Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld

Blurb:
TWO OPPOSING FORCES ON THE BRINK OF WAR

The Clankers, who put their faith in machinery, are squaring up to the Darwinists, who have begun evolving living creatures into tools.

Price Aleksander, the would-be heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, comes from a family of Clankers, and travels the country in a walker, a heavily-fortified tank on legs.

Deryn Sharp, a girl disguised as a boy, works for the British Empire, crewing an airship made of living animals - the ultimate flying machine.

Now, as Alek runs from his own people, and Deryn crash-lands in enemy territory, their lives are about to collide...

I'm sorry, but if that blurb didn't grab you, you're nuts.
So I bought this book earlier this week, along with the third Hitchhiker's. I started reading it a couple of hours ago because I finished H2G23. I'm already a third of the way through and I am LOVING IT! It's brilliant!

Okay, I'm not going to tell you exactly what happens, but here's a run down:
Basically, the run up to World War 1, only in an alternate universe with only slightly edited events and crazy-contraptions everywhere!
Well, so far it's the run up, Archduke Franz Ferdinand (though I don't think his name is specified so far) and his wife Sophie have been killed in Sarajevo. Austro-Hungary, Germany, Russia and Serbia have already been drawn into war so far.

But it's really creative, the contraptions they get around in, the storyline and the amazing illustrations courtesy of Keith Thompson! Normally books aimed at this age group don't have images as such, but this time I think they're good; they help you envision the mechanics of everything, the characters and settings but there is still plenty to imagine and in fact helps you imagine the movement of everything and keeps the story moving somehow. I think they're useful because of the irregularity of the things in this book and the illustrations make sure you're not envisioning something completely wrong and getting confused later on.

I think it's a brilliant book, and it's been out over a year now so if you don't fancy buying it then you should borrow it from a local library. It's about adventure and action, not history, so you don't need to know exactly how the world war panned out and whatnot. It's so fast flowing I barely realised I'd read 150 pages already, and when I told myself to read to the end of the page I ended up at the end of the chapter! So worth a try, definitely!

-Hannah

PS. I searched the net for the book and I found the website. IT'S GONNA BE A SERIES SOON! Book 2 comes out the 5th of October! *dances* Sweetness!
Also, here is a link to the web page --> http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/books/leviathan/