Kiss of Steel by Bec McMaster

Kiss of Steel
by Bec McMaster
Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2012
423 pages

Let me talk about the benefits of proper world-building in science fiction and fantasy.

So in case you were thinking I've gone all Canliterary, with my Humphreys and my Thuy, I shall now discuss my most recent read, which was Kiss of Steel by Australian paranormal romance author Bec McMaster. I'm going to be honest: I picked it almost as a joke, because - well, look at that cover. Right? What is Honoria even wearing. And I know that authors don't always (very rarely?) get a lot of say in their covers, and frankly this is not the worst of the romance covers out there (so very not) and it obviously did its job. I wanted something over-the-top and steampunkish. I downloaded the eBook. I started reading it.

And damned if it wasn't actually quite good.

Soapbox time: one of my biggest problems with fantasy or sci-fi (or in this case, steampunk) in the Romance genre in general is sloppy world-building. I've just recently become familiar with the term "wallpaper historical" to describe [some of my favourite] historical fiction and it is exactly appropriate. And if "wallpaper sff" isn't a term it should be - the trappings can be there, the magic and/or the spaceships - but a lot of the time the world-building in books that are Romance first and sff second is hasty and extremely cliched. This always kind of breaks my heart because I happen to really love my fantasy with a strong romantic component. But it has so rarely worked the other way for me that I've kind of given up.

The problem for me is that I am extremely familiar with the fantasy genre. I grew up with it. It's in my blood right there with my haemoglobin. So I know when an author is just wallpapering over their books with fantasy cliches - they may be well-intentioned, they may even have a true fantasy story in mind - but dammit, pay attention to your world. If you have a Chosen heroine and a banished berserker hero, I want to know why she was Chosen and what for, I want to know about berserker culture, and I for sure don't want an Evil Mage arch-bad-guy. That's been done, and better than most people can do it. Your characters need to be a product of their environment, not the other way around.

Steampunk, in my limited experience, can be a bit better at this - generally people who are writing steampunk are totally in love with their own worlds, fascinated by the ideas and the intersections of human stories and technology and history. Maybe it's too newly popular a genre to have spawned the same wealth of cliches that fantasy and science fiction have, forcing people to come up with their own ideas and explanations, not allowing them to use shorthand.

Whatever the reason, McMaster has done it well. She doesn't do everything well. There was a bit too much repetition - I don't need to be reminded, all the time, that Honoria grew up in the hallowed halls of the Echelon, or that Blade killed his own sister. I got it the first two or three times. Also I actually really wanted more of Honoria teaching Blade how to read - that particular plot contrivance vanished, never to be seen again, after the scene where it first appeared. There are times when things go on a bit longer than they should.

But the setting... McMaster's London is gritty, ugly, violent, and sometimes beautiful, and it makes sense. And Honoria and Blade and the rest of the characters make sense in the world. They've come out of it. This story wouldn't make sense anywhere else. And that, as much as anything else McMaster has done, makes this book worth the read.

Setting/world-building isn't everything, to be clear. McMaster also has a good handle on the English language and uses it to her advantage; the prose is clear, quick, and supports the wonderful descriptions; the characters are entertaining and consistent; the plot is dramatic and clever, if a bit packed.

The key here is that this book is a romance novel first and foremost. Even with the detail and depth of the world and the politics, this is essentially a book about two people finding each other, falling hard for each other, surmounting some critical obstacles, both internal and external (and the external ones come straight out of the world they live in), having some sex, and getting a happy ending. (Not uncomplicated happy. But happy.) Which means that it's got to be possible for someone out there to do the same thing with fantasy, too.

