Rector Sherman makes money by selling, and sometimes
sampling, the local favorite drug, sap. His eighteenth
birthday is just around the corner, which means his time at
the orphanage is coming to an end. With nowhere to go, and a
heavy conscience weighing on him about Zeke, a missing
friend that he feels responsible for, he decides to enter
the forbidden walls of Seattle as his last resort. Once
inside, Rector realizes it's not as bad as he'd heard --
it's
worse. The blight and zombies abound. Add in a strange and
deadly something that resides in the mist, and another
opening in the wall itself by another threat, and the
question becomes will Rector make it out alive.
Book number five in the Clockwork Century series, THE
INEXPLICABLES is a surprisingly easy read if you're not
privy to the prior books, Priest has given
adequate but brief explanations to set the stage for the
cast of characters. Set in an alternative late nineteenth
century walled off Seattle where fantastical steampunk
tropes abound, the main character, Rector, is a drug-riddled
youth who goes searching for a lost friend. To say this
character is flawed is to put it lightly, but what he lacks
in morals or ethics, he makes up for in heart. With Rector,
the reader is able to see his transformation throughout the
story. Not quite from ugly duckling to swan, but believable
and with a certain depth. My favorite element was Seattle
itself. It was creepy enough to keep me reading, wanting to
see what else lies within the borders. Blight, gas masks,
rotters, and zombie Sasquatch. Enough said.
The overall
story arc is continued nicely. Fans will know that we can
trust Locus award winning Cherie Priest's writing and she
certainly keeps up the standard to which fans are used to. I
recommend the
entire series for steampunk enthusiasts and horror, sci-fi
and fantasy readers alike.
Rector “Wreck ‘em” Sherman was orphaned as a toddler in the
Blight of 1863, but that was years ago. Wreck has grown up,
and on his eighteenth birthday, he’ll be cast out out of the
orphanage.
And Wreck’s problems aren’t merelyabout finding a home. He’s
been quietly breaking the cardinal rule of any good drug
dealer and dipping into his own supply of the sap he sells.
He’s also pretty sure he’s being haunted by the ghost of a
kid he used to know—Zeke Wilkes, who almost certainly died
six months ago. Zeke would have every reason to pester
Wreck, since Wreck got him inside the walled city of Seattle
in the first place, and that was probably what killed
him.Maybe it’s only a guilty conscience, but Wreck can’t
take it anymore, so he sneaks over the wall.
The walled-off wasteland of Seattle is every bit as bad as
he’d heard, chock-full of the hungry undead and utterly
choked by the poisonous, inescapable yellow gas. And then
there's the monster. Rector's pretty certain that whatever
attacked him was not at all human—and not a rotter, either.
Arms far too long. Posture all strange. Eyes all wild and
faintly glowing gold and known to the locals as simpley "The
Inexplicables."
In the process of tracking down these creatures, Rector
comes across another incursion through the wall—just as
bizarre but entirely attributable to human greed. It seems
some outsiders have decided there's gold to be found in the
city and they're willing to do whatever it takes to get a
piece of the pie unless Rector and his posse have anything
to do with it.
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