Steampunk meets genepunk in Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan. The time is the eve of World War I, but the timeline is not the one we are familiar with. It is a world where Charles Darwin was able to go further in his research and manipulate genes to create vast, living airships out of a hodgepodge of animals. Those who find his practice ungodly have responded with similarly strange, animalistic machines to combat them. Your guides in this world are a young Machinist named Alek and a Darwinist named Deryn. When his father is assassinated, Alek is forced to flee for his life, while Deryn flees her family and disguises herself as a boy so she can enlist and get a seat aboard the airship, the flying whale, the Leviathan.

I love the world presented in this novel, and I like that the perspective switches back and forth between characters on both sides of the conflict. Leviathan engulfs you in its world and keeps you turning the pages until the 'to be continued' at the end (thankfully all three books in the trilogy are already out, so you won’t have to wait after the cliffhangers.)

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Erica's Picks
5th - 8th Grade
Tags: Adventure, Fast-Paced, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Steampunk

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Take all the criminals and put them somewhere out of the way. Give them a whole new world equipped with everything they could ever need.  Then add in an all-seeing intelligence named Incarceron to watch over them. It was a great experiment, and a failed one. Now the prisoners struggle to survive knowing that at any moment they might be killed or disfigured at Incarceron's whim. Meanwhile those in power on the outside have done their best to trap the world in the past--forcing everyone to act and dress in Era. Not everyone is happy with these restrictions, including the daughter of the warden. When she makes contact with a boy in her father's prison they are determined to change both worlds.

This novel is set in a future that is trapped in the past so there’s extrapolated technologies as well as frilly dresses and drama at court. The prison makes a deliciously dark and formidable opponent for our intrepid protagonists to face and a great dystopian setting. The characters are very well developed with unique voices.There's plenty of meaty bits to ponder as well as fast-paced action scenes.

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Erica's Picks
7th - 8th Grade
Tags: Dystopian, Science Fiction, Steampunk