Honoria Todd and her two siblings have fallen on very hard times, since her scientist father was murdered and a price put on her head by the villainous but politically well-heeled Vickers, a duke and leader of one of the seven ruling houses. Vickers and all the other rulers of London are blue bloods - humans who have been infected with the craving virus. Yes, it makes them drink blood to survive, heal quickly, have incredible strength and agility. It also happens that Blade, the Devil of Whitechapel, ruler of the most powerful gang in the city outside the city, is a rogue blue blood - he was pulled out of the gutter, infected, and enslaved. But Blade escaped. He knows who Honoria is, and he's going to use her to get at Vickers; she needs his protection to survive in the extremely dangerous slums. Cue the romantic tension as Blade discovers Honoria is more than she appears on the surface, and Honoria discovers that Blade isn't like the other blue bloods she's known.

Blue bloods are not vampires, exactly - vampires are blue bloods whose virus has finally run its course, who no longer have control over their urges, who hate sunlight. They are extremely dangerous predators. And when a blue blood is to the point where he's (they're all men, because of Victorian ideas of female fragility) about to start turning vampire (determined by blood tests) he's beheaded. That's always going to be the end game for a blue blood, eventually. And once infected, there is no cure.

What McMaster has done here is taken an idea - what if England was ruled by "vampires" - and spent a lot of time figuring out what the logical conclusions would be. Of course Victorian London would be home to "draining factories" where people go to pay their blood tax. (Of course taxes would be paid in literal blood.) Of course people who couldn't afford to eat would sell their blood to unscrupulous Drainers. Of course there would be roving gangs of Slashers, who pick the impoverished off the streets of the slums - or out of their own homes - at night and kill them, draining them of blood entirely for sale to the factories. Who of course wouldn't condone that sort of thing, but would pay for it quietly anyway.

And it's all like this - all the little details thought out. Everything comes from somewhere, and everything makes sense. And that means the characters make sense, and the story makes sense, and since it's written well and the plot is interesting and the characters have depth - well, there you have it. A read I enjoyed far more than I thought I would, for more reasons than I expected to.

three great graphic novels

Daisy Kutter 1: The Last Train
by Kazu Kibuishi
Bolt City Productions, 2012
153 pages

So, I hadn't realized this was re-released. I first started following Kazu Kibuishi online years ago, before Amulet was a thing, by reading his Copper comics. (I've got those in printed form too, now, so that will be reviewed here at some point.) But by the time I realized I was in love with his style and his sensibilities, his first graphic novel, Daisy Kutter, was no longer in print and unavailable anywhere. I was always sad about that because it looked fantastic.

Well, it is. One of my local comic stores supported Kibuishi's Kickstarter to reprint Daisy and I got their last signed copy, which you can imagine made me feel like queen for a day.

It's a steampunk western. Daisy is an ex-con who owns and runs a general store. It's pretty clear she's bored out of her skull by it, but it's a legit living. Her excitement comes from playing poker. So when she loses the store in a high-stakes poker match, she has no choice but to take up the winner's offer to give her the store back - if she participates in one last heist.

There are a few plot holes and the ending wraps up incredibly quickly, but this is the first in (I hope!) a series, and it was extremely enjoyable. Daisy's got depth, as does Tom McKay, the local sherrif who also happens to be Daisy's ex-partner in crime, and ex-partner, period. There are lots of questions to be answered, lots of fleshing out to happen with both characters. The world, while somewhat sketched-in for this first instalment, has a huge amount of promise. Very much looking forward to the next book.



Friends With Boys
by Faith Erin Hicks
First Second, 2012
220 pages

I find it hard to write about this one because all I want to say is LURRRRVE. This is a sweet, funny, quirky, sensitive, wonderfully-drawn coming-of-age graphic novel about a girl who is starting high school after being homeschooled her whole life. She has three older brothers whom she adores, and hasn't really ever felt the need for any friends outside of them. But they've all got their own lives and challenges at school, so she's kind of on her own. Lucky for her, she's not the only one in need of a friend.

What's nice about this is that it's not really deep or difficult, but it's still a portrait of a kid trying to find her place and fit in, while dealing with stuff - some mundane stuff, like dealing her mother's decision to leave the family or her first year at school, and some not at all mundane stuff, like the strange ghost who keeps following her around. Maggie's got challenges but she's competent, and her family (with the notable absence of her mother) is loving and supportive. This makes the book feel safe and a bit gentle, which is sometimes a nice thing in a coming-of-age book about outsiders.

