Cherie Priest is an author known for her work in speculative fiction and horror, particularly steampunk. Her notable books include Boneshaker, and her stories have appeared in collections like The Living Dead 2 and magazines such as Apex Magazine.
Fiddlehead
Fiddlehead
Synopsis
Fiddlehead is the sixth and concluding novel in Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century, pulling the series' scattered threads into a single Washington-centered conspiracy thriller. It follows Gideon Bardsley, a formerly enslaved inventor whose calculating machine predicts that the twenty-year Civil War is feeding a zombie apocalypse that will destroy North and South alike.
The novel brings Abraham Lincoln, wheelchair-bound survivor of Ford's Theatre, and former spy Maria 'Belle' Boyd into a plot to expose the industrialists and officials profiting from prolonging both the war and the Blight-borne plague. Priest shifts register from adventure to political intrigue and race-against-time thriller, tying together the rotters, the sap trade, and the machinery introduced across the earlier books.
As a finale, Fiddlehead delivers the series' thematic payoff about war, exploitation, and the dead as a shared enemy. It is best read last.
Vibe
Genres
Characters
Gideon BardsleyProtagonist
A formerly enslaved inventor whose calculating machine, Fiddlehead, forecasts catastrophe if the war continues.
Maria 'Belle' BoydProtagonist
Former Confederate spy turned Pinkerton agent investigating the plot against Bardsley.
Abraham LincolnSupporting
The aged, wheelchair-using ex-president who survived assassination and marshals allies to protect the inventor.
