Leviathan

When you think of history, the first thing that pops into your head is boring, right? It's basically a fact; everyone thinks that history is boring. Scott Westerfield, who has written popular series such as Uglies, helps to change that in the book Leviathan. He bases it on real events, but they take place in an alternate reality. In this world people are classified as either Darwinists or Clankers. Darwinists use the work of Charles Darwin to create war animals. Clankers believe in using machines. Tensions have always been high between them, all they needed was an excuse to break out in war.

The excuse comes when Germany assassinates Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand. His son, Prince Aleksander, was never destined to inherit anything of his father's vast empire because his father chose to marry a woman of "common blood". Austria is a Clanker country, supposedly allied wit germany Alek is now on the run, fleeing from the Germans and anyone who would want to kill him.

We also follow Deryn Sharp, a Scottish tomboy. She has gone Mulan-style and joined the British Air Service disguised as a boy named Dylan. Britain is a Darwinist country. We follow these two characters, seeing both sides of the war.

I'm just going to come out and say it, this book is really good. I really liked the fact that is was historical fiction, so the events actually happened, but it was put into an interesting Sci-Fi story. Any readers will find themselves picking sides, becoming devoted Darwinists or Clankers at heart. There isn't much to warn you in this book, besides a bit of violence but nothing scarring.

The themes in this book were very subtle, the author was kind of hinting at a kind of "When we are separated and choose sides we are weak, when we work together we are strong" thing. The theme gets a lot stronger near the end of the book, and it seems like the author will continue on this in the other books. (Did I mention it was a series?)

In the end there is a huge cliffhanger, with the author being plain old cruel. The next book, Behemoth, is already out, so if you read it you can go straight to the sequel. Darwinists all the way! A

Here's a video to sum it all up for you: