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Mar. 7th, 2011 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI was putting off and putting off reading Scott Westerfield's Leviathan despite the fact that it is clearly HIGHLY RELEVANT to many of my interests (AU WWI! enjoyably ridiculous worldbuilding! CROSS-DRESSING LADIES), because I bounced hard off the last two YA steampunk books I read and was therefore leery of striking out with the third.
But enough people across the internet have been saying excellent things about them that I finally gave in, and, shockingly, it turned out all those people were right! Leviathan and its sequel Behemoth are kind of ridiculously enjoyable books.
The basic premise is that Europe is split between the Darwinist and Clanker powers, who BY STRANGE COINCIDENCE align pretty much exactly with the Allied and Central powers from WWI. The Austrio-German Clankers use pretty much your standard steampunk technology, all giant walker things and steam and gears; the British-French-Russian Darwinists, on the other hand, bioengineer their airships and artillery out of bizarre and complex organic ecosystems made up of flying space whales and floating jellyfish! (As a sidenote, I have realized that is pretty much the level of ridiculousness that steampunk AUs need to reach in order to work for me. If you spend a lot of time setting up an AU divergence in painstaking detail, I am probably going to nitpick; if, on the other hand, you just give me LULZY MARTIAN LOLVICTORIANS or FLYING AIRSHIP WHALES, I am extremely happy just to roll with it!)
Our protagonists are, respectively: Alek, the AU son of doomed Archduke Ferdinand, who spends most of his time on the run from various soldiers trying to kill him, and Deryn, a plucky crossdressing midshipman aboard a FLYING AIRSHIP WHALE. I like Alek fine - he's pretty endearingly oblivious-but-goodhearted, and, you know, he tries hard! also I find it hilarious how incapable he is of keeping his identity secret to anyone for more than twenty minutes - but (surprising no one) Deryn totally steals the show for me.
To sum up Deryn: okay, there is a bit in an early chapter where Deryn spends half a page thinking about how annoying it is that boys spend all this time in a constant struggle to prove that they are the ballsiest. This is hilarious, because Deryn then proceeds to spend every other chapter in the book cheerfully proving her ballsiness by saving a.) her own life, b.) someone else's life, c.) the entire ship, and/or d.) the entire British navy. At one point, after Deryn has just singlehandedly stopped a giant steampunk elephant from trampling Istanbul using only her wits and a handful of paprika, another character (Darwin's cool-as-ice mad scientist granddaughter, for the record) is just like "kid, from now on you get to go everywhere with me to save the day all the time." I am pretty sure that if I lived in this universe, this would be my attitude too.
The romance is also sort of unusual for a cross-dressed romance, I think, in that - okay, cross-dressed girls, a lot of the time, tend to fall for their boss or commanding officer or mentor figure, people they look up to in one way or another - think Mulan and Shang, Viola and Orsino, Cecily and Little John, Rune and Talaysen, Alanna and Jonathan and George and Liam. Now, I love a lot of these couples, but I do think that it's telling that almost all the time, one inequality in privilege and power dynamics - the issue of gender - immediately needs to be replaced with another. Even Jacky Faber starts crushing on Jaimy essentially because he's higher-class and better-spoken than she is. Alek is of course higher-class than Deryn, but that's never represented as a reason for her to fall for him - instead, Alek is the one who looks up to Deryn as his kind-of-mentor. I mean, seriously, he pretty much follows her around going "Deryn Dylan! You're so awesome and brave and ballsy! I wish I could be like you!" and Deryn is just like "yeah, I am. But hey, you're cute too!" As a reversal of the standard dynamic, I think that is pretty nifty.
. . . also obviously I am all for the fact that other teenaged girls crush on Deryn wherever she goes, because: HILARITY. Although I agree with the criticisms I have seen that it would be nice if Deryn also spent more time talking to those other girls.
(I think Westerfield could do much more interesting things with the gender issues and also with the intersection of class and gender than he is doing, for the record. But I have the Jacky Faber books for that, and, you know, sometimes you just want a wacky romp through AU WWI with airship battles and revolution and giant flying whales.)
