Last year, I gushed and gushed about Fablehaven. It was my favorite. It is still my pick to win the 2011 Caudill Award. I am anxiously waiting to find out where it places. Now I am halfway through the 2012 list and I think my heart has picked my 2012 favorite. I present Leviathan.
Currently, it resides in Young Adult. I am relatively certain, that money available, I can get it in Juvenile. I would probably recommend it to both boys and girls from 6th grade up. Adults are enjoying it as well.
There are some euphemisms that I am compelled to address. Kids these days say “snap” and “crap” in exchange for a more explicit term for human excrement. In Leviathan, the term is “clart.” There is no mistake about what it is and how it is used. The other term is “diddies” referring to a woman’s breasts. I happen to be more sensitive to such things and took offense. But it is necessary to the plot and I will explain later.
This novel is steampunk and I love it. The author describes steampunk as the blending of the future with the past. The setting is Europe, the summer of 1914, and the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria has just been assassinated in Sarajevo. This is an alternate history.
We have two main characters. The first is the Archduke’s fifteen-year-old son, Aleksandar. He is a prince without an inheritance. His royal father chose a commoner for a wife and the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire will not recognize the marriage or the children produced by the union. Upon the death of his parents, Prince Alek is whisked away to neutral Switzerland to hide until a better time when his life will not be so much at risk.
The second protagonist is Midshipman Dylan Sharp of the British Airforce. He is also fifteen and you must be at least sixteen to join the armed forces. But his father was a balloonist and taught Dylan everything he needed to know in order to fly the skies and so Dylan is much better qualified to serve than many of those volunteering. Oh, and Dylan has another secret that could prevent him from realizing his dream to serve from the air. He happens to be a she, Deryn Sharp, hence the diddies being a problem.
As if the above were not exciting enough to captivate the reader, there is MORE! There are two factions that separate the continent and motivate Europe to enter war. Let me introduce the Clankers versus the Darwinists. Britain and its Allies have developed fabricated life based upon Darwin's theories. Scientists have used Life Chains, (DNA), to create new beasts of burden – elephantines, hydrogen sniffers and the great Leviathan itself. It is both an airship and a whale. Can you imagine flying in/on a whale?
Germany and its Allies believe the fabricated beasts to be godless, soulless abominations. They have built steam run machines such as trains, stormwalkers and dreadnoughts to defend and protect their interests. What happens when the two meet peacefully? Not entirely sure yet, but I have ordered the sequel Behemoth and I am not entirely sure I can wait to find out.
Scott Westerfeld is becoming one of my new favorite authors.
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