Goliath by Scott Westerfeld

Alek and Deryn are on the last leg of their round-the-world quest to end World War I, reclaim Alek’s throne as prince of Austria, and finally fall in love. The first two objectives are complicated by the fact that their ship, the Leviathan, continues to detour farther away from the heart of the war (and crown). And the love thing would be a lot easier if Alek knew Deryn was a girl. (She has to pose as a boy in order to serve in the British Air Service.) And if they weren’t technically enemies.

The tension thickens as the Leviathan steams toward New York City with a homicidal lunatic on board: secrets suddenly unravel, characters reappear, and nothing is at it seems in this thunderous conclusion to Scott Westerfeld’s brilliant trilogy.

This was an excellent end to Westerfeld’s World War I alt-history steampun k trilogy. Based on the premise “what if Darwin had continued his studies and discovered genetics and genetic engineering?”, the series is set in a world where genetically mutated monsters fight battles with huge mechanical devices. In the midst of it all Deryn serves on a war-blimp whale, all the time hiding the fact that she’s a girl because only boys can serve in the war. Alek is the prince of a key mechanical nation, but he fled Austria after his parents were assassinated and he has now found asylum with the ship and Darwin’s granddaughter, a geneticist named Dr. Barlowe. This book is a great way to end a trilogy.


*****Spoilers*****



I like how Deryn’s gender secret is revealed to Alek towards the beginning of the book so that we can see the repercussions and reactions of Alek instead of at the end where we’re left to guess. The two characters develop a better relationship despite the plot twists of trying to stop the war before it destroys all of Europe. A really good part of these books are how both Deryn and Alek have strengths and weaknesses and the plot utilizes both of them to use their strengths to get out of hairy plot twists and to progress the story. Although the romantic relationship is a little immature, the characters are also immature so I thought it was rather realistic. The book’s only weak point is that Tesla is a rather odd choice for a villain, and I never thought his motivations for world domination were adequate to what he was doing. The book does include a lot of these early 19th century historical figures, and I found it fun and educational to see who popped up next. In all, a good book and a great end, and I’m very sad that there won’t be any more of these books, but I look forward to following Westerfeld on to an entirely new world.

Speculative Fiction

Really, when we talk about Sci-Fi and Fantasy we're talking about Speculative Fiction. Speculative fiction is the broad category of fiction books that are not set in a realistic world. Unlike contemporary fiction, which is set in the factual present, or historical fiction that is set in the factual past, Speculative Fiction (or spec-fic) deals with book settings that are not realistic in some manner. To relate to this blog, it covers both sci-fi and fantasy books.

So if spec-fic covers both sci-fi and fantasy how do we tell them apart? The difference is in how the non-realistic things are dealt with. In sci-fi all of that is dealt with by science. Ships fly at the speed of light because there are light-speed engines, strange-looking beings are aliens who look different because they evolved on a different planet, or people have greater-than-natural abilities due to genetic manipulation. Fantasy, on the other hand, doesn't have a scientific explanation for things. Things fly because someone wills them to, strange-looking beings are magical incarnations such as faeries or goblins, and people have greater-than-natural abilities because they're under a spell or gifted by a god.


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So what are the types of sci-fi? Here's a list of the categories I'll be using in my tags, shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia:

Hard SF - this is what people usually think all of sci-fi is. It's books that have plots that concentrate on physics and other "hard sciences" and meticulous worldbuilding with plot twists that generally rely on scientific things or phenomenon.

Soft SF - books that concentrate on the "soft sciences" such as sociology and politics. Dystopians are Soft SF books that take sociology or psychology to the extremes.

Cyberpunk - plots that rotate around technological advances of cybernetics - where people and technology merge into one being.

Biopunk - focuses on sciences that manipulate the human body through genetic technology instead of technological implantation.

Steampunk - imagines that the past (usually Victorian Europe or US) had advanced technologies. Called "steam"punk because the technical innovations often run by steam power instead of batteries or the like. There are variations, like decopunk, arcanepunk, and enginepunk, but I'm not going to separate them out.

