Boston middle-schoolers Molly, Javi, Anna, and Oliver are excited to travel to Japan to compete in the robot soccer world championships. Yoshi
dreads reuniting with his stern father in Tokyo after a falling-out with his American mother. Twins Kira and Akiko are going home from a European
boarding school. Caleb has his own reasons for being on the jet.
None of them make it to Japan.
As they are passing through the Arctic circle, something terrible and inexplicable happens to their plane, a bolt of energy that tears through
the cockpit and cabin and rips the jetliner apart like so much cardboard in the sky. Only the eight kids are left by the time the battered wreck
lands... not on Arctic ice, but in a tropical jungle that's like nothing they've ever heard of. The plants are more red than green, the
wildlife's peculiar, and there's a bizarre artifact with strange properties among the wreckage. Where are they? What happened to their plane?
And how are these eight kids, few of whom have any practical wilderness survival skills, ever going to get back home?
Review
Yet another impulse borrow from Libby, Horizon promises adventure and danger and strange wonders, and delivers in full.
The core characters are part of a middle-school robotics team, turning their engineer mindsets to the bizarre landscape and its weird wonders
and dangers, finding good use for their knowledge of physics, but there are some situations where the scientific method isn't practical.
Yoshi's background has a few more practicalities, though it's his love of anime and manga that leads him to step up to the challenge,
realizing that the first thing that you do when you find yourself in a strange world is secure your survival basics: food, shelter, and water.
Caleb is clearly used to being a leader through physical presence alone, being the oldest and biggest of the survivors/castaways, though while
he initially comes across as a "dumb jock" type of limited usefulness, he turns out to have needed skills, as do they all (well, almost all -
Oliver, the youngest of the group, doesn't really have a particular talent, though his inclusion in the flight and ensuing disaster give his
older robotics teammates something else to feel guilty about, as they're the ones who talked his protective parents into letting him come on
the trip). The setup and the setting offer a nice, interesting, and dangerous challenge for the kids, an impossible tropical jungle that may
not even be on Earth for all they can initially tell (the mystery of where they are is resolved in this book, though of course a lot more
questions remain). Everywhere they turn they find new dangers and new strangeness, all of which sometimes feels like an intentional puzzle
or test and sometimes feels like the evolutionary indifference to human survival that makes deep wilderness so inherently dangerous for the
unprepared - such as kids who literally fell out of the sky into a jungle with little more than the clothes on their backs. Naturally,
despite some friction and different ideas of how to proceed, everyone must come together to survive... and not all of them make it to the
end of the book.
From a fairly quick start, the action and intrigue keep up to the very last page... a last page that promotes the associated Horizon app
game. (I admit to smirking a bit as the audiobook faithfully read aloud the instructions for downloading and activating the game, including
the copying of symbols in a particular sequence as seen on the printed page. C'mon, audiobook producers - did nobody honestly stop and think
that maybe you could cut that useless bit out?) I came very close to adding an extra half-star, but there were a few places where Westerfield
played coy with information and reveals that barely held it back (though the Good rating obviously means I still enjoyed it, of course). I
expect I'll track down the next book in the series at some point, as I'm definitely curious about where things are going.
In 1914, the world has become deeply divided in the wake of Charles Darwin's discoveries about evolution. Many in Europe are "Clankers", espousing
the superiority of gear and metal, with walking machinery and bat-winged aeroplanes. Other nations, such as Britain, Russia, and France, embrace
Darwinist ideals, ever since the great naturalist discovered the keys to the "life threads" within all living cells; by rearranging these threads,
scientists fabricate purpose-built life forms that have replaced virtually all steam engine technology in their lands. Clankers believe that the
Darwinist beasties are soulless abominations against God, while Darwinists see Clanker machines as loud, stinking, polluting blights upon the Earth.
With such deep ideological schisms piled on top of centuries of political and ethnic rivalries, all-out war is merely waiting for a single
spark.
When the Archduke of Austria and his wife are assassinated, that spark flies. Stealing away in the middle of the night with his two most trusted
servants aboard an armored Clanker walker, the archduke's fifteen-year-old son Aleksander cannot begin to comprehend how quickly his life has changed.
All his life he has felt like a pretender, his mother's commoner blood preventing him from inheriting his father's wealth or title. Now, as a potential
rallying point for his late parents' supporters, he is targeted both by invading Germans and by those Austrians who, like his emperor grandfather,
never approved of the archduke's marriage beneath his class.
