Today, as a birthday gift, I was given a novel (as people are wont to do; when you host a show about novels, expect novels as gifts. Protip: buying me a novel is essentially a guarantee that I will like the gift). The gift got me to thinking: again, since we may or may not do a show about novels, and have run through quite a swath of authors over the last 81 episodes, it would not be a horrible idea to delve a little further into the lives of those authors we are only given so long to discuss on the show. So to start things off, let’s discuss Scott Westerfeld, author of the newly released novel Leviathan. By “newly” I mean really newly. Like…yesterday newly.

Coming straight from his own personal (WordPress, woo!) blog, Scott, a native of Texas, has written five science fiction novels and does some ghostwriting for other authors, none of whom he names. I suppose if you were a ghostwriter and then told people who you wrote for, would that make you a zombiewriter? I’m not quite sure how all of that works.

Mr. Westerfeld has penned a few young adult novels, which I believe Leviathan falls under. His other works include the Midnighters series, about five kids who where all born at midnight, and the Uglies series, about a world where everyone at age 16 has to get plastic surgery. All very interesting ideas.

For Leviathan, his latest work, Scott has teamed up with a fantastic artist to help illustrate the world, and I would be remiss to leave him out. Before we discuss the artist, however, let’s take a quick look at the plot, so you can have it in your mind when you see some of these illustrations. Leviathan’s world is set during WWI, a super badassed WWI, but I’ll let the product description speak for itself:

It is the cusp of World War I, and all the European powers are arming up. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ fabricated animals as their weaponry. Their Leviathan is a whale airship, and the most masterful beast in the British fleet.

Aleksandar Ferdinand, prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is on the run. His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battle-torn Stormwalker and a loyal crew of men.

Deryn Sharp is a commoner, a girl disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She’s a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered.

With the Great War brewing, Alek’s and Deryn’s paths cross in the most unexpected way…taking them both aboard the Leviathan on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure. One that will change both their lives forever.

So now that we have that setting in our heads, let’s look at a couple of works by Keith Thompson, badass extraordinaire:

I don’t know about you, but with these images in my head, with a story set in a WWI Europe with airships and fantastical beasts used for warfare, in addition to gear/steam powered mechs, how can this book not kick ass? I would urge you to go check out Keith’s website and browse through all of his pieces. They’re all pretty gritty and freaking amazing. For a little bit more of his artwork, there just so happens to be a trailer for Leviathan:

So there you have it, the short scoop on Scott Westerfeld AND bonus scoops of Keith Thompson. I have yet to be able to dive into Laviathan outside of two chapters I read at work today (don’t tell anyone), but it looks to be a completely interesting, if not totally awesome work. Look for a discussion of it on a future episode.