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An illustrated and gorgeously designed steampunk WWI AU adventure with mecha and biotech, plus Scott’s patented plausible alt-slang. He usually writes YA and the main characters are in their mid-teens but the emotional texture of this one felt pre-pubescent to me.
In this world, Charles Darwin discovered DNA and how to genetically manipulate and create extraordinary creatures, from living airships which are an ecosystem in themselves to message-repeating lizards. Other nations, possibly for religious reasons though the book doesn't get into any detail on this, went in the traditional steam direction and developed mecha. Despite this, history continued similarly enough to our timestream that two generations later, WWI is about to fought with pretty much the same participants but with mecha and mutant war-creatures.
If the total implausibility of this set-up is a dealbreaker, this book is not for you. I am much more of a “but does it make sense within the book’s own framework” reader, and even I boggled. That being said, the biotech world of the Darwinists is awesome, and the viewpoint character from the Darwinist side, a girl who had disguised herself as a boy to get a job on a military leviathan, is pretty fun.
The steampunk Clankers are less interesting inherently – basic walking and flying mecha, which sadly don’t make the pilots insane or predict the future – and its viewpoint character, the teenage son of the assassinated Archduke, is a squick boring until he meets the main girl character halfway through. The story as a whole picks up a lot at that point.
This isn’t one of my favorites of Westerfeld’s books – it’s pitched a bit young and I prefer his contemporary or future voices and settings - but I have enough curiosity about the mysterious eggs carried by Darwin’s granddaughter that I’ll check out the next one. The obvious answer is dragons, but that makes me think it won’t be dragons.
Leviathan (Leviathan (Quality))
In this world, Charles Darwin discovered DNA and how to genetically manipulate and create extraordinary creatures, from living airships which are an ecosystem in themselves to message-repeating lizards. Other nations, possibly for religious reasons though the book doesn't get into any detail on this, went in the traditional steam direction and developed mecha. Despite this, history continued similarly enough to our timestream that two generations later, WWI is about to fought with pretty much the same participants but with mecha and mutant war-creatures.
If the total implausibility of this set-up is a dealbreaker, this book is not for you. I am much more of a “but does it make sense within the book’s own framework” reader, and even I boggled. That being said, the biotech world of the Darwinists is awesome, and the viewpoint character from the Darwinist side, a girl who had disguised herself as a boy to get a job on a military leviathan, is pretty fun.
The steampunk Clankers are less interesting inherently – basic walking and flying mecha, which sadly don’t make the pilots insane or predict the future – and its viewpoint character, the teenage son of the assassinated Archduke, is a squick boring until he meets the main girl character halfway through. The story as a whole picks up a lot at that point.
This isn’t one of my favorites of Westerfeld’s books – it’s pitched a bit young and I prefer his contemporary or future voices and settings - but I have enough curiosity about the mysterious eggs carried by Darwin’s granddaughter that I’ll check out the next one. The obvious answer is dragons, but that makes me think it won’t be dragons.
Leviathan (Leviathan (Quality))
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