Goliath

This book is great so far.  It is the third book in the Levathina series which is an alternative version of World War I.  Instead of the war being between the Central Powers and the Allied Powers it is between the Darwanist and the Clankers.  The Darwanist geneticaly mutate animals for different purposes, in this book, the person who invented genetic mutations was Charles Darwin.  The Clankers use advance machinery.  The story is told through the perspective of the two protangonists, Aleck the prince of Austria-Hungry and Deryn Sharp who pretends to be a man to join the British Airforce.  The assasination of Aleck's parents started the Great War.  The world believes the assasination was caused by Serbians, but in actuality they were assassinated by Germans to create an excuse to start a war.  Aleck has to flee his palace with several trusted servants until he reaches Switzerland.  There he finds the Levathian, a genticaly mutated flying hydrogen producing whale.  He and his servants help repair the Levathian and end up joining the ship's crew. On the ship, Aleck meets Deryn and they develop a close friendship.  I love the writing in Goliath and it is very descriptive and suspenseful.  The characters are very developed and interesting.  I love the world Scott Westerfeld, the author of Levathian series, created.  It is a fasinating world.  I hope the series has more books.  Overall, I enjoyed reading this greatly written book.