But enough people across the internet have been saying excellent things about them that I finally gave in, and, shockingly, it turned out all those people were right! Leviathan and its sequel Behemoth are kind of ridiculously enjoyable books.
The basic premise is that Europe is split between the Darwinist and Clanker powers, who BY STRANGE COINCIDENCE align pretty much exactly with the Allied and Central powers from WWI. The Austrio-German Clankers use pretty much your standard steampunk technology, all giant walker things and steam and gears; the British-French-Russian Darwinists, on the other hand, bioengineer their airships and artillery out of bizarre and complex organic ecosystems made up of flying space whales and floating jellyfish! (As a sidenote, I have realized that is pretty much the level of ridiculousness that steampunk AUs need to reach in order to work for me. If you spend a lot of time setting up an AU divergence in painstaking detail, I am probably going to nitpick; if, on the other hand, you just give me LULZY MARTIAN LOLVICTORIANS or FLYING AIRSHIP WHALES, I am extremely happy just to roll with it!)
Our protagonists are, respectively: Alek, the AU son of doomed Archduke Ferdinand, who spends most of his time on the run from various soldiers trying to kill him, and Deryn, a plucky crossdressing midshipman aboard a FLYING AIRSHIP WHALE. I like Alek fine - he's pretty endearingly oblivious-but-goodhearted, and, you know, he tries hard! also I find it hilarious how incapable he is of keeping his identity secret to anyone for more than twenty minutes - but (surprising no one) Deryn totally steals the show for me.
To sum up Deryn: okay, there is a bit in an early chapter where Deryn spends half a page thinking about how annoying it is that boys spend all this time in a constant struggle to prove that they are the ballsiest. This is hilarious, because Deryn then proceeds to spend every other chapter in the book cheerfully proving her ballsiness by saving a.) her own life, b.) someone else's life, c.) the entire ship, and/or d.) the entire British navy. At one point, after Deryn has just singlehandedly stopped a giant steampunk elephant from trampling Istanbul using only her wits and a handful of paprika, another character (Darwin's cool-as-ice mad scientist granddaughter, for the record) is just like "kid, from now on you get to go everywhere with me to save the day all the time." I am pretty sure that if I lived in this universe, this would be my attitude too.
The romance is also sort of unusual for a cross-dressed romance, I think, in that - okay, cross-dressed girls, a lot of the time, tend to fall for their boss or commanding officer or mentor figure, people they look up to in one way or another - think Mulan and Shang, Viola and Orsino, Cecily and Little John, Rune and Talaysen, Alanna and Jonathan and George and Liam. Now, I love a lot of these couples, but I do think that it's telling that almost all the time, one inequality in privilege and power dynamics - the issue of gender - immediately needs to be replaced with another. Even Jacky Faber starts crushing on Jaimy essentially because he's higher-class and better-spoken than she is. Alek is of course higher-class than Deryn, but that's never represented as a reason for her to fall for him - instead, Alek is the one who looks up to Deryn as his kind-of-mentor. I mean, seriously, he pretty much follows her around going "
. . . also obviously I am all for the fact that other teenaged girls crush on Deryn wherever she goes, because: HILARITY. Although I agree with the criticisms I have seen that it would be nice if Deryn also spent more time talking to those other girls.
(I think Westerfield could do much more interesting things with the gender issues and also with the intersection of class and gender than he is doing, for the record. But I have the Jacky Faber books for that, and, you know, sometimes you just want a wacky romp through AU WWI with airship battles and revolution and giant flying whales.)
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 04:26 pm (UTC)I've never thought about it that way -- but now that you say it, that's totally true. I also agree with you re: the flying airship whales: I'd rather have a steampunk with a sense of fun than one that tries too hard.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 04:35 pm (UTC)Basically I am just eternally disappointed that more steampunk does not embrace the sentiment of LOLVICTORIANS. The Victorians were ridiculous! (I mean also I suspect that if you are genially mocking them it is much easier to point out again imperialism and racism and classism etc. than if you are playing the whole aesthetic straight, but that's another issue.)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 04:59 pm (UTC)I mean, I can see the differences, of course. But still. Amusement.