This book is also really funny. The art supports the characters' development in the best way possible. Hicks can express a huge amount about a character just with facial expression and small gestures, and she uses that to full effect. It's an easy-to-follow style, too, meaning this is a great entree into the world of graphic novels. Excellent amounts of geek humour and an affirming message that being "weird" - however one defines it - is okay.



Ms. Marvel Vol. 1: No Normal
by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona
Marvel, 2014
120 pages

I'm not sure I really need to introduce this book. It's gotten a lot of attention because Ms. Marvel is Kamala, an American-born Muslim teenager of Pakistani decent, who in addition to having to deal with the sudden onset of superpowers and the appearance of a supervillain, has to deal with obnoxious, racist classmates, a fairly traditional family, a diet that forbids bacon, and a curfew. It could have smacked of diversity lip-service, but it was so well-written it didn't.

The book lives up to the hype. There are a lot of things to like here, from the fast-paced plot and the bright, stylized art, to the way it handles what shouldn't be a sensitive issue (Kamala's race and religion) but really is. But what I really appreciated was how realistic the whole thing feels from an emotional perspective, which is not something one can always say when reading superhero comics (or fantasy novels, for that matter.) While the title of the volume is "No Normal" what is refreshing is just how normal Kamala is, right down to the fights she has with her parents when she breaks curfew and is then punished for it. She's got superpowers and she handles their onset in a believable way. She's a teenager and she feels like a teenager.

Also, on a very frivolous note, I dare you to read this one and not fall a little in love with Boris.

Will definitely be following this series.

Cold Magic by Kate Elliott

Cold Magic (Spiritwalker 1)
by Kate Elliott
Orbit, 2010
544 pages

This is a book that gets at the heart of one of the more difficult questions I face when I am thinking and talking and recommending books and writing: what carries a novel? Is it the writing? The plot? The concepts? The characters? Is it all four? Can a book succeed on the strength of one? Can it fall on the weakness of one?

I picked this book as a book club read for my adventurous genre readers, it being a very interesting example (I thought) of that particular niche of fantasy, gaslamp/steampunk. It turns out that it's not quite either, but that's neither here nor there; what it is, concept-wise, is incredibly rich. It's a fantasy set at the time of the Industrial Revolution, or what we would call the Industrial Revolution, in a world where magic is part of the fabric of society, Christianity is just a very minor sect in a large pantheon of religions, and Africa is a wasteland populated by ghouls. Amerike (sic) is populated by a birdlike, friendly, highly intelligent humanoid race called trolls, European society is heavily Roman-influenced one thousand years after the fall of the Empire, and the African diaspora has settled and become part of the fabric of society and culture such that the colour of one's skin is no indicator of heritage and someone of predominantly Celtic culture is as likely to be black as someone of predominantly Mande culture is likely to be white and children of the same parents can have varying colours of skin and hair. In other words, racism, as we know it, isn't an issue here. Magical ability, class, and wealth, on the other hand, are the main drivers of discrimination.

Sounds good so far, doesn't it? The world is incredibly complex. The cultures are carefully thought-out and inspired by a multitude of historical cultures and mythologies. The main characters aren't white, which counts for a fair bit in the world of fantasy fiction. The characters: Cat, or Catherine, and her cousin Bee, or Beatrice are two young women nearing the age of majority, educated and of a venerable, but down-on-its-luck family. They are full of new and dangerous ideas about science and technology, while still navigating their worlds with magic. Cat is an orphan, raised as Bee's sister by her aunt and uncle, and the two girls are absolutely devoted to each other. Even the concept of these characters is awesome.

Here we start to stumble a bit, but let me move on to the plot.

