This YA novel is set in a dystopic steampunk world of 1863. The Civil War rages in the eastern US, and rumours of gold in the northwest have people streaming in from everywhere to stake their claim and dig for a piece of shiny ore.

The book is set in Seattle, where a catastrophic drilling accident has released a poisonous gas throughout the inner city. After taking refuge in The Outskirts, the survivors build a huge wall around the city to contain the deadly, low-lying gas that continues to seep out of the ground. Called The Blight, the gas is so toxic that if it touches your skin you either die within minutes in agony, or turn into a “rotter”. To all intents and purposes these rotters are zombies that move at incredible speed and have tremendous strength and regenerative capacity.

The novel picks up 16 years after the disaster. Told in a split narrative, it focuses on two protagonists. One is a 15-year old boy (Zeke), who wants to find out about his grandfather, an acknowledged hero when The Blight was released. The other is his mother (Briar), a 35-year-old woman who lives a disengaged, reclusive life. The two barely speak, worn down just from the struggle to live every day in the dirty, dark, Blighted world.

The story begins when Zeke decides he will make a quick visit to The City to look for clues about his grandfather. Needless to say things do not go as planned. When Briar gets home and finds Zeke gone, she goes to find him and bring him home to safety.

The book is rich in detail, describing the machines and ways in which a society tries to survive in an extraordinarily harsh and unforgiving environment. There are well-drawn secondary characters that prove to be more interesting and engaging than Zeke, who just comes across as a petulant teenager. Since the book rests in a large part on his narrative, this is a major flaw for me: I just did not care about what would happen to this kid. In fact, I had hopes that he might die, giving the mother character a larger dramatic arc. As it was, her depiction was flat and, despite being ostensibly a key driver of the plot, her perils were incidental to the true crises of the other characters.

Moderately well-written, and a fast read, this is the first in The Clockwork Century series. The second book in the series (Clementine), though set in the same world, focuses on different characters and has a female protagonist. As a fan of steampunk, and strong female characters, this will be enough for me to pick up a copy. ( )

Took a while for me to get into it, but I ended up quite liking it. Didn't grab me as much as my last book, but I will look for more books by the author. I did have trouble placing it in a timeframe - the text and conversations didn't immediately place me in the era, and so sometimes I had to concentrate to remember "when" this was. I did like the characters though, and the concept is great. The tension build toward the end of the book was gripping. ( )

I loved this book. Great fun and a wonderful mashup of steampunk, zombies, and westerns. I can't wait to read the next book. ( )

I'm actually torn about this book. I enjoyed it quite a bit. The writing was pretty good and the story moved along nicely. The setting, as unbelievable as it was, was fun and exciting. The characters were well drawn and likable and unlikable as appropriate. I read it as fast as I could, and wanted more when I was finished.

On the other hand, there were quite a few times where it was difficult to stay oriented about how buildings were laid out on streets or rooms were laid out in buildings. Maybe that's just hard to do in books. It didn't really detract from the story, since the characters were confused about their location anyway. The ending was a bit of a letdown.

Even so, I like the characters, world, and writing so much that I can hardly wait to get my hands on the next books in this series. ( )

I enjoyed this book, but found it a bit on the long side. It was my first exploration of the steam punk genre. ( )