Leviathan

by Scott Westerfeld

Here's another one by Westerfeld that I really liked. It's a little sci-fi and a little old-fashioned at the same time, a style that has come to be known as "steam punk." The story is set in a sort of alternate timeline version of Europe around the time of World War I. As the story begins, Alek is woken up in the middle of the night by a couple of his personal instructors to give him a late-night Stormwalker driving lesson. It makes sense to some degree, but why is Alek's fencing instructor, Count Volger, coming along? Is he in danger, is that why they're leaving at night? Is he in danger from Count Volger? Maybe he's being kidnapped!!

At about the same time, a girl in England named Deryn is trying to join the military's Air Service. She has a couple of things standing in her way, though. She's a bit young and she's a she. So Deryn tries to pass herself off as Dylan to join up. She has a lot of experience with flying already, so she's well ahead of her peers in terms of skill. While riding up on a tethered Huxley, Deryn runs into a storm that forces her to cut ties with the ground and float off over London. She's picked up by a giant airship, the Leviathan. Or should I say air beast? The Leviathan and the Huxley are both living creatures. England is a Darwinist country and they use living things, crazy beasts made from the DNA of different creatures, for transportation and weaponry.

Alek is from Austria, though, and he's a "Clanker," relying on giant mechanical contraptions for their military conflicts. How will Deryn (Dylan) and Alek fare when their countries start gearing up for war? Check out Leviathan from the LFHS library to find out!