Boneshaker

 Boneshaker (The Clockwork Century #1) by Cherie Priest (2009) 416 pages

This was a fun steampunk adventure, but I'm not so thrilled with the characters and setting to necessarily continue the series. It is a world where the American Civil War has stretched on for several additional years because the author imagines the South had the train routes and manufacturing that in reality gave the North the advantage. That is an uncomfortable premise, giving the South more power, but it is background to a story that takes place in Seattle before any of the west coast has been divided into states. The alternate history that really affects the story is that the Klondike gold rush happened earlier than in reality, so the population of Seattle has boomed, and a mad scientist loosely inspired by Edison built the Boneshaker machine to drill for gold, but unintentionally released a poisonous yellow gas called Blight. Blight turns people into zombies and a giant wall was built around Seattle to stop the gas from spreading. Some rough and ready folks still live in the city in sealed up underground passages where gas masks and zombie fighting weapons are always at hand. Sixteen years later, Ezekiel, the son of this mad scientist, has only known life in the Outskirts outside the wall. He sets out to learn what really happened with his father inside the walls. His mother Briar chases after him to get him safely out of the city, but it is not easy for her to locate her son. The action is pretty steady and characters are fearful of not only the zombies, but a mad scientist who is in charge of the unfinished train station within the walls. Are the rumors true about who this mad scientist is?