounter an Native American

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 woman who lightly wounds Rudy, but they manage to elude her.

Briar is attacked by rotters which causes her to flee to the roof of a building, where she is rescued by Jeremiah Swakhammer and his Doozy Dazer. He takes her to a bar named in honor of her deceased father to meet people including the barkeeper, Lucy O'Gunning. Once again however rotters attack the bar forcing the occupants to retreat. It is later revealed that a man by the name of Minnericht caused the rotter attack. Lucy takes Briar to see Minnericht who people believe is Leviticus Blue, though Briar doubts this. Unbeknownst to her, Minnericht has Zeke hostage, but war breaks out between Minnericht's men and Swakhammer, Lucy, and the Indian princess. This war attracts the rotters, complicating Briar's efforts to reunite with her son and exit the dangerous area of Seattle.

Authorial intent

Boneshaker is the first novel in Priest's "Clockwork Century" setting. She has affirmed that with Boneshaker she sought to create a literary magnum opus

Magnum opus

Magnum opus , from the Latin meaning "great work", refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of a writer, artist, or composer.-Related terms:Sometimes the term magnum opus is used to refer to simply "a great work" rather than "the...

for the steampunk movement, stating "Steampunk, I think, has been hunting for that for a while."