Book Reveiw: Leviathan

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Scott Westerfeld's trilogy Leviathan has been on my print shelf to read for 6+ years. Perhaps it's because it was there so long collecting dust, or because I had too high of expectations. Or may it truly isn't all that great of a book. Whatever the reason I just could not get into it at all. I kept picking up every other book I was reading and avoiding it like the plague.

Middle Grade or Teen
This trilogy is usually categorized in teen but I think it really belongs in Middle Grade fiction. There is something just a bit too juvenile about the whole thing. While our characters are younger teens that wasn't even the overall issue. It was more the way Westerfeld wrote the story. I'm not sure if it's categorized differently elsewhere but that is where my library and local bookstores put it. Maybe later in the trilogy it gains more of a teen feel (like how Harry Potter evolves) but based on this one book it's far too tame for the YA/teen genre and lacks a substance and emotion I expect from teen novels.

Illustrations
The best part about Leviathan is the beautiful pencil drawings throughout the book. I highly recommend a library print or purchased print copy so you can enjoy them. However you can certainly read the story without the illustrations on an e-reader and nothing in the story will be lost. The illustrations do help to imagine how large the whale that is the core of the Leviathan flying ship it. It also helps to imagine the large robots that are used by our lead boy. However if you've seen Star Wars then you'll likely have a good idea of what the steam machines look like.

Characters
We have two major players in Leviathan, one is a girl (pretending to be a boy) who is training to fly. The other is a boy who is a child of important political pawns and whom is on the run. Eventually, about 75% in, our two main characters meet. This was thankfully a turning point for me. Without this meeting I may have given up and not bothered to finish. Acknowledging that Leviathan got better once the two characters were together, I appreciate that this may mean that the next two books are greatly improved as our characters stick together. But for me I just don't care enough to know what even happens to these two.
There are a multitude of characters that surround our major two players. Yet each of them is, at best, an archetype and at worse a cardboard cutout that plays a role to move the plot forward and nothing else. The one interesting person is a woman 'bowler' (scientist essentially) whom is looked down upon for being a woman and yet revered for being rich and smart. Maybe this was a piece of my distaste for this book was it's clear and obvious gender bias against women.

The Animals
Before you get all hung up on what I'm about to say... yes this is clearly fiction, I am aware of that. However the idea of humans manipulating genes and breeding animals to be used to fly ships, repair other animals, use up hydrogen and other oddities that are mixed up in this half steam, half natural environment bothered me. I know it shouldn't but it did. Perhaps Westerfeld describes his animals too well. Or the illustrations of the animals made them too real for me. All I know is the first time we see the Leviathan flying ship I wasn't impressed by the description (or picture); instead all I thought was that poor, poor whale all tethered up and forced to fly! As our animals are not sentient there is just no way to know if they like what they are engaged in. It just felt wrong to me more than once. This may be that Westerfeld wants the reader to 'choose a side' and select the technological solution over the Darwin one (as it is called in the book). Regardless it made me uncomfortable and I couldn't get over it.

Overall
As a lover of steampunk I was very excited for this to be a solid trilogy that I could gift out to teens or children. I had hoped it would inspire using scientific principles in a creative way. And while it demonstrates that new technology is a blend of creativity and science, overall it just feel short of any real impact for me. Between flat characters and a slow moving plot I just didn't see the appeal. And while I liked that there was both a lead girl and boy in Leviathan, Westerfeld seemed to miss capturing either character in a compelling and enchanting way. Add in the animals that seemed like slaves and poor conceived steam technology; and you'll find that I just can't find anything really good to say here.
But the illustrations are truly amazing. So at least you can look at the pretty pictures and then move on without spending too much time here.

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In case you want to see if I'm wrong and read it for yourself...