The Manuel of Aeronautics

The Manuel of Areonautics: An Illustrated Guide to the Leviathan Series

By Scott Westerfeld

Illustrated by Keith Thompson

No score on this one because there is no story to review.  This volume is a collection of illustrations, named after the volume that Deryn Sharpe studies in the books, that gives a greater visual understanding of the Clanker and Darwinist creations.  The sense of scale and especially the cross-section of the airship Leviathan gave me a greater understanding how the characters moved about and what they were up against. The main downside of this volume is that it came out well after the trilogy was published.  While I understand the desire to avoid spoilers, this should have been released much sooner.  While the image of the story does reside in the mind of the reader, when I encounter something so different as what Westerfeld created, these sorts of illustrations are instrumental.

Goliath

Goliath by Scott Westerfeld

Rating: Three and a Half out of Five Covers

The Leviathan Trilogy comes to an end in Goliath, where Prince Alek and Deryn Sharpe come to the aid of Nikola Tesla, who has a plan to end the Great War.  The action travels quickly from Russia to Japan and across the Pacific Ocean to Mexico and America with the personal stakes rising as Deryn’s secret comes in jeopardy and Alek announcing that he is the heir to the Austria-Hungary Empire.

The pacing moves very quickly from place to place, allowing only glancing views of how Clanker and Darwinist technology coexist in other countries.  The giant Russian bears in particular are a clever idea.  And while including Tesla, who has become something of a patron saint for steampunk, is understandable, throwing in other historical figures (Hearst, Poncho Villa, etc.) forces the reader to reconcile history with this fantasy world.  It is arguable that this was always the case, as the story hinges on World War I, but world war is such a broad concept that it can be integrated into many genres without compromising their structure.  For me, there is also the fact that using historical figures wasn’t done in the first two books and now there is a shift in the pattern, which violates the contract with the reader.

While the larger conflict becomes strained, the personal stories come more into focus.  The fact that Deryn is actually a girl pretending to be a boy shouldn’t have lasted this long under any real scrutiny, but the fact that the façade begins to fail now adds a lot of drama, as does Alek’s conflicting feelings about becoming a world leader.  These personal stories receive remarkable resolution.  However, as the series began with the Great War, there is the expectation that that larger plot element will be resolved as well.  The fact that it is not leaves dangling plot threads, which are always frustrating.

Goliath contains several predictable story elements, but the style is entertaining.  The world building suffers from a rushed presentation, but it still maintains a fantastic setting.  All in all, it is a suitable ending for the trilogy.   

Behemoth

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

Rating: Three and a Half out of Five Covers

Behemoth continues the adventures of Prince Aleksander and Deryn/Dylan Sharpe.  The Leviathan, now a Darwinist sky whale with Clanker engines, continues its mission to the Ottoman Empire to try and convince them to join the Darwinist in the war.  This is complicated by the fact that the English have refused to give the Ottoman’s their latest superweapon, the Behemoth, despite already paying for it (one of the several elements inspired by real history).

Shifting the action to the Ottoman Empire allows the author to continue his excellent world building, showing a city divided between Clanker and Darwinist technology.  But this also shifts the action to the periphery of the Great War, making the overall mission slightly less immediate in importance.  Because the story dictates it to continue the drama, Alek and Deryn must be separated.  Alek escapes into the city and ends up with a band of rebels trying to overthrow the government; Deryn, despite being the most junior of personnel on the ship, is placed in charge of a special mission.  Naturally they end up together again for the rousing finale.

The action continues to be the highlight of the story.  More derring-do takes place outside the giant armor or animals, effectively heightening the tension and danger.  The rebels’ use of a printing press to show the power of the written word is handled cannily.  And traveling to the Ottoman Empire, a place readers may not be familiar with, adds an element of the exotic.

But the familiar nature of the story structure starts to show through as coincidences and improbabilities pile up. Deryn’s infatuation with Alek is a dictate of the story rather than growing naturally out of their friendship.  Westerfeld describes Istanbul as a multicultural city, but only shows conflict between the rebels and the empire as a two-sided confrontation.  The use of “spice bombs,” just local spices used to drive out the soldiers out of Clanker automatons, seems both a bit juvenile and avoids any discussion of the ethics of chemical warfare which was used to devastatingly in the real war.  And one of the most frustrating things for me was that a key element, a new Darwinist creation called the perspicacious loris, is declared a failure without any explanation as to why or what it was supposed to do.

My specificity may make these points seem small, but they compound throughout the narrative and strain what should be a purely entertaining story. 

Leviathan

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
Rating: Four our of Five Covers

Leviathan is an exciting alternate history of World War I where the author further emphasizes the ideological divide between Eastern and Western Europe through a steampunk twist.  Germany and Austria-Hungary are Clankers, relying on giant steam-powered vehicles, while England and France are Darwinist, using genetically modified animals for transportation and battle.  Naturally, each side feels that the others methods are barbaric.

The story is told from two points of view: Prince Aleksander, son of Archduke Ferdinand and who has secretly been declared heir to the throne by the pope, making him a key political pawn in the war; and Deryn Sharpe, a young woman who disguises herself as the boy Deryn in order to join the British Air Service aboard the giant sky whale Leviathan, despite the aeronautical tragedy that claimed her father’s life.  These disparate points of view allow Westerfeld to explore various political, class and gender issues of the time period.  And it is only natural that their stories should intersect; a story element in which Westefeld does not disappoint, but nor does he surprise the reader.

The author does an excellent job at world building, giving just enough explanation to make these societies plausible without getting bogged down in exposition.  And the emphasis on action and adventure makes the story a compelling page turner.

But that emphasis also makes the characterization suffer.  It is a neat trick of narrative shorthand to start with cliché concepts, the spoiled prince and the tomboy, but Alek and Deryn don’t develop much beyond those initial building blocks.  The spoiled prince doesn’t understand how the world really works; the tomboy better than most of the other recruits.  And even after that the characterization is not always consistent.  A moment which stood out was when Alek was justifiably horrified after having to kill a soldier in defense.  However, he has no compunction later on about battling his countrymen to defend the Leviathan.      

Overall, Goliath paints an exciting world worth visiting even though the characters and plot have some predictability.

Welcome to the journey

Greetings and saludos.  Welcome to the first post of John’s Jots and Titles , a chronicle of what I am reading.  My aim is to review books (and occasionally movies or tv shows) that I have recently read.  Does my opinion of them really matter? No.  But engaging with a text on a critical level will help me because I wish to be a writer.  I’ve only been writing as a hobby so far, but figuring out what I did or did not like about a story, and, more importantly, why, will help me improve.  So I’m doing this for selfish reasons.  But maybe someone out there will like my opinions.

My preferred genre to read and write is fantasy, particularly young adult.  But there will be occasional forays into science fiction, mystery and the Gothic. 

And there will be comic books.  Comics and graphic novels are a passion of mine (I wrote my master’s thesis on Batman).  So expect a heavy dose of those as well.

What am I looking for in a story?  I want compelling characters in an interesting setting; either people or a place I would like to revisit.  And this is accomplished through good, clean prose which expresses the ideas clearly may even rise up with a beautiful turn of phrase or description.

To help with this, I have decided to judge books by their covers.  More specifically, I have devised a rating system of 5 Covers:

5 Covers- Exceptional

4 Covers- Excellent

3 Covers- Average

2 Covers- Mediocre

1 Cover- Poor

In preparation for this project, I have stockpiled books for the last several months and should be posting consistently for a least a while.  We'll see how this blog morphs after that.  

Welcome to the journey through fiction.