Leviathan

Leviathan
By: Scott Westerfeld
Simon Pulse 2009
Science fiction genre

Leviathan was once again a really awesome book that I have read thus far. It is set during World War I right after the Archduke was assassinated and the war had begun. However, Scott Westerfeld put an awesome twist into what we think is WWI. He uses Steampunk. It is basically mixing the old with the new, and it worked out brilliantly in this book. At times I didn't even feel like I was reading a children's book because all of the concepts were so well thought out and in depth. He did an amazing job of bringing the whole world to life.


I really loved the setting for the novel because I feel like it makes a lot more sense for it to have taken place in WWI rather than WWII because it feels like it just fits into the setting. The book also brought about two awesome concepts, one that I have never heard of and one that I absolutely love. The first is Steampunk which like I said before is mixing the old and new. The Germans and Austrians in the this novel were nicknamed clankers for the machinery that they used. They were basically massive, 50 ton war machines that ran on steam and engines. Just the sight of them brought fear into people, but that is what the Germans were so commonly known for so it made sense for them to have these terrifying war machines. On the other end, the author came up with a group of people called Darwinists, like Charles Darwin, and they would genetically engineer animals and "play with their life threads" to morph them into useful creatures for battle. I thought it was so interesting how he played off Charles Darwin's concept and made it into this weird genetics thing. I have never heard of it before and was absolutely blown away by how intriguing it was. There would be air ships that were just whales filled with hydrogen, and tigers mixed with wolves that would be ridden. A lot of things worked on hydrogen which I really loved because it really brought out the science fiction aspect without it being cheesy and typical. It was definitely very well thought through and I commend the author for that.

The best thing about this book though is the way the author presents women. I think it is very important for girls and boys to read a variety of literature and while a boy would most definitely like this book, a girl may be a bit more weary to read it. However, the author does a great job of switching off the main character between the Archdukes son, Alek, and between the girl who snuck into the airforce disguised as a boy, Deryn. They both have equal amounts of story time since the story is structured so that there will be two chapters with one and then the other and so on. It is wonderful though that there is a girl character that is extremely strong and is just as good or even better than a majority of the boys on her ship.  I feel like Deryn's strong character could be inspiring to girls and could potentially get them into science fiction which is always great since I don't think many girls like science enough. Also, there is the scientist, Dr. Barlow, who is absolutely brilliant and regardless of the fact that she is a woman she is very well respected by her comrades.

The pacing in this book was great, there was never a dull moment throughout and it leads into the next book of the series really well. The only thing I was not fond with in the book was how it was sometimes very predictable which was a bit disappointing, but because of some of the other concepts he integrated in it was excusable. The illustrations in this book were gorgeous and did such a great job of showing off the world that he made because without the magnificent pictures I would never truly understand what he was trying to convey with his Darwinist beasts in the book. Regardless of the size, the book goes by really fast and the characters are really hard not to feel for and super intriguing!