![]() ![]() ![]() And the alternate history setting, which was put to good effect in Leviathan and Behemoth, becomes tiresome in Goliath, as Westerfeld takes us on a roll call of all the era’s famous figures. We check off all of the following cliches: noble child on the run learning to live amongst common people, girl who dresses up like a boy to serve in the military, fetishisation of British naval service, scheming journalists and foolish millionaires, an inevitable romance between the two leads, and cute animal sidekicks which eventually prove irrelevant to the plot. It’s competently written, and Westerfeld clearly has a marvellous imagination, but much of it too often feels like a publisher’s ideal YA series rather than something more original or daring. Unfortunately I found the trilogy as a whole underwhelming. It’s probably objectively the best book of the series. ![]() ![]() Goliath greatly expands the scope of the story, with the Leviathan travelling across Siberia and Japan, crossing the Pacific and eventually reaching North America. Goliath is the conclusion to Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan trilogy, an alternate-history WWI steampunk YA adventure series in which Franz Ferdinand’s fictional heir Alek attempts to stop the ongoing war while travelling around the world on the living British airship Leviathan, assisted by able young cadet Dylan Sharp – actually Deryn Sharp, a boy in disguise. Goliath by Scott Westerfeld (2011) 543 p. ![]()
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