A Review: Leviathan

Alright, another review.

This is one I picked up a fair while ago. Whitcoulls had overstocked themselves with this book, and were literally stacking it on the stairwells with $5 price stickers. I bought it, I read it, I regretted it. I didn't finish the sequel.

Scott Westerfeld, the book's author, was already well-known for his 'Uglies' trilogy (and the 'Specials' standalone). I enjoyed his work immensly there, and figured I'd enjoy this series just as much, if not a little moreso due to its notoriously Steampunk-y world. He's a good, reputable author, there's no denying that.

Leviathan follows Alek, prince to an empire about to be thrown into war with his father's assassination, and Deryn, a young girl desperate to join the British Air Service even though only men are allowed. So of course, Deryn pretends to be a boy.

For a male author, Westerfeld seems to have little to no knowledge of how boys act. Sure, that might be the point, given that Deryn doesn't really know how boys act either, but if her act is bad then wouldn't she be found out right away? So yes, the book started with plausibility going down the toilet for me. And holy hell was she annoying. There's nothing worse than an annoying protagonist. I don't like her motivations, I don't like her actions and I don't like her internal dialogue.

Alek, on the other hand, ruins everything. His parents are killed and he is escorted away by very capable men with a very sophisticated contingency plan, which Alek consistently ruins. Sure, his 'ruining' the plan saves everyone on Deryn's air-whale-ship-bullshit in the end but in truth the whole thing just didn't fly for me. Yes, story endings are often on the 'convenient' side, and the protagonist doing things wrong will often be proven right in the long run, but at the end of the day I simply can't get behind Alek's actions. Even if the thing he does at the end is good, up until that point all he's really done is potentially jeopardised his safety. In fact, he does exactly that at the end too, only he gets away with it so we're meant to sit there and accept that it was the right thing to do.

Criticisms of character aside, the premise of the world is an interesting one. The Allies (pre-WWI), called 'Darwinists', use genetically engineered creatures as their 'military machines' while the other side of things (Clankers) use actual machines (namely giant walkers). Westerfeld does a good job of building lots of detail into the world, giving the reader a good sense of depth to things. It's immersive, and (somewhat) plausible, so on this front the book does fairly well. I still didn't like it, but that's on me this time.

I dunno, I just find the idea of salamanders crawling through a system of tubes built inside a flying whale kinda gross. Oh and the stuff about metal deckplates on the whale's innards is gross too.

Actually the entire execution of the 'Darwinist' creatures is really really off-putting if you put a moment's thought into it...

Normally books get away with that by being so gripping that you don't get a moment to think about it, or so good that you don't care about things like that. But Scott, the characters were terrible and vastly unlikeable, what did you expect me to focus on?

The ending is 100% what you'd expect, if you assume everyone thinks like a selfless but naiive 12-year-old. It's okay.

Oh and why the hell does Deryn act like she's fucking 10? She's a 15-year-old, pretending to be a 16-year-old.

Also, no book should include the phrase 'bum-rag full of clart'.


I said in my first ever review that I wouldn't give a numerical rating. I'm sticking to that principle You might like this book, but I didn't, and I got through 'Finnegan's Wake' dammit!