These title things are bothersome.

A "book talk " I wrote on The Leviathan.  :)

Read if you'd like.  Enjoy, possibly?

Any thoughts on improvement may help as well.  This is for English :)

The Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld is a science-fiction book which takes place in the year 1914, at the beginning of the First World War.  In this book, the First World War is between two different groups called the Clankers and the Darwinists.  At first, the war is only affects Austria-Hungary and Germany, but soon other countries come into the war to defend their fellow Clankers or Darwinists.  What began as a simple murder quickly become a war between all of Europe and it’s two distinct types of people. Although The Leviathan still has the king of Austria’s murder, the alternate past and the Clanker and Darwinist inventions, which defy the laws of nature and physics, are what make the Leviathan a science-fiction novel.

The two main characters Deryn and Aleksander are on opposite sides of the war, but feel similar about what’s going on.  Deryn is with the Darwinists, who can re-create DNA and make their own animals, like the Leviathan, a whale crossbreed which produces hydrogen to stay afloat in the sky.  Aleksander is the son of the murdered Austria king, and uses a “walker” to escape from Germany and all the other countries who want him dead.  Walkers are robotic machines, managed from a control room within, with two to twelve legs which enable the craft to move.  Neither Deryn nor Aleksander want a war or understand why there is one, and they both end up in Switzerland, a war-free neutral zone.

The journey to Switzerland is long and hard.  Aleksander is pursued by faster, bigger and better Clanker “walker” machines which mostly belong to Germany and other groups of other countries who want to start a war between the Clankers and Darwinists.  As he makes his way to Switzerland, Aleksander must learn to fend for himself and understand the extreme politics around him.  When the book starts out, Aleksander doesn’t seem like much of a prince, but in the end you know he would make a great king if he can survive the war.

At the beginning of the book, Deryn disguises herself as a boy and joins the British Air Service, where she inadvertently becomes a crew member to one of the greatest air ships around; the Leviathan.  When she is first taken aboard, she knows only the facts they put in text books – procedures and the math needed to help run the enormous ship.  As the weeks of training and work in and around the Leviathan, Deryn learns from experience all the other things you need to know to be a crewmember of an airship.  Eventually, she is liked by her crewmembers and favored by her boss… but that would all change if they knew she was secretly a girl.

For most of the book, Aleksander is surrounded by lush green forests and small rarely-visited towns as he run across the countryside.  He travels from Austria-Hungary to Serbia, Italy and then Switerland where he heads for the icy, snow-capped Alps.  The description is well done, but not always described, as most of Aleksander’s time is spent in a machine, looking out a small gap between the visors, and most of Deryn’s time is spent in a whale thousands of feet in the air.  Deryn Sharp describes the Leviathan as a big, beautiful “beasty” when she first sees it, noting its thick, grey outer skin and a warm, red, pulsing inside which stores hydrogen and cargo.  The living quarters are below the ship and not part of the whale’s body, but most other things are inside the whale herself.  If you were to look down from the whale, you would see ocean and the occasional Clanker submarine as the Leviathan makes its way across the Atlantic.  It passes over Paris before landing in the Swiss Alps.

Deryn and Aleksander are both relatable, smart characters who each tell their own story from different sides of the war.  The Leviathan is written in third person omniscient and it alternates between Deryn and Aleksander every two chapters.  What makes this book interesting is how it is about a major historic event – World War One – but has added, other worldly things thrown in as well.  I find history very interesting, and the parts of the war that are obviously true (in the back Scott Westerfeld explains where he added in parts and what actually happened) were very captivating to read.  Also, the science-fiction part of the book was fun to read because you never knew what else could happen.  The mystery of the hybrid animals and mechanics of the contraptions the Clankers make will enthrall any reader because there are no limits and anything is possible.  

To go along with the overall plot, there are also many other subplots which keep the book interesting.  I liked the book because of its factual and fictional parts and the creative, respectable characters Scott Westerfeld made.  Other people may like this book because of the otherworldly appeal and fast moving plot.  Scott Westerfeld also uses a variety of new or interesting words and different accents and ways of speech for different characters, both of which make the story entertaining to read.  

The Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld is a story of “adapting to your life as it changes around you” and “finding friends in unthought-of places”  Because of this, I think the main theme is that “there is always hope no matter the situation”.  Deryn and Aleksander learn to cooperate with strangers and fend for themselves in the troublesome pre-war times, finding help in strange places as they realize there are more neutral people to the war than they originally were lead to believe.  They travel all over Europe on ground and air, witnessing the unbelievable Dwarwinist and Clanker creations at every turn.  The Leviathan is a captivating book which relates already known facts with new ones and puts a twist on the alternate world’s version of World War One.