Leviathan, out in a pretty gorgeous hardcover recently, doesn't feel like merely the latest iteration of the slew of "coming of age in dystopia" young-adult novels, even though that description pretty much fits: The book takes place at the start of an alternate-history World War I that looks to be every bit as bloody and horrifying as the real version. Nor does Leviathan feel like the umpteenth vaguely steampunk (or in this case, diesel-punk) book to come down the pike.

There are a few reasons for this. Most notably, Westerfeld leavens his dark wartime tale with a more-than-generous amount of humor and lightness — one character's catchphrase, "Barking spiders!", has already become a daily utterance among people of my acquaintance. But also, Westerfeld throws in enough odd twists to make his own peculiar alt-history seem quite unmistakable.

This seems like a good place to warn that there'll be spoilers in this review.

So as you might already have heard, Leviathan takes place in a very different version of Europe — the Germans and Austrians have fantastical machines, including Walkers (massive diesel-powered stomping machines that wouldn't be out of place among Star Wars' AT-ATs) and weird running machines. Meanwhile, though, Britain and some of its allies have developed a very different technology — in this timeline, Darwin discovered DNA, and now the British are able to recombine DNA strands to engineer new life-forms, including weaponized bats that eat and shit flechettes, and the Leviathan itself, a kind of floating whale kept aloft by the hydrogen created by the creatures in its belly.

So instead of merely being a conflict between two power blocs in Europe, World War I becomes the conflict between Britain's genetically-engineering Darwinists and Austria/Germany's mechanistic Clankers.

Into this odd (and somewhat implausible) alternate timeline, Westerfeld throws in two different young protagonists who are coming of age on opposite sides. Alek is the son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination sets off the war in the first place, and because Alek could be next in line for the Archduke's throne (if his mother's commoner blood can be overcome) the Germans and Austrians will stop at nothing to destroy him. So his teachers take to the road in a walking machine, trying to stay one step ahead of the assassins who are trying to finish the job with the last family member.

Meanwhile, our other protagonist, Deryn Sharp, is a girl who pretends to be a boy so she can join the armed forces and fly through the skies on one of those dashing genetically engineered creatures. The plucky Deryn, now renamed Dylan, gets swept off to sea on a "Huxley," (a sort of floating jellyfish, I think), and winds up getting rescued by the Leviathan, becoming the newest member of her crew. Despite the constant risk of exposure, Deryn/Dylan never hesitates to throw herself into the midst of danger, scaling the heights of the Leviathan's rigging in the midst of peril at sea, and braving storms and enemy aircraft to do her duty and prove herself the best midshipman aboard. (She's the one who exclaims "Barking spiders!" at opportune moments.)

So both protagonists are guarding secrets with their lives, and they're both on the cusp of discovering first-hand just how ruinous the war the older generation has engineered will become. It's a good recipe for both protagonists to figure out who they really are, aside from the expectations that people have placed on them. Alek and Deryn figure out how to work the machines and organic creatures that they ride inside of, but at the same time we see them learning (by trial and error) to navigate the weird world of adult society, which is bumpier and more fault-prone than a thousand diesel-powered walking machines.

And the machines-vs-monsters war seems to hint at becoming a framework for a larger debate about which is preferable: to surround ourselves with raw technology, or to adapt nature to serve our purposes. The book (which is just the first volume in a new series) hints that the only real answer is a fusion between the two elements.

Leviathan is worth reading just for the larger-than-life adventures against a fascinatingly rendered backdrop of weird machines and weirder creatures — and Keith Thompson's illustrations, some of which we've featured before, add an extra layer of awesomeness to the mix as well. But as a new spin on the theme of young people discovering their place in an insane world, it's a genuinely memorable story.

The above image is Yap's incredible "Legend Of Yamato" image won the CG Society's concept art challenge a couple years ago. You may have seen it before, but it was new to us — and we love how colorfully it reinvents steampunk. Here are some more of our favorites.

It's a steampunk boat that's also a train, from BlueStorm. More of his art here.

A steampunk arctic explorer by Vyse — way more of his awesome art at Concept Art forums.

Fantastic concept art from Big Huge Games' Rise Of Legends. Way more awesome art here.

Fantastic concept art from Big Huge Games' Rise Of Legends. Way more awesome art here.

Fantastic concept art from Big Huge Games' Rise Of Legends. Way more awesome art here.

Fantastic concept art from Big Huge Games' Rise Of Legends. Way more awesome art here.