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Date: 2011-03-07 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 12:19 am (UTC)I...these books...I love them.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 02:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 10:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 03:09 pm (UTC)AND YES EXACTLY. Delight in the ridiculous is clearly how these books are meant to be enjoyed!
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Date: 2011-03-08 06:11 pm (UTC)I still remember basic overall reaction after reading those books: NOT WITHOUT ISSUES, BUT DELIGHTFUL, SO DELIGHTFUL.
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Date: 2011-03-08 07:26 pm (UTC)I tend to think the Victorians are funnier than the Edwardians when lulz is what I am looking for, but agree with your thoughts re: Edwardian dresses! AND SUFFRAGE. \o/
no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 07:37 pm (UTC)(ONE CAN SOMETIMES compartmentalise away iffy stuff in favour of ridiculous plots with top hats, I think)
WELL, YES. The Victorians are probably lulzier, on account of how ridiculous they were, but the Edwardians are my favourite of the two. Though, uh, REGENCY wins over both of those.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 07:48 pm (UTC)"Contemporary" as in Victorian! Sample prose:
Among my mother's books I had once discovered a volume of stories by a gentleman named Mr Poe, who lives in Her Majesty's American colonies. There was one, The Premature Burial, which gave me nightmares for weeks after I read it, and I remember thinking that there could be no fate more horrible than to be buried alive, and wondering what type of deranged and sickly mind could have invented such a tale. But as I lay there immobilised in a jar on the wrong side of the Moon with only a ravening caterpillar for company I realised that Mr Poe was actually quite a cheery, light-hearted sort of chap, and that his story had been touchingly optimistic.
Hahaha I also love the Regency but there is so much Regency stuff out there that my contrarian soul sometimes keeps wanting to demand RESTORATION and ENLIGHTENMENT instead.
. . . but also Tudors! And Revolution-era France! and and and basically HISTORY *____*
no subject
Date: 2011-03-08 07:56 pm (UTC)I would never say no to any of those, Becca, EVER. BRING IT ON, ALL THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND RESTORATION AND TUDORS AND REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE AND RENAISSANCE...and Middle Ages (HIGH MIDDLE AGES, late middle ages!!), and ridic 18th century France and Rococo and HISTORY INDEED.
I just, whatever. Bring on all the historical periods and their pretty dresses.
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Date: 2011-03-08 11:13 pm (UTC)(Also, have you ever read The Beacon at Alexandria by Gillian Bradshaw? Late-Roman-empire-era cross-dressing, plus medicine and doctoring!)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 04:16 am (UTC)(Ooooh. I have not, but clearly it should be on my list!)
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Date: 2011-03-09 09:55 pm (UTC)I definitely adore Rosalind and As You Like It as well! Though I have a secret soft spot (okay, not so secret, especially if you have been in class with me and watched me try to make it All About Celia for the first half of the class) for Celia too.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 10:11 pm (UTC)CLEIA IS ACTUALLY MY FAVORITE. *cough* Uh that was enthusiastic. But yes; I love Rosalind a lot but I ALSO love Celia, and what I actually really want out of life is a transformative-Shakespeare-fanfic epic about Celia and her simultaneous all-encompassing love for and constant eyerolling at Rosalind, and Oliver and Oliver's Orlando issues and how that becomes Oliver and Celia's around-the-edges love story.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 11:28 pm (UTC)Celia is the best. I just love her and how she completely owns her first scenes with Rosalind--and then the fact that she embraces banishment and estrangement from her father, all for her love for Rosalind, just makes me love her even more. I admit that I never quite know what to *do* with Celia and Oliver--but I saw Sam Mendes' production of AYLI last year (?), and I thought Edward Bennett was brilliant as Oliver; he had this ebullience that completely made me believe in his transformation.
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Date: 2012-06-24 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-25 03:38 am (UTC)