My Bookshelf: "Leviathan"

The last book, actually books, that I read were Scott Westerfield's Leviathan trilogy. Now, for all you lucky people's enjoyment and edification, I am going to tell you my thoughts on the aforementioned books.

Is that Alek or Deryn on
the cover, you ask?
Beats me.

The Younger Brother bought Leviathan when it was first out. He read it, liked it, and put it on his shelf; however, he did not care enough to buy the next two as they came out. The Younger Brother recommended it to me, but for a long time I was like, "Meh, I'll get to it someday."

This last week was that someday.
Even though a week isn't a day.
I had no books to read, so I finally picked up Leviathan and, unlike the Younger Brother, when I start a series I need to finish it. So, I lobbied for a visit to the bookstore and summarily purchased the other two books. That's what's nice about discovering a good series late: you don't have to wait in agonies of suspense for the subsequent books to come out.

For the five of you who haven't read/haven't heard of this widely-dispersed series, I shall give a synopsis.

It's WWI times in a steampunk world. Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire are Clanker powers -- countries that run on "mechaniks", "electriks" and machines. The most important character is Prince Aleksandar of Hohenberg, who's the son of the Austrian archduke whose assassination by a Serbian starts WWI. In the first few pages, he's awakened from his bed in the dead of night, shoved into a military "walker" and starts running for his life.

Then there are the Darwinists: England, Russia, Italy and most everyone else. Using the principles of the theory of evolution, Darwinist scientists known as "boffins" fabricate all kinds of hybrid "beasties", upon whose mutant backs the Darwinists' empires are built. Our Darwinist friend is Deryn Sharp, a girl who wants to fly. She disguises herself as a boy, Dylan, and (after a bit of an adventure) becomes a midshipman on England's biggest airship, the Leviathan.

As far as the things I liked about the book... well, there were many. The very first thing that leaps to mind is, of course, the drawings! Now I personally am the kind of person who likes a really thick, substantial book. Books the size of Brisingr make me happy. However, I do appreciate good illustrations, and these are certainly good illustrations. Illustrations complete something about a story for me; I am generally not very successful at picturing characters from written descriptions, and all the strange machines and beasties in this book would have been rather confusing to try to imagine without the drawings.

Illustration sample: It's Deryn in a Huxley.
(Sorry -- kind of fuzzy.)

The accents. Deryn is Scottish and I love how the way she talks has its own vocabulary and feel. ("Barking spiders!") The Americans who appear have their own talking pattern too, and Dr. Barlow's speech is unique. The different ways of talking make the story more alive. The author does a good job of being consistent, too, which is sometimes a problem for me in my writing.

The history. I like having historical characters appear in my fiction -- can we say Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, anyone? That way, whenever I read about them, I feel as if I know them. Since this is alternate history, it only makes sense, and I enjoyed meeting the various historical figures. (I would name them here, except they would be spoilers.)

There's not much to talk about as far as what I didn't like.

Since I put in one of Deryn, it's
only fair to include Alek too.

I'm not much of a picky reader. I'm not going to rail on and on about how girls dressing up as boys is a tired old cliche. I would include a mini-rant about Goliath... but I'm going to restrain myself for the sake of spoilers.

However, one thing I will mention: I don't understand why he mixed WWI and WWII. Why is Churchill waging war against the Kaiser? That's only going to lead to confusion, and it wasn't really necessary.

Anyway, what rating would I give it on a scale of "It was the worst book I ever read" to "I AM NOW A RABID FAN"?

I'd say... "I liked it; it was entertaining and definitely worth the money".