Which gets very bogged down very quickly with that dangerous problem of exposition. When one has a world as cool and complex and alien, but not quite alien enough, as the world of Cold Magic is, one has to explain it. And a good writer can make that happen, almost like magic, but that is not at all what happened here. There are a couple of ways to take on the problem of exposition: infodumping ("as you know, Bob, the general tried to conquer the known world but has been in prison these last thirteen years...") and thrusting the reader right into things and trusting they'll land on their feet (usually my preferred option). Elliott employs a clumsy, poorly-edited combination of the two and this is, depending on your threshold for that fourth component, the writing, disastrous.

I will be honest: I did not think I was going to make it to the end of this book. By the time I hit the ninth chapter I was furious. I had picked this book on the understanding that it was critically well-received (Publisher's Weekly, I am looking at you) and I was appalled at the writing. There were things on every single page that tore me right out of my struggling attempts to enter the world, ranging from awkward sentences to clear copy editing errors to blocks of confusing and seemingly aimless exposition. The prose veered from pedestrian to purple, occasionally laughably so. The text meandered, the dialogue was stilted, the characters unfocused. I was being treated to infodumps and I still had no idea what was going on, and what was worse, I really didn't care.

I was angry because I could see, I could feel, that there was something here. There was a kernel, maybe just the concept of the world or the idea of characters and conflict, of something that could be really interesting. And I felt that Elliott wasn't getting the editing she desperately needed. An editor should have tightened up those first nine chapters, or chopped them completely. Condensed them to one. It felt like the author was wandering vaguely in a forest of awesome worldbuilding and character description exercises and couldn't get her bearings.

But.

Once she gets her bearings, watch out.

I don't think that the writing got appreciably better, and I lost count of the number of times we were treated to the fact that the lying Romans had called the Kena'ani "Phoenicians" and the great city of Qart Hadast "Carthage." A writer with more grace would have let the reader remember those facts on her own. But what did start happening was plot. It was like Elliott suddenly knew exactly what she wanted to do with this interesting world she had built, and the characters marshalled around that, and suddenly I was nearly halfway through the 544 page book and I wanted to know what was going to happen next, because somehow, suddenly, I cared.

As E. M. Forster said, "and then what?" has a lot of power. Add some half-decent characters and some very imaginative trappings, and you have yourself a very readable book.

The problem with a read like this is that I don't quite know what to do with it. I enjoyed myself, in the end. I almost couldn't put the thing down and I definitely didn't want to. I even quite liked Cat, and loved that she was so fiercely protective of herself and her own power; if you're looking for a book with a very strong female character with a lot of agency and determination, you could do a lot worse than this one. It didn't leave me with a glowing impression, but I also wasn't left with that empty, potato-chip-gorged feeling I get when reading something I don't really like just because I have to get to the end. I liked this book and I can still respect myself in the morning.

This book succeeded on the strength of the concepts and eventually the plot, and fell down on the weakness of the writing. Depending on your threshold for each, this is a read you might enjoy, or might hate, and I think you'd be right in either case.

The Hotel Under the Sand by Kage Baker

The Hotel Under the Sand

by Kage Baker

Tachyon Publications, 2009

117 pages

It was actually kind of accidental that I read this so soon after reading my first Kage Baker story ever. I saw this before Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy arrived at my house, and placed a hold on it simply because the summary was so compelling to me. And then it came up just after I finished Scarlet Spy.

This, unlike the previous story, is a children's book. And it is a wonderful, wonderful children's book. I am already planning to read it with my parent-child book club when I go back to work, and even more ridiculously I am planning to read it to smallfry when she is old enough to comprehend it. (Perhaps six? seven? years from now.)

The story begins with Emma, blown to the Dunes by a storm. And this is as much as we find out about Emma's past; we know that she has lost everything, though what "everything" is remains unspoken. I think this is a good choice, because unspoken the loss is more terrible, at least given the amount of space Baker had for creating a backstory for Emma. Despite her disaster, Emma is brave, resourceful, and not about to be beaten or cowed, not even when, upon her first night at the Dunes, she encounters a ghost.

This story is an exercise in simplicity that isn't the least bit simplistic. It has a straightforward plot and straightforward characters, without a lot of flowery embellishment; there is not a single unnecessary word in this story, I don't think. This style was evident in Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy, too, and it works wonderfully well for a children's story. But despite the simplicity of the writing and the plot, there are deep themes here: loss, loyalty, time, friendship, and family among them.

