Omnivoracious: Guest Post: Boneshaker's Cherie Priest Comes Clean on Why She Done a Bad, Bad Thing

Guest Post: Boneshaker's Cherie Priest Comes Clean on Why She Done a Bad, Bad Thing

by Jeff VanderMeer on November 03, 2009

Cherie Priest is a rising star of smart, textured cross-genre fantasy whose latest novel, Boneshaker may be her best yet. She'll be appearing with Cat Rambo and me at the University Bookstore in Seattle tomorrow night at 7pm., as I kick off the northwest leg of my book tour. Here Priest explains why it was necessary to, erm, do bad things to Seattle. -- Jeff VanderMeer

“Why I destroyed Seattle for the sake of Steampunk”
Cherie Priest

As you may be aware, Amazon.com is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. As you are somewhat less likely to be aware, I kind of, sort of, completely demolished this city in my most recent novel, Boneshaker. So at Jeff VanderMeer’s suggestion (and invitation), I thought I’d take a moment and offer some heartfelt apologies and explanations for myself, here on one of Amazon’s exceptional blogs.

You see, it wasn’t personal; it was only convenient. By my tenth or twelfth time on the Underground Tour, I was getting some nasty ideas about the interesting ways this city could host a zombie horde and some very tall tales for my book. I wanted a wild place with wacky local history, and some persistently gloomy weather, and maybe a rough-and-tumble nineteenth century population from which to draw. And with a checklist like that, where else could I begin?

So Seattleites, please take this as a public and formal apology for my warping of your origin story and the fictional obliteration of your fine city.

Please understand, I had to move the Klondike gold rush up by a few decades—otherwise, how could I get tens of thousands of residents to torment by the 1860s? Likewise, it was absolutely necessary for an “accident” involving mining equipment to tear open a vein of yellow-tinged gas that turns people into zombies.

The subsequent wall that went up around the infected quarters did a very fine job of protecting your surviving population in the “Outskirts.” Though yes, this same wall also transformed your downtown blocks into a veritable dungeon-crawl of poor visibility, acid rain, chaotic-neutral crows, and shambling undead. It’s a good thing most of your residents had the good sense to stay the hell out of the walled up nightmare town.

Of course...the most interesting and clever—and sometimes the cruelest and most unsavory—of survivors always find a way; and in my version of events, Seattle’s stragglers either stayed inside and let the walls go up around them, or went back to start a new life right in the thick of it.

All it took to survive was a gas mask, some heavy-duty air filters, and a whole lot of ammunition.

Well, come to think of it, there was a criminal overlord, Dr. Minnericht. You had to keep him happy if you wanted to live longer than a flea on a dog’s behind. And you’d also find pirates who came and went, docking their dirigibles at the Smith Tower as they conducted their illicit business deals under cloak of Blight gas and night. Never mind the food and water shortages, the vicious politicking, and the bizarre weapons created by a mad scientist.

Really, I suppose, I made a mess of things.

But I was confident that even in a bizarre alternate-history version of the 19th century, your hardy pioneer founders would be up to the challenge. And I think I was right! In fact, I borrowed a few of those real life settlers and their contemporaries for this novel, including a few crooks, a few saints, and Chief Seattle’s daughter—the Duwamish princess Angeline.

So again, I offer you my sincerest regrets that I treated your city so roughly. But if you pick up a copy of Boneshaker and give it a read, I hope you’ll take some pride in the pirate-fighting, zombie-killing, kid-rescuing, dirigible-piloting, one-hundred-percent weapons-grade badasses your city has inspired. And maybe then you’ll forget (or at least forgive) all the horrible things I’ve done to my new home town.

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