Tuesday, 21 April 2020 07:30 pm
Book Review: Leviathan
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deckardcanineNo, not the Thomas Hobbes book, which doesn't sound my type, but Scott Westerfield's novel, whose length and illustrations suggest a target age fit for early Harry Potter. I've had a passing interest in steampunk for more than a decade, yet this is my first literary taste of it. As well as one of my first-ever tastes of biopunk, which, in combination, almost drives the setting into gaslamp fantasy territory.
In alternate 1914, Aleksander is the teen son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. When a few servants unexpectedly get him up in the middle of the night ostensibly for vehicle practice, you can guess their real reason. Their best hope is to reach a secret, well-stocked lair in the Swiss Alps and lay low until Alek's adversarial grandfather kicks the bucket, after which there shouldn't be a reward on Alek's head.
Every two chapters, the third-person-limited POV switches; when it's not Alek, it's Deryn, a lower-class English girl around the same age. She disguises herself as a boy to join the Royal Naval Air Service, mainly for the joy of flying. Funnily enough, she hides her gender better than Alek hides his noble upbringing. It may help that she uses vulgar language with ease -- no actual swears, of course; the closest she gets is using "clart" to mean something more specific than mere filth. Her usual exclamation of awe or dismay is "Barking spiders!"
The book is about half over before the two meet. Coming from different worlds in more ways than one, they certainly have their clashes, but they don't see each other as enemies for long. Genre savvy dictates that they be friends, if not more. By the end of this first volume, Deryn has feelings for Alek, but he still sees her as "Dylan" and shows no signs of swinging that way.
Their clashes stem partly from socioeconomic differences but mainly from their cultures not seeing eye to eye on technology. Austria-Hungary and some other nations (depicted beautifully if confusingly on a map up front) are full of "Clankers," who use typical steampunk vessels such as manned turrets on legs. Nations like Britain are dominated by "Darwinists," who employ genetically engineered animals more than inorganic machinery. Clankers view that as a spiritual abomination, and Darwinists don't like Clankers any better. (From a modern perspective, I'd be more concerned about what humane societies thought, especially of military utilization.) Alek and Deryn disagree on which tech smells worse.
The title refers to a Darwinist "airship" composed of multiple animals working together, a hydrogen-breathing whale being the conspicuous base. Deryn becomes a middy there, with a mission to escort an esteemed scientist and her classified cargo all the way to the Ottoman Empire. German forces bring trouble, which leads to a stopover in the Swiss Alps....
I'm grateful to have about one illustration per chapter on average, because steampunk isn't nearly as much fun if you have to visualize it. In truth, the biopunk is the real star, being both more alien and more imaginative. For example, message lizards run around the ship, repeating spoken words with recognizable vocal imitations.
Sure, it requires more suspension of disbelief than steampunk. Even if such creatures are possible, they should be impractical to create and train. Ethical objections aside, the idea is kinda Flintstonian. I'd rather not rely on animals with minds of their own doing my bidding if I can help it. And getting inside a live whale is, well, viscerally repellent. Still, within the world of Leviathan, Darwinist tech has some advantages over Clanker tech as well as vice versa: Animals may not be tough as steel or fast as trains, but they do heal and get back up better than the "walkers," and relative lightness aids flight.
Between the premises and the battle scenes, the book could easily be adapted into a PG movie. The only hangup is, again, the controversial nature of this brand of Darwinism. If you can put that aside, you should be in for a treat.
The ending is only a tentative stopping point, with the action having died down but nobody exactly satisfied for the moment. I look forward to learning what happens in the immediate sequel, Behemoth, and in all likelihood, I'll go on to Goliath. Think I'll skip Westerfield's Uglies series, tho.
Getting away from sci-fi but not science, I've picked up Richard Feynman's What Do You Care What Other People Think? Further Adventures of a Curious Character. High time I learned a few things about this guy.
In alternate 1914, Aleksander is the teen son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. When a few servants unexpectedly get him up in the middle of the night ostensibly for vehicle practice, you can guess their real reason. Their best hope is to reach a secret, well-stocked lair in the Swiss Alps and lay low until Alek's adversarial grandfather kicks the bucket, after which there shouldn't be a reward on Alek's head.
Every two chapters, the third-person-limited POV switches; when it's not Alek, it's Deryn, a lower-class English girl around the same age. She disguises herself as a boy to join the Royal Naval Air Service, mainly for the joy of flying. Funnily enough, she hides her gender better than Alek hides his noble upbringing. It may help that she uses vulgar language with ease -- no actual swears, of course; the closest she gets is using "clart" to mean something more specific than mere filth. Her usual exclamation of awe or dismay is "Barking spiders!"
The book is about half over before the two meet. Coming from different worlds in more ways than one, they certainly have their clashes, but they don't see each other as enemies for long. Genre savvy dictates that they be friends, if not more. By the end of this first volume, Deryn has feelings for Alek, but he still sees her as "Dylan" and shows no signs of swinging that way.
Their clashes stem partly from socioeconomic differences but mainly from their cultures not seeing eye to eye on technology. Austria-Hungary and some other nations (depicted beautifully if confusingly on a map up front) are full of "Clankers," who use typical steampunk vessels such as manned turrets on legs. Nations like Britain are dominated by "Darwinists," who employ genetically engineered animals more than inorganic machinery. Clankers view that as a spiritual abomination, and Darwinists don't like Clankers any better. (From a modern perspective, I'd be more concerned about what humane societies thought, especially of military utilization.) Alek and Deryn disagree on which tech smells worse.
The title refers to a Darwinist "airship" composed of multiple animals working together, a hydrogen-breathing whale being the conspicuous base. Deryn becomes a middy there, with a mission to escort an esteemed scientist and her classified cargo all the way to the Ottoman Empire. German forces bring trouble, which leads to a stopover in the Swiss Alps....
I'm grateful to have about one illustration per chapter on average, because steampunk isn't nearly as much fun if you have to visualize it. In truth, the biopunk is the real star, being both more alien and more imaginative. For example, message lizards run around the ship, repeating spoken words with recognizable vocal imitations.
Sure, it requires more suspension of disbelief than steampunk. Even if such creatures are possible, they should be impractical to create and train. Ethical objections aside, the idea is kinda Flintstonian. I'd rather not rely on animals with minds of their own doing my bidding if I can help it. And getting inside a live whale is, well, viscerally repellent. Still, within the world of Leviathan, Darwinist tech has some advantages over Clanker tech as well as vice versa: Animals may not be tough as steel or fast as trains, but they do heal and get back up better than the "walkers," and relative lightness aids flight.
Between the premises and the battle scenes, the book could easily be adapted into a PG movie. The only hangup is, again, the controversial nature of this brand of Darwinism. If you can put that aside, you should be in for a treat.
The ending is only a tentative stopping point, with the action having died down but nobody exactly satisfied for the moment. I look forward to learning what happens in the immediate sequel, Behemoth, and in all likelihood, I'll go on to Goliath. Think I'll skip Westerfield's Uglies series, tho.
Getting away from sci-fi but not science, I've picked up Richard Feynman's What Do You Care What Other People Think? Further Adventures of a Curious Character. High time I learned a few things about this guy.