Emma is working through a terrible loss, and while it's not mentioned often it squats just off-stage to rear its head every once in a while. Each of the other characters, as they are introduced, have lost as well, some more than others. There is an interesting pragmatism about loss in this book, too; there is not a lot of dwelling on anguish or loneliness, but an acceptance of the pain for what it is. This means that though the mood of the story could have been melancholic or nostalgic, it is instead hopeful and forward-looking.

There's enough mystery and excitement to keep most readers riveted, I should think, and conflict as well as triumph for the characters. Not to mention that those with active imaginations are going to absolutely adore the idea of an entire hotel, an entire world almost, buried under a sand dune just waiting for the right person to come along to discover it. A thoroughly enchanting story and I'm so glad it caught my attention. Recommended for all ages, and this book has cemented Baker in my pantheon of authors I will be happy to read whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy by Kage Baker

Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy

by Kage Baker

Subterranean Press, 2011

168 pages

This slim little volume is comprised of two stories: "Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy" and "The Bohemian Astrobleme" both of which feature a character named Lady Beatrice. I got it for the first tale, which I had originally heard of as The Women of Nell Gwynne's, a novella that won a Hugo in 2010. Frankly, I think the original title is more fetching; luckily, my most excellent local indie bookstore was able to track down this volume, as the original novella was out of print. Very pleased, because I'd desperately wanted to read this story since I'd first heard about it.

I think it was worth the wait; it was certainly diverting and well-written. It was a little more grim than I expected, but also funnier than I expected. Baker doesn't pull her punches, and though there's not a lot of graphic gore, there's a darkness to these stories that upon reflection makes a lot of sense -- the first story is an astute, if sideways, glimpse at a Victorian woman's life options. It's not a pretty picture. The second story is somewhat lighter, but the darkness blows in full force at the end. The humour is dark, too, in both of them, although it's also quite charming and often very dry in the way I particularly like. And both stories are exceedingly well-constructed.

"Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy" (aka "The Women of Nell Gwynne's") is almost a simple character study; at least, it starts out that way. Lady Beatrice -- not a lady, nor a Beatrice, but we never find out what name she used to go by -- was a soldier's daughter. After a pretty horrific, harrowing experience abroad, she ends up on the streets. She is brave, shrewd, and highly intelligent, though, and this gets her noticed by Mrs. Corvey, the proprietress of Nell Gwynne's, an exclusive brothel that serves customers by invitation only. It also happens to be connected to the Gentlemen's Speculative Society, a very secret group of highly intelligent men who are far, far ahead of their time. The women of Nell Gwynne's serve to gather secrets and occasionally blackmail the powerful into doing exactly what the Society wants them to do. In return, they have a relative measure of freedom, the opportunity to use their ample brains, and have use of some of the Society's fantastic inventions, not to mention a very comfortable living and an easy, early retirement.

"The Bohemian Astrobleme" is a story about what happens when the Society wants something. Lady Beatrice is involved, as is Ludbridge, a character we meet in the first story. It's an entertaining little piece, interesting and somewhat chilling, too. Because we like both Lady Beatrice and Ludbridge, and in this story they are pretty ruthless. There's a very good reason that this story was second in the pairing; characterization is very thin (it can be, because it is second) but the reader is left feeling a little alarmed by how easily we were charmed by both Lady Beatrice and Ludbridge, and how we still like and admire them.

There are a couple things that I liked about the first story especially: a) life as a Victorian woman isn't glamourized, nor is prostitution, which can be a trap historical fiction and fantasy of a certain kind falls into; and b) though there are steampunk elements, it also avoids the above glamour trap, which steampunk can certainly fall into. I felt like these stories both treated their time period respectfully -- affectionately, perhaps, and we weren't delving deeply into issues, but with a clear head.

