The Inexplicables

One of the great aspects of Cherie Priest's The Clockwork Century Book series, is that the novels are able to stand alone but, with this novel, the fourth (or fifth novel if you count her novel Clemintine, ) book in the series, one can see a drawing of all the parties from the previous books. This is both a pleasure and a curse. Characters introduced in other books are being mentioned more and more, and Ms. Priest is building on asspects the characters established in previous books. I feel IMO, that readers unfamilier with the other 3 (or 4) books in this series might find a lack of character developement.

Ms. Priest is able to overcome this some, by making a character, only mentioned breifly in the fist novel the main character of this novel. Rector Sherman, who had a very small part in book one, has cosen to go over the wall to "blighted" Seatle, when he is kicked out of the orphanage at the age of 18.

I will not go into plot details, as anyone can read the synopsis to get the gist of the story, instead, I want to talk about truly spectacular writing style of Cherie Priest. She creates a completely believable world where the idea of zombies, monsters, and poison gas leaking from a volcano being made into a drug seem perfectly logical. She blends just the right amount of dialogue, and descriptive writing, to keep the story moving along.

Although Rector is 18YO in the story, the novel is a about boys growing into young men, and as the mother of a teenage boy, I felt Ms Priest combined just the right amount of Bravado and and uncertainty, a group of young men on the cusp of adulthood face.

I would highly recommend this book, and give it my highest rating 5 stars.