In Darwinist London, Deryn Sharp has slipped away from her widowed mother, following her brother to the city to complete the midshipman exams for the Air
Service. All she has to do is convince the military brass that she's a Dylan, not a Deryn, as women are forbidden from service... a tall order, but which
seems to her a better option than a dull life of dresses and tea parties. Her first test flight aboard a hydrogen-breather goes awry when a storm blows her
far off course. The ship sent to rescue her is none other than the Leviathan, one of the greatest airborne beasties devised, with an entire
interconnected living ecosystem aboard its vast whale-based body. Before she can be returned to the recruitment station in London, war breaks out, and the
Leviathan is diverted for a special mission. With a clever-boots lady scientist on board with a top-secret cargo that must be defended at all costs,
"Dylan" quickly discovers that passing as a boy is going to be the least of her troubles.
The paths of Clanker-born Alek and Darwinist-loyal Deryn cross under highly inauspicious circumstances. With the known world plunging into a bloody war and
paranoia running high, their struggle to see past their differences and learn to trust one another may mean the difference between life or death for both of
them - not to mention their friends, their companions, and the great living airship Leviathan itself.
Review
I picked this up for a couple of reasons. First of all, I'm on a bit of a steampunk kick lately. Secondly, I was a fan of the late, lamented sci-fi series
Farscape, which featured a species of living spaceships known as leviathans, so naturally the title and the concept leaped out at me. When I got a
coupon from Barnes & Noble, I figured I'd give it a try. Westerfield creates a highly detailed world based roughly on the real-world politics of World War
I. His Darwinist animals and Clanker machines come to life in one's mind, full of interesting details. The story picks up quickly and keeps going until the
very last pages, often at a breakneck pace. With the black-and-white illustrations, I couldn't help thinking of old-school adventure books and those
(often-butchered) illustrated adaptations of classics. Characterization mostly takes a back seat to the near-nonstop action and the building of Westerfield's
alternate Earth, but I cared enough about the people to keep turning the pages. Of course, being a trilogy, a fair bit is left up in the air at the end. I
wound up shaving a half-star for the occasionally annoying slang of Deryn's chapters, and for leaving just a few too many threads unresolved at the ending.
(I also thought some of the illustrations were unneccessary... that, and more than once the illustrated Alek looked more like an "Alice" to my eye.) I'll still
probably read the second book when it comes out in paperback... if Barnes & Noble remembers to send me another coupon, that is.
The living airship Leviathan, carrying a top secret cargo under the care of Dr. Barlowe, has finally arrived in Istanbul... after running
afoul of two German warships stranded in the Mediterranean by the onset of war. In theory, the Ottoman Empire is still neutral; though it has strong
Clanker tendencies, its machines tend to resemble animals and myths more than the utilitarian German contraptions, making them more amenable to
Darwinist sympathies. But the sultan, already gravely insulted when Britain's Lord Churchill confiscated a bought-and-paid-for Darwinist ship for the
war effort, may not be open to Britain's diplomatic overtures, and the Leviathan crew finds more than a few German fingers resting on the
shoulders of the Turkish throne.
Midshipman Deryn and Prince Alek have come to be friends despite their different stations and upbringings. For Deryn, she fears it's more than
friendship; her deception as "Mr. Dylan Sharp" requires her to hide her gender, but she finds it more and more difficult to hold back as Alek confides
in her. For Alek, their friendship is equally confounding; though he was raised to think of Darwinists and their fabricated animals as an affront to
divine will, he has found a peace among the beasties of the Leviathan that he has never known before, and the rough-mannered commoner "Dylan" has
proven himself a true and loyal friend. Strained by their opposing loyalties, Deryn and Alek must nevertheless stand together as they face traitors,
revolutionaries, intrigue, and secrets that could change the course of the entire war.
Review
The jump in the rating from the previous installment has two reasons. First off, Westerfield's steampunk alternate-history world has been decently
established, so more time went into developing characters and their relationships here. Secondly, the previous two books I read nearly had me tearing my
hair out wanting to smack the characters across the face and/or jab them with cattle prods to make the plot move along; after that tedium, Westerfield's
more straightforward adventure tale went down very nicely. The action continues at roughly the same pace as in the first book. Westerfield continues to
weave real-world details into his alternate World War 1 version of events. Like the first book, this one features black and white illustrations by Keith
Thompson, which lend a wonderful old-school feel to the story (even if Alek still looks a bit too feminine in some images.) I found myself staying up late
just to finish this book, and already looking forward to the third and final volume... whenever it comes out.