Overall recommended, if you can get your hands on these stories. Definitely not for children or the prudish. I keep thinking of dark chocolate as a metaphor -- delicious, a little exotic, and slightly bitter in a way that makes the whole experience that much better. The writing is quietly excellent, and the story is original and diverting. I'll be reading more by Baker in the future.

Gunnerkrigg Court: Orientation by Tom Siddell

I. Heart. This. Book.

It has been since the last Harry Potter, folks. It has been that long since I was so wrapped up in a story. I loved this, and then I went online and proceeded to read the rest of the story, and loved that too. And now I am stuck because Siddell publishes updates every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and I desperately need to know more. It's like waiting for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows except that it's released one page at a time. I knew, when I finished the book, that I should have controlled myself and just waited for the next published copy so I could read it all at once. But self-discipline is not one of my strong suits.

I'm not sure how to summarize it, either, especially since the story is ongoing, but I guess I can stick to the first published on-paper volume. Antimony Carver is sent to Gunnerkrigg Court, nominally an English-style boarding school, after her mother's death. Antimony had been living with her mother in the hospital, and it was her mother's wish that she would attend Gunnerkrigg Court. Antimony's father is completely absent, in a way that makes the reader angrier the more we know. We meet Antimony when she's first breaking school rules, less than two weeks into her stay, by helping a shadow creature escape the school. We meet her friend Kat as Antimony meets her, and start to untangle various mysteries about the school that all seem to be leading to one overarching mystery beginning in the Court, or perhaps beginning in Gillitie Wood, which is forbidden territory across the bridge from the school.

I can't be much clearer without getting into spoilers and/or taking up several hundred more words. This is an extremely complex story, with themes of love, betrayal, friendship, grief, humanity, technology, and magic all tangled up in it. Suffice to say, seeing it through Annie's eyes is helpful, as she's clever, witty, dry and trying her best to stay neutral while being extremely loyal to the few friends she has. Annie's a bit of an outsider, on account of her coming to the school a bit late, and especially on account of the fact that she has the ability to see spirits and interact with them and doesn't seem to care to hide it. It means that we see quite a lot of the picture, while still being mostly limited to Annie's perspective. And did I mention the wit? Annie's generally really funny, and there's a really wonderful mix of very moving moments, frightening moments, and very funny moments throughout the story. I laughed out loud a couple of times. I also got a little teary at points, too.

The supporting cast is just fantastic. They're also complex; I'm 31 chapters in and still completely confused about most of their motivations, but not in a bad way. I'm also thrilled to report that we're not that close to solving the big mystery yet, nor even really knowing fully what shape it takes (or even if it's one big mystery, or two or three loosely connected mysteries), so there's likely to be more of Annie and Kat to keep me enthralled in the future. I certainly don't want to let these characters or this story go any time soon. Each chapter can usually stand alone as its own story, but we're building towards something. My concern is that it will be pretty anticlimactic when we get there.

Anyone with an open mind about graphic novels and fantasy will find something to love here. The art is just lovely, the story blows my mind. If you can't find a paper copy, be prepared to spend a couple days in a row sneaking a peek at the website every time you have a free minute at a computer. And be prepared that your mind will wander its way into the story when you're not reading it, too. Many thanks go to darla for the heads-up on this one. I wouldn't have even known it existed otherwise, and her enthusiastic review encouraged me to recommend it for purchase at our library sight unseen.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

I'll post this review on the eve of Leviathan's official release, in hopes of generating a bit more buzz, if that's even possible. I will admit, I was pretty psyched about reading this book, and so I did sneak a peek at the first chapter before I went off on vacation, and I liked what I saw immediately. I knew I would, thanks to Abby's excellent review. I'd not heard about this book before it, and decided I must have a copy of my own after it.

First though, let me say that this book is gorgeous. Of course the contents are important, and I'll get to that in a minute -- but this book is just beautiful. The font is nice, the paper is thick, the illustrations by Keith Thompson are absolutely perfect, the insides of the covers are just stunning. A lot of thought has gone into the presentation of this story, I think, and I like that a lot. It makes the price of a hardback more than worth it. So, kudos to the Simon Pulse imprint for that.

