From the Bookshelf: the Leviathan series
Feb. 10th, 2013 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerBack in what I can now suppose the later days of the Science Fiction Book Club, one of the books in their flyers that caught my eye was promoted as an "alternative history." Set at the start of World War I, the novel promised the grandiose addition of mechanical war "walkers" to the Central Powers and genetically engineered monsters to the Allies. I put in an order for Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan, but suppose now it got sort of caught by my being put on shift, where I didn't have quite the same time to read, and it just sat in a pile until quite recently. That, though, did mean it was easy to get the next two books in the series once I'd read the first...
I suppose that right from when I first heard about the central concept of the book, I was inclined to think that drawing a sharp distinction between the "Clankers" and the "Darwinists" (the "point of divergence" for this alternative history is Charles Darwin not just formalizing evolution but inventing genetic engineering, in this book poetically described as working with "life threads") does somewhat blur the cautionary sense long attached to World War I of a civilized "Europe" tearing itself asunder for no good or clear reason. Two different technologies do lend some variety to the books, though, and they're imagined in impressive detail. The Leviathan itself isn't just a vaguely described "living airship," but a full ecosystem aloft with some unique biological weapons (which lead to a few "words that sound dirty without being well-known").
As for human characters, the books are shelved in the young adult section at bookstores, and have young adult main characters. Prince Aleksandar of the Austro-Hungarian empire, (fictional) son of the assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand (who, as the author's afterword explained, did have children of other names but who weren't as vital to history) and Deryn Sharp, disguising herself as a boy to serve on the Leviathan (there are a succession of other strong female characters making their own unique ways through life throughout the books) do make a memorable pair. The action sequences are well-done, but every so often I did start wondering if some of them were being generated just to keep the pace up.
In some of his author's afterwords, Scott Westerfeld mentioned how he was intent on large-scale things turning out better than they did in our actual history, and that did get me wondering if this was somehow "asking the audience to accept a new change after the suspension of disbelief has been calibrated." On the other hand, I also got to wondering about the full fictional world and one little part of it, about whether the English Antarctic explorers would take genetically engineered transport south with them and not wind up as heroic martyrs or cautionary examples depending on your viewpoint.
I suppose that right from when I first heard about the central concept of the book, I was inclined to think that drawing a sharp distinction between the "Clankers" and the "Darwinists" (the "point of divergence" for this alternative history is Charles Darwin not just formalizing evolution but inventing genetic engineering, in this book poetically described as working with "life threads") does somewhat blur the cautionary sense long attached to World War I of a civilized "Europe" tearing itself asunder for no good or clear reason. Two different technologies do lend some variety to the books, though, and they're imagined in impressive detail. The Leviathan itself isn't just a vaguely described "living airship," but a full ecosystem aloft with some unique biological weapons (which lead to a few "words that sound dirty without being well-known").
As for human characters, the books are shelved in the young adult section at bookstores, and have young adult main characters. Prince Aleksandar of the Austro-Hungarian empire, (fictional) son of the assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand (who, as the author's afterword explained, did have children of other names but who weren't as vital to history) and Deryn Sharp, disguising herself as a boy to serve on the Leviathan (there are a succession of other strong female characters making their own unique ways through life throughout the books) do make a memorable pair. The action sequences are well-done, but every so often I did start wondering if some of them were being generated just to keep the pace up.
In some of his author's afterwords, Scott Westerfeld mentioned how he was intent on large-scale things turning out better than they did in our actual history, and that did get me wondering if this was somehow "asking the audience to accept a new change after the suspension of disbelief has been calibrated." On the other hand, I also got to wondering about the full fictional world and one little part of it, about whether the English Antarctic explorers would take genetically engineered transport south with them and not wind up as heroic martyrs or cautionary examples depending on your viewpoint.