Good day all,
I know I've had a bit of a long break from posting but let me try and explain what happened. I started reading a book by Stephen King called Gerard's game. It's a pretty cool premise a wife about to have kinky sex with her husband is chained to a bed. But just before she does the deed she wants out so she kicks her husband back which results in him going into cardiac arrest. He dies and she is trapped.
It is a cool premise but I found it a bit slow so I moved on to Leviathan the first book in the Leviathan trilogy.
Leviathan is set in a fascinating and imaginative alternative history around 1914. The events of the three books all revolve around the first world war. The very cool steam punk twist is that the Germans have these giant steam powered walkers and some are truly enormous as big as battle ships walking on legs and towering over forests as well as Zeppelins and what have you.
Now the other side the allies Russia, Britain and France are all Darwinists. Indeed there are alot of in jokes between the clankers and Darwinists about who went the better technological route. So what is a Darwinist well basically they have genetically engineered animals into weapons of war.
The leviathan to give you a good idea is actually a giant whale floating through the air. In fact it's not just a whale it's an echo system that flies with hydrogen produced in its belly by other creatures living inside it including strange balloon like jelly fish fabrications. They also have hyrdrogen sniffer dogs to spot leaks and motivator engines to steer the giant beast.
As you can already tell this is a very imaginative world. This is my first steam punk novel and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Now I'll get to the two main characters because really this is the best part of these amazing books. First we have Alec, he's the son of the assassinated arch duke of the Austrian Hungarian empire, as such he is hunted down by his fellow clankers as he could be the next heir to the throne and could help end the war his great uncle incited.
Then there is Deryn a Scottish girl dressed as a boy so that she can. Exile a pilot. On her first test she inadvertently gets dragged trough the air towards the leviathan which she then becomes a midshipmen on from that point forward and manages to forge a new identity as Dylan Sharp.
I think the best moments in the trilogy is by far when the lives f these two characters intersect. In each novel there are points where they are together and then apart. The book ialternates between both Alec and deryns perspective.
I'm not one for spoilers but I will say how they first meet. The leviathan after an epic air battle against a fleet of German Zeppelins crashes in Switzerland right near where prince Alec is hiding. He goes to help and finds Deryn in the snow and she has her crew take him captive when she realizes he is Austrian (and a bit posh to boot).
I honestly think even though the plot centers around critical battles and moments in which the actions of these characters shape the outcome of the war, the story is also very much at its heart a romance.
It is a slow boil at first but it's really gripping and doesn't fall into the trap of so many romances of putting stupid obstacles in the way. All I'll say is the romance alone was enough to keep me turning the pages.
Even if the fights and action which there is tonnes of aren't enough to get you to read it, I really enjoyed Alec and Dylan as characters. I also feel for te most part the plot moved along quickly and didn't seem to plod. The most plodding section of the trilogy is unfortunately about midway through the last book, but it does pick up momentum and leads to a very captivating climax.
That's also another thing to appreciate about the series. Each book has its own plot and it's own climax and own wrap up. The only thing really not resolved is the romance and perhaps the larger scale of the war, but these aren't those annoying books who takes 3 novels to get to the epic battle or fight.
This is a real page turning and fast paced series and it's also relatively short. Another Hilight for me are the illustrations that helped me see exacty how Scott Westerfeld imagined the leviathan and his other animals and machines of war, including giant sea monsters, giant lightning cannons, hull tall hulking monstrous Russian beers. The list goes on and sometimes the descriptions were not enough for me, but the illustrations really bring all those concrete details to life.
This really is a good series. I've probably said enough for now but check them out.
Leviathan
Behemoth
Goliath
For me possibly the best reads of 2011.
Well that's it from me for a while I'll post again soon when I return to Sydney. Well to all those eyes scanning this page in cyberspace happy reading!
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