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bloodygranuaileFirst of all: No, I am not telling you what a perspicacious loris is, only that it is very perspicacious. You will have to read the book.
I'm not telling you much about the snails either, because they are too awesome and I don't want to give away too much plot.
The whale, of course, is the Leviathan, because I was reading Scott Westerfeld's Behemoth, the sequel to Leviathan from his Long Words for Big Things trilogy (the third book is called Goliath). I reviewed Leviathan back when I read it in March.
In this one, Prince Aleksandar and his Austrian tutor-buddies are now aboard the British flying whale Leviathan as honored guests slash prisoners of war slash engineers. Deryn is still playing Midshipman Dylan, and dealing with developing a giant obligatory crush on Alek, who has no idea that she is a girl. Then they fly to Istanbul Not Constantinople, for lots of diplomatic messiness. The basic issues of the Istanbul plot are based upon real events wherein the British had been building a fancy warship for the Turks but when the war started, the Brits were afraid the Turks would join the Axis powers, so they hung onto the warship, thus angering the Turks, who promptly joined the Axis powers in their war against Britain so they could get their stolen ship back. In this case, the ship is some sort of crazy marine dinosaur thingy with tentacles and the ability to eat ironclads warships, and its name is... wait for it... the Behemoth!
In this version, however, the rebellion that had succeeded in the real Ottoman Empire had failed, and so The Ottoman Empire's Democratic Revolution, Mark II becomes a major plot point in diverging the entire course of World War I away from what really happened. Westerfeld's version is better, since it involves spice bombs, an irritating New York reporter, the world's grossest diving suit, a thing called a "Tesla cannon" (it shoots lightning), and some snails.
There is an obligatory awkward love triangle to complicate the obligatory romance, but it is actually pretty awesome, and not just in a "hilariously soapy" sort of way, partly because no more time is spent on it than strictly necessary, and partly because the time that is spent on it is just done perfectly. The girl in the picture is Lilit, a revolutionary who has mad spy skills and is deliciously cranky. Deryn is jealous at first because she thinks Lilit and Alek have things for each other, but Alek reveals to Deryn that Lilit actually has a massive thing for "Dylan," which was apparently hugely obvious to everyone but Deryn, and Deryn is all like OH NO IT IS BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T KNOW I AM A GIRL except that it is made fairly clear (to the reader; apparently not to Deryn or Alek) that Lilit actually has figured out that "Dylan" is a girl.
Also, while I am still not going to tell you what a perspicacious loris is, I can tell you that (1) they named it Bovril, and (2) that I want one. I would name it Percy.
I'm not telling you much about the snails either, because they are too awesome and I don't want to give away too much plot.
The whale, of course, is the Leviathan, because I was reading Scott Westerfeld's Behemoth, the sequel to Leviathan from his Long Words for Big Things trilogy (the third book is called Goliath). I reviewed Leviathan back when I read it in March.
In this one, Prince Aleksandar and his Austrian tutor-buddies are now aboard the British flying whale Leviathan as honored guests slash prisoners of war slash engineers. Deryn is still playing Midshipman Dylan, and dealing with developing a giant obligatory crush on Alek, who has no idea that she is a girl. Then they fly to Istanbul Not Constantinople, for lots of diplomatic messiness. The basic issues of the Istanbul plot are based upon real events wherein the British had been building a fancy warship for the Turks but when the war started, the Brits were afraid the Turks would join the Axis powers, so they hung onto the warship, thus angering the Turks, who promptly joined the Axis powers in their war against Britain so they could get their stolen ship back. In this case, the ship is some sort of crazy marine dinosaur thingy with tentacles and the ability to eat ironclads warships, and its name is... wait for it... the Behemoth!
In this version, however, the rebellion that had succeeded in the real Ottoman Empire had failed, and so The Ottoman Empire's Democratic Revolution, Mark II becomes a major plot point in diverging the entire course of World War I away from what really happened. Westerfeld's version is better, since it involves spice bombs, an irritating New York reporter, the world's grossest diving suit, a thing called a "Tesla cannon" (it shoots lightning), and some snails.
There is an obligatory awkward love triangle to complicate the obligatory romance, but it is actually pretty awesome, and not just in a "hilariously soapy" sort of way, partly because no more time is spent on it than strictly necessary, and partly because the time that is spent on it is just done perfectly. The girl in the picture is Lilit, a revolutionary who has mad spy skills and is deliciously cranky. Deryn is jealous at first because she thinks Lilit and Alek have things for each other, but Alek reveals to Deryn that Lilit actually has a massive thing for "Dylan," which was apparently hugely obvious to everyone but Deryn, and Deryn is all like OH NO IT IS BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T KNOW I AM A GIRL except that it is made fairly clear (to the reader; apparently not to Deryn or Alek) that Lilit actually has figured out that "Dylan" is a girl.
Also, while I am still not going to tell you what a perspicacious loris is, I can tell you that (1) they named it Bovril, and (2) that I want one. I would name it Percy.
