Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Engaging and unique YA adventure!, November 8, 2009

Apparently I've been remiss in my exploration of all reading genres and missed out on this one: steampunk. Westerfeld explains in his afterward of Leviathan that it is a blending of future and past. Indeed, this novel is set in 1914 at the beginning of what comes to be known as World War I -- but in this unique tale, it is the battle of the Clankers vs the Darwinists. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans (Clankers) use weapons that are iron machines equipped with canons and guns. The British (Darwinists) have engineered weapons that are living fabricated creatures made out of multiple different species of animals, reptiles, worms, and mammals.

The story begins as young Aleksander Ferdinand, son of the Archduke and heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, is secreted out of his castle home by faithful family retainers in the middle of the night after the poisoning of his parents in Sarajevo. This band of nobles and Alek escape ahead of the warmongering Germans in their engine of war known as a Cyklop Stormwalker. In a parallel story, a girl named Deryn Sharp disguises herself as a boy in order to be accepted into the British Air Service as an airman. On her first day of training, she is stranded aloft in a Huxley airbeast but is rescued by the great whale airship, the largest in the British fleet, the Leviathan.

Prince Alek and his crew encounter some difficulty and engage in a battle or two before arriving at the designated safe house in the frozen Swiss Alps where they plan to wait out the war until Alek can safely be restored to his rightful place as heir to the Empire. Meanwhile, the Leviathan stops in London to pick up a very important passenger, Dr. Nora Barlow and her mysterious cargo, and are supposed to head to a rendezvous in the Ottoman Empire. The plot converges in the Swiss Alps when the Leviathan is injured and downed on the glacier by German pursuers. Alek and Deryn meet and urge their respective alliances to join forces to escape certain death and to elude those intent on killing them. What follows is high adventure on a newly redesigned Leviathan! Secrets still exist, however, and the final chapter ends in a way that makes the reader want to know more of the story.

There will be a second novel that will follow the Leviathan and its motley crew to the Ottoman Empire and the city of Constantinople.

I'm looking forward to the sequel. Enjoy the adventure, the fantastic science, and this tinkering with history. The illustrations, the map of the European Powers, and the cover invite closer inspection and add greatly to the story. Recommend!