Time Travel - plots where people travel through time.

Alternate History - plots that imagine the past was different than it really was. Steampunk is a sub-set of Alt History.

Military Sci-Fi - concentrates on wars and soldiers in big battles with advanced technologies.

Superhuman - plots that have human characters that have unusual powers due to some scientific reason. Closely related (and often intertwined) to Cyberpunk and Biopunk.

Apocalyptic - deals with the end of the world, either right before and how humans deal with it or right after and how humanity tries to recover. Usually split into pre- (before the end of the world) and post- (after the end of the world). Differs from Dystopian in that nature caused the end of a society and a rise of a new (sometimes oppressive) one, not people or their actions.

Dystopian - deals with a society that exists based on the deprivation, oppression, or terror of the people in the society. The plot usually searches to overthrow this society.

Space Opera - tales that deal with life on other planets or space travel. Often has a heroic tale slant to the plot.

Space Western - A plot that takes the tropes of westerns (cowboys, shoot-em-ups, frontiers) and combines it with science-fiction tropes (space ships, interplanetary travel, space exploration).

Generation Ship - not often an entirely different sub-genre, but it's become a popular slice of space opera crossed with dystopian so I'm separating it out.


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There are even more types of Fantasy than there are Science Fiction, but I'm not going to use all the variations on this blog. I don't feel there's a lot of need to show people the varieties of fantasy since it's readily embraced by YA readers. Here are the few I'll be using:

Urban Fantasy - modern people in modern settings encounter magic or the fantastic. Contains the Paranormal Romances so popular right now.

Hard Fantasy - where magic exists, but everything emulates worlds we know and is as realistic as possible (magic obeys laws of physics, etc.). This is a very difficult thing to describe, so I'll apply it sparingly.

High Fantasy - Heroes, sorcerers, intrigue, and a quest to resolve it all just like Tolkien.

Historical Fantasy - a historical setting, only with magic.

Mythic - retelling of myths, fairytales and/or folklore.

Mythical Creatures - technically a section of mythic, but there are so many of these today that I'm separating them out.

Superhero - people have magic powers for some reason.



I'll be working in the next few weeks to backdate all my old posts with these tags.

Tuesday Review: Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

The behemoth is the fiercest creature in the British navy. It can swallow enemy battleships with one bite. The Darwinists will need it, now that they are at war with the Clanker powers.

Deryn is a girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service, and Alek is the heir to an empire posing as a commoner. Finally together aboard the airship Leviathan, they hope to bring the war to a halt. But when disaster strikes the Leviathan's peacekeeping mission, they find themselves alone and hunted in enemy territory.

Alek and Deryn will need great skill, new allies, and brave hearts to face what's ahead.

I crammed both Leviathan and Behemoth into the last few days of 2010. They were both enjoyable reads and left me wanting more. I was delightfully suprised by the fact that both the books were beautifully illustrated by Keith Thompson The illustrations enhanced the world of the story incredibly. I liked the plotting, and both the historical basis and the departure from it were seamless and believable. I found the characterization good, but the characters don't exactly grow much during the series. Perhaps this is because the book takes place in such a short time frame (months) that there is not much time for the characters to grow. It seems like they are spending all their time dealing with the situations to have a real development period. However, the characters are proactive about their situations, they don't spend their time merely reacting, so this lack of growth is not annoying. It could be a contributor, though, in making the book feel a bit younger than my usual YA fare (although that could also be due to the illustrations, or the young age of the main characters). I think the true spark in this book, though, is in the world-building. Westerfeld has created a beautiful world that is strikingly different from our own based on only a few premises: what if Darwin continued his studies and discovered DNA and how to manipulate it, and what if countries either adopted that or utilized machine technology in protest? The creatures and machines are all described with enough detail that you can picture them even without the illustrations, but not so much that it drags down the story. They paint a gorgeous new world that I want to play in. Goliath, coming out in Oct. 2011, is certainly going on my wishlist!