Monday, October 11, 2010

Behemoth

This morning I finished reading Behemoth, which is an amazing book by Scott Westerfeld. It was awesome for a multitude of reasons, but I am still kind of mad at Scott-sama for not having Deryn tell Alek she's a girl. Arrghh!!!
For anyone who doesn't know the series, Behemoth is the sequel to Leviathan, which is an alternative version of WWI in which Darwin discovered DNA and was able to fabricate animals, bringing old species back to life and creating new ones to use in daily life or war. One of the main characters, Deryn Sharp, if a fifteen year old girl disguised as a sixteen year old boy in the British Air Service, working on board the Leviathan, which is a giant whale warship that flies, basically. The other main character, Alek, is an Austrian prince who is being hunted by the Germans for a variety of reasons. The whole thing is pretty awesome.
Anyway, in celebration of finally finishing Behemoth (I've had it since FRIDAY NIGHT for god's sake!) I am Deryn Sharp for the rest of today. I'm wearing a white shirt, red tie, jeans, a bomber jacket, and combat boots, which it the best I could come up with, and pretty soon I'll be shouting "Barking Spiders!" at people when provoked.
So please, someone, provoke me so I can swear like a barking book character.
Hey, that worked.
One of the amazing things that makes the Leviathan series--Leviathan, Behemoth, and soon Goliath--is that they have illustrations. This is pretty amazing considering that most YA novels do not get cool pictures. The illustrations, I think, are very important because all the cool techy stuff is extremely difficult to describe, so pictures are kind of necessary for the reader to be able to stay on the same page as the story. Unless Scott Westerfeld wants to go into extreme boring detail about walkers and beasties and stuff, when instead he can just have the fabulous Keith Thompson draw it in perfect detail.


What would make me really happy right now:
-If someone would get me a perspicacious loris
-A short sleeved white button-down shirt
-A bomber jacket, so I don't have to borrow dad's

Next book: The Pricker Boy, by my homeroom teacher Mr. Whinnem :D

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