Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld

Leviathan

by Scott Westerfeld

Simon Pulse, NY 2009

This Steampunk tale opens at the start of World War II. With the help of only a few trusted advisers and a Cyclop Stormwalker, Alek attempts to evade his parent's assassins.  Meanwhile, Deryn, a young lady disguised as a young man, determined to view the world harnessed to a Huxley (a sort of floating jellyfish) enrolls in the British Air Service. A spectacular accident brings these two opposites together (Alek's a Clanker who believes in the old fashioned competency of steam powered war machines. While Deryn sides with the Darwinists, those quirky scientists who've managed to create fabricated beasts like huge hydrogen breathing air beasts) and thus we have the start of the Leviathan series.

I am a crazed Scott Westerfeld fan. Uglies, Pretties, and Specials? Brilliant, fantastic, and bizarre. So Yesterday? So perfect. And don't even get me started on Peeps. Leviathan did not disappoint, and the illustrations are fantastic.

Bottom Line:

We cannot keep this book (or its sequel, Behemoth) on the FHS Library shelves. The second a student returns it, it is checked back out by another student. And that, my fellow bookworms, is every library book's dream.