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Holiday Break Reading Challenge Review: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld by Scott Westerfeld

03 01 10 - 21:16 UPDATED: For Ceilingninja and the English Language.

It's hard not to be aware that Scott Westerfeld is awesome. He wrote the Uglies trilogy (or is it called the Pretties trilogy?), which is made of WIN! And he wrote Succession (an adult space opera), which is pretty flippin' cool. Midnighters? Peeps? Ok, I haven't read those last two, but it's more about not getting around to it, yet. He's just an awesome YA guy and and awesome SF guy (remember, SF is hipster for sci-fi (not to be mistaken with SyFy (which is icky-sauce.)))

With Leviathan, Westerfeld, has done it again, seemingly upping the awesome. Like some sort of crazy mad scientist (I'm giving him a lot of credit, since he's technically not the first to do any of these things (but I digress)), he brings his skills with strong teen characters and adds a heaping helping of steam-punk and alternate history into another action-packed saga.

The story begins at the beginning of World War I, with the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (that's how WWI started), but from there Westerfeld's tale has some rollicking fun with history. He's replaced all the boring versions of countries that can be found in any ol' history book with Darwinists and Clankers. Clankers fight with huge armored machinery (think tanks that are more robot than tank). And the Darwinists have used the ideas and theories of Darwin to create some amazing animal mutations (talking lizards and the flying whale airship of the title).

From there it's a little bit country (diplomacy and world politics) and a little bit rock 'n roll (elaborate air and land battles between Clankers and Darwinists.) It even comes with exquisite drawings from Keith Thompson that add to the richness of Leviathan's alternate world. Glad I started my year with it! Used tags: awesomeness, books, favorites, ftw, geekiness, knowledged, older_readers, pwnage, reading, reviews, ya, younger_readers