In case you've missed it (there's been a fair bit of blogger buzz about this book) the plot rolls something like this. It is the eve of the First World War. Alek is a Hapsburg prince, possible heir to the throne of Austro-Hungaria, rousted out of his bed in the middle of the night by two of his tutors and taken on a journey that quickly becomes mortally dangerous. Deryn is a fifteen-year old girl, desperate to fly, desperate enough to disguise herself as a boy and join the British Air Force. By luck, both good and bad, these two with deep secrets end up together on the British airship Leviathan. And, at the end of the book, their journey has really just begun.

I feel it's my duty to warn you now. There are a lot of unresolved questions at the end of this book, not the least of which is whether everyone is going to survive. I cringe at the thought of how long I have to wait for the next one (October 2010 - one. whole. year. *wails*)

Everyone includes the ship, because Leviathan is a Darwinist creation, a fabricated animal. In Westerfeld's alternate history, Darwin not only discovered evolution, but he discovered DNA and how to manipulate it. Using his techniques, scientists (Deryn charmingly calls them "boffins" and they all wear bowlers, which is awesome) are able to create chimeric creatures that replace most of what machinery would do in our familiar history. Leviathan, for example, is nominally a whale-type creature, but she flies in the air using hydrogen she excretes and captures in a series of hydrogen bladders. The Darwinists have created these animals in very intricate ways, and a big airship like Leviathan is actually an entire functioning ecosystem.

Lest you think our industrial age is forgotten, however, there are also Clankers: some countries have become extremely technically advanced, shunning Darwinist creations as "ungodly" and creating great engines and machines, tank-like walkers and airplanes running on fossil fuels, to match the Darwinist creations. And the Darwinists and the Clankers are both morally and technologically opposed -- and thus, there is war. While Westerfeld has the same trigger for the war as happened in our timeline, many of the surface reasons for the war are different.

The world Westerfeld has created is both really cool and not one I would want to live in. I don't like the idea of the Clankers, the filthy, destructive, fossil-fuel guzzling machines they create -- but I also have a lot of trouble with the idea of living creatures as war machines and tools. I've always thought that the stories of bats and pigeons and dogs and dolphins trained to be weapons of war are sickening. War is a human endeavour, and animals should have no part in it, whether they've been created for that purpose or not. When the ship Leviathan is strafed with machine gun fire, she feels pain; as a "whale," I'm pretty sure she's intelligent enough to feel fear when attacked, and yet she's driven right into battle. And I really don't like that thought at all.

So it's a very interesting read from that perspective, and will likely stand up as a book that both adults and kids can read and have deep discussions about. But that's not all. The characters that move in this world Westerfeld has created are compelling. Both Alek and Daryn are intelligent, brave, and flawed human beings, desperate to keep their secrets and do what they feel is right. Alek in particular made me shake my head at points, but the things he did were still internally consistent with who he was.

Deryn was a little crazy but I especially liked her. She's funny, too; her ways of speech are filthy (without actual swearing) and her observations of others are often dead on. And while I'm not often a fan of the "I'm really just pretending to be a boy!" character, I completely understand and sympathize with Deryn's reasons. There is no way she would be allowed to be where she is, doing what she does, if she'd applied for the Air Force as a girl, so deception -- and the associated dishonesties even with those she grows fond of -- is absolutely necessary.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. I'd recommend it to anyone with a taste for fast-paced adventure. People who have read and liked Airborn by Kenneth Oppel especially will probably also like this book, although it does have a completely different flavour. I haven't read anything else by Westerfeld, but I'd be interested to hear from someone who has read this and his Uglies books, to see what they think. And I'll definitely be picking up Uglies some day soon.

Next I had to read something that has nothing to do with war, violence, or murder. That's right: historical romance. I've been laying it on rather heavy lately, with the war and the crime fiction. Needed something happy, something pink: stay tuned for a review of Mary Balogh's First Comes Marriage.