Behemoth

Behemoth: A Penny Dreadful Review

One does not meet a flying whale every day.  I was thrilled to read Behemoth, the sequel to Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan wherein the flying whaleship returns for more adventures.
Behemoth opens where Leviathan left off.  Prince Alek and his Austrians are aboard the English living airship Leviathan, having collaborated and escaped their last perilous situation.  The British do not trust the Austrians, as there is a war on between their respective countries.  Dylan Sharp, the midshipman who is really a girl named Deryn in disguise, has developed a crush on the fugitive prince.  Dr. Barlow, the inscrutable scientist, still has both of them caring for her mysterious eggs.  The Leviathan motors toward Istanbul, intending to convince the sultan of the Ottoman Empire to stay out of the war.  Of course, nothing goes as planned.
Alek escapes the increasingly suspicious English, but must leave some of his men behind.  The Germans have a secret weapon meant to destroy the Leviathan.  The gift of peace that Dr. Barlow offers the sultan is ruined.  “Mr.” Sharp’s secret mission goes terribly wrong.  Alek joins forces with revolutionaries, one of whom is an attractive young lady; the Germans chase him all over Istanbul; and to top it off, there’s an American reporter dogging their footsteps.
This being the second in a trilogy, the ending is unsettled and not exactly upbeat, just as it should be.  I can’t wait to find out what happens in the third volume, Goliath.
The mad science is just as enchanting in this book as it was in the last one.  Nay, even more so, because the mechanisms employed by the Ottoman Empire are entirely different from those in Germany and Austria.  We even glimpse a society that uses both genetically manipulated animals and fantastic machinery.
Oh, and the illustrations!  The illustrations have returned and are more amazing than they were in Leviathan.  I adore every sketch by Keith Thompson.  I loved how the art was more integrated into the text of this book.  I would turn the page to find a German walking machine crawling past the bottom of my text and it was delightful!  I rather miss illustrations.  I wish they would put them into books for adults.
I give Behemoth four and a half gears out of five.  Go to the nearest bookseller and obtain one immediately.  No, wait, one must read Leviathan first or one will have no idea what is happening.  Obtain them both!

Your Correspondent from the Bookstore,
Penny J. Merriweather

Leviathan

Leviathan: A Penny Dreadful Review

Servants hurry a young man out of bed.  He must flee the assassins of his parents.  A girl disguises herself as a boy in order to pursue her passion for flying.  Europe teeters on the brink of war.  Tanks walk and whales fly.  This is the gripping young adult novel Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld.
The heroes are a pair of intrepid teenagers.  His Serene Highness, Aleksander Ferdinand of Austria eludes an entire empire full of people who want to kill him.  Deryn Sharp, disguised as the boy Dylan Sharp, masters life aboard a Royal Navy airship without her secret ever being guessed.
Leviathan contains fantastic technologies.  The Germans and Austro-Hungarians have the steam-powered machines so familiar to the Steampunk genre.  Great Britain has abandoned those mechanisms in favor of genetically modified animals.  The title character, the H.M.S. Leviathan, is a flying whale ship with its own ecosystem of fuel-gathering bees, watchdogs, and organic weapons.  I find the animals the most enchanting form of mad science I have ever read.
I am still not sure what a “boffin” is, or why they wear bowler hats.  The enigmatic scientist Dr. Barlow is one.  Perhaps they fabricate the strange beasts that run the British Empire?  Perhaps I will find out in a future book.
A most delightful aspect of this book is the cunning illustrations.  They are the work of Keith Thompson, an artist gifted with the ability to capture expression in action.  His work makes this book all the more exciting.  Perhaps adults have been remiss in abandoning picture books.  Illustrations add such charm.
I give Leviathan four gears out of five.  I can’t wait to read the sequel, Behemoth.

Your Correspondent from the Bookstore,
Penny J. Merriweather

Goliath

Goliath: A Penny Dreadful Review

This is the satisfying conclusion to the series Scott Westerfeld began with Leviathan and continued in Behemoth.  Goliath starts off a little more slowly than the other two books, but it’s not two chapters before we’re plunged into adventure and intrigue as per usual.
In this volume, Deryn and Prince Alek rescue Nikola Tesla, yes, THE Nikola Tesla, from giant bears in Russia and try to help him end the war with his nightmarishly huge Tesla cannon.  Meanwhile, some secrets are uncovered and romance is finally brewing between our beloved narrators.
The mad science continues to be fantastic.  In this installment, the reader discovers what’s going on in the North American continent – a bizarre mixture of machinery and genetically engineered animals.  We get to watch a moving picture and see reporters wielding cameras and talking frogs.  We even get to see New York!
The brilliant illustrations of Keith Thompson return as well, of course.  Without these beautiful pieces, this book would be incredibly diminished.  I love the art. It brings the wild inventions and bizarre animals to life in a way that words do not. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
I was quite sad when I reached the end. Not that the ending is unfortunate – in fact, quite the opposite. The end is everything one could hope for. I was sad because the series was over.
I give Goliath a solid five gears out of five.  The adventure is fantastic.  I venture to say that this trilogy may be the perfect young adult series.

Your Correspondent from the Bookstore,
Penny J. Merriweather