Fantastic concept art from Big Huge Games' Rise Of Legends. Way more awesome art here.

"Crab fort" concept art from Guild Wars Factions — we featured this art at io9 ages ago, but it's so amazing it deserves to be seen again. More art from the game here.

Walker concept art from Guild Wars Factions. More art from the game here.

Walker concept art from Guild Wars Factions. More art from the game here.

Requiem For Industry by Kazuhiko Nakamura. Way more art here.

Automaton by Kazuhiko Nakamura. Way more art here.

Metamorphosis by Kazuhiko Nakamura. Way more art here.

Steampunk concept art by Lebbeus.

Steam train concept art by Emil Landgreen.

War Zeppelin concept art from Iron Grip video game, by Leviathan artist Keith Thompson. Way more at the link.

ST-38 tank concept art from Iron Grip video game, by Leviathan artist Keith Thompson. Way more at the link.

Steam walker concept art from Iron Grip video game, by Leviathan artist Keith Thompson. Way more at the link.

Freighter concept art from Iron Grip video game, by Leviathan artist Keith Thompson. Way more at the link.

Norse APC concept art from Iron Grip video game, by Leviathan artist Keith Thompson. Way more at the link.

Antarctic exploration by Myke Amend, more at his site.

Captain Nemo's Office by Alex Brockel.

Steampunk Mary Poppins by Daniel Cestari (More at the link.)

Steampunk Mary Poppins (draft) by Daniel Cestari (More at the link.)

Juggernaut assault, concept art from Steam Wars movie by Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra director Larry Blamire.

Turkish "Flaming Kettle," concept art from Steam Wars movie by Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra director Larry Blamire.

Tyler Gunwagon (1872), concept art from Steam Wars movie by Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra director Larry Blamire.

French experimental steam rig, concept art from Steam Wars movie by Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra director Larry Blamire.

Goliath class gunrig, concept art from Steam Wars movie by Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra director Larry Blamire.

Concept art from War Of The Worlds: Goliath, a direct-to-DVD animated movie (from the Heavy Metal Fan Forum. More at the link.)

Concept art from War Of The Worlds: Goliath, a direct-to-DVD animated movie (from the Heavy Metal Fan Forum. More at the link.)

Concept art from War Of The Worlds: Goliath, a direct-to-DVD animated movie (from the Heavy Metal Fan Forum. More at the link.)

Concept art from War Of The Worlds: Goliath, a direct-to-DVD animated movie (from the Heavy Metal Fan Forum. More at the link.)

Concept art from War Of The Worlds: Goliath, a direct-to-DVD animated movie (from the Heavy Metal Fan Forum. More at the link.)

Westerfeld's nove, which comes out in 26 days according to his handy countdown clock, includes fantastic killing machines used by the Clankers in an alternate World War I. (We showed you the trailer the other day.) And according to Westerfeld, the killing machine you see above was designed by artist Keith Thompson based on a real-life Italian walker:

With a normal illustrated book, the text is completed before the artist starts work. We wanted to make it a more collaborative process, however, with the art feeding back into the text. Besides, given that Leviathan has 50 illustrations, Keith had to begin long before I was finished, or it would knock back our publishing schedule a year or so.

So he wound up working only a few chapters behind me—like a comic book, with the artist a few issues behind the writer. And at one point I got stuck in the narrative and said, "Hey, something's going to chase them in Chapter 18, but I don't know what. How about you draw it, and I'll write it in?"

Keith is a great researcher, and he uncovered this vintage image of a 1920s Italian walking machine prototype. I doubt it ever worked in reality, but we decided it would be cool to do a 1914 German adaptation of it. Sort of a horse-inspired walker, which looked fast enough to give our heros a run for their money.

And here's a bigger version of the above image, plus a comparison of Thompson's amazing German walker with the real-life Italian prototype:

I love Thompson's description of Pushkagrad, a floating Soviet-style island, whose deets are:

-Rotating agriculture pads with train tracked irrigation systems.
-Towering Administration Department crowned with statue of the First Idealogue.
-740mm rail gun, supplying the namesake of the city as well as granting it the capability of incapacitating and sometimes felling other floating cities in times of war.
-Industrial sector capable of churning out goods both for export as well as internal use within Pushkagrad.
-Heavily patrolled and armed docks for trading and overall market access.

Check out Keith Thompson's Gallery. (Thanks, dosido!)