During their weeks together on the living airship Leviathan, weeks that have seen everything from Clanker airship attacks to the culmination
of a revolution in the neutral Ottoman Empire, Midshipman "Dylan" Sharp and Prince Aleksander have grown into fast friends and allies. Deryn still must
hide her gender, for fear of losing her place in the British air service, but the secret grows harder to keep in close quarters, with her own heart
complicating the matter. Fortunately, there's plenty to distract them. They've just been ordered to a remote patch of Siberia to retrieve a scientist:
none other than Nikola Tesla, the Clanker inventor who famously switched sides to the Darwinist nations. The man claims to have invented a weapon so
powerful that its mere existence can end war forever - and, as he's found in the middle of a vast swath of blast-flattened trees, the seemingly-mad claim
bears grim weight. Alek, with his Clanker belief in machinery and his conviction that he can somehow end the global war, embraces the possibility, but
others - including Deryn, the Darwinist scientist Dr. Barlowe, and even Alek's chief advisor Count Volger - grow suspicious of Tesla's increasingly
grandiose claims and insistence on mass publicity. As the Leviathan heads to New York City, where the Goliath tower stands, Deryn and Alek find
themselves surrounded by conflicting secrets, hidden dangers, and unlikely allies. Can the Goliath truly end all war, or is the cost of placing so much
power in one man's hands simply too great?
Review
In the trilogy's final chapter, Goliath brings the airship Leviathan across the Pacific to the fractured realm of America, where the
rise of Clanker and Darwinist ideals, not to mention the lingering loyalties of its immigrant populace, have perpetuated Civil War schisms. Westerfield
continues populating his alternate Earth with wonders both living and mechanical, creating a world that could easily stand up to more volumes, regardless
of their connection to the first World War. Many more real-life figures appear, including the famed newsman William Randolf Hearst, the Mexican revolutionary
Pancho Villa (who, as in real life, actually struck a movie deal with Hearst to help fund his revolution), the gutsy reporter Adela Rogers, and more. An
epilogue at the end explains the real-world influences, which proved a more interesting history lesson than twelve years of public education ever provided.
In the middle of the vast sweep of events, Deryn's secret comes out, leaving Alek to ponder whether he will stay true to his title or repeat his assassinated
father's mistake of choosing his heart over his duty. Once more, between the high-flying imagination, the quick pace, and the wonderfully detailed
illustrations by Keith Thompson, Goliath hearkens back to the best of old-school adventure tales. It lost a star to occasional wandering, and the
subplot about Deryn's secret coming out felt a little off, with just a few too many people working it out to make its exclusion from the grapevine plausible.
Overall, it's a fine conclusion to a memorable series.
After growing up in Chicago, the Oklahoma town of Bixby looks like the definition of nowhere to Jessica Day - if a nowhere with an aeronautics firm where
Mom landed a design job. But there's something funny about this place, and not just the odd-tasting water. Every night, at midnight, time freezes... and
monsters emerge. As a Midnighter, someone born at the exact right time, Jessica is one of the few teens in Bixby who experiences this secret hour - an hour
that appears to exist only in and around the town - but none of the others provoke such a strong reaction from the darklings who lurk there. Is it just
because she's new, or is there something special about her, something that may end the eons-old struggle between humanity and darkling once and for
all?
Review
The Secret Hour isn't bad, establishing a creepy premise and decent cast. Westerfield creates some nice monsters with the darklings and the lesser
slithers, shapeshifting beings that embody humanity's oldest nightmares. The teens each develop distinct personalities, generally with a little more to them
than is first apparent, and each with a particular talent that comes alive in the secret hour. The exception here is Jessica Day, the nominal lead. She comes
across as the quintessential Teen Heroine, half a step (if that) removed from Mary Sue status, whose initial helplessness and naiveté only ensures that she'll
somehow be Extra Important later on (no specific spoiler, but come on - I think most readers know the earmarks by now.) There are hints of relationship
potential, and some typical high school drama (plus the obligatory family drama and parental issues)... the usual trappings of the age category and genre.
Even if the elements hit their marks competently, they're still laid out on a rather well-worn story path that I'm a little tired of treading.
Westerfield's imagery and concepts are fine, and the majority of the cast is intriguing. It just felt a little too familiar, with Jessica being a cookie cutter
Special New Girl, for the fourth star in the ratings... especially as I felt no interest in pursuing the series, which appears to be a problem for the first
book in a trilogy. (Not that I need another series to follow, but it seems that a first book that fails to sell the second isn't doing something quite right, at
least for this reader.)
