RogerBW's Blog

Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld 20 September 2018

2009 young adult steampunk SF, first of a trilogy. In an alternate 1914, the German Clanker powers build massive legged war machines, while the English Darwinists engineer creatures to serve their purposes. But none of that stops the Archduke Franz Ferdinand from being assassinated.

The young adult credentials are prominent: nobody ever swears, and both of the protagonists are young and relatively ignorant of the world and of adult life. (Indeed, I'd call this more a children's book than a YA one, in spite of a sudden moment of ladyfeelings near the end.) One is Aleksandar [sic], the son of Franz Ferdinand (in this history he's the only one), fleeing from Austria into Switzerland with a small retinue; the other is Deryn Sharpe, a common-as-muck English airman who's actually a girl in disguise. When the living war-airship Leviathan crashes near the castle where Alek is hiding, they'll have to get their respective sides to work together, assuming they can even trust each other.

It's more fun than Bennis' The Guns Above, but less gritty; perhaps because of the YA audience there's a lot less injury and suffering than in that other book, and large chunks of the technology are clearly elided in order to make the story work. (If Charles Darwin worked out how to manipulate DNA and thus pushed history profoundly off course, why is there still a Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty, doing a specific thing he did in real-1914? Because it's fun.)

I'm really not convinced by the "bitter almond" smell of hydrogen – yes, perhaps they add something to it to make it detectable, but someone ought perhaps to mention that, especially when it's being produced by biological processes – and nor do I believe that hydrogen airships will go up in flames at the slightest spark. (Well, if you paint the skin with thermite, perhaps, but nobody would do that.) I fear Westerfeld has spent too much time considering the Hindenburg, and not enough on the reports of historical aviators who took on zeppelins. But hey, fléchette bats! Strafing hawks with anti-aircraft nets! Swarms of bees that forage, then make honey to be metabolised into hydrogen! The legged war machines come off a distinct second best in the sense-of-wonder stakes, even if nobody really worries about issues of high profile or power to weight ratios, and there are legged battleships that can cross unprepared ground at speed…

It's certainly not the wonder that The Risen Empire was, in other words, but it's enjoyable and I'll read more of the trilogy. Followed by Behemoth.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Series: Leviathan | Next in series: Behemoth

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1