Behemoth by Scott Westerfield Illustrated by Keith Thompson

Behemoth by Scott Westerfield Illustrated by Keith Thompson

Behemoth is a mixture of alternate history and steampunk written for young adults.  It is the second book in the Leviathan trilogy.  The title Leviathan in the first book refers to a giant living airship.  Leviathan won the 2010 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Novel. I think it is quite readable for adults as well.

The setting in this part of the series is an alternate history Ottoman Empire.  There are ornate clockwork mechanical walkers and intricate steam powered machines.  The year is 1914.  In this world, the English and Russians are Darwinists masters of genetically engineered beasts and the Germans and Ottomans are Clankers makers of complex clockwork machinery.  I like that in this world, the Americans do both.

This makes for wonderfully ornate illustrations by Keith Thompson.  His website has some of the art from Behemoth http://www.keiththompsonart.com/ The illustrations are wonderfully ornate in black in white with touches of Victoriana, Art Deco, and even Middle Eastern motifs.

The reader encounters living airships, articulated steam elephants, a steampunk library, and an alternate Orient Express.  This transports you to a very different world.  The descriptions are inventive and eloquent.  We get to imagine Iron Golems in the Jewish quarters of Istanbul, fallen nobility in grand hotels, and an air of revolutionary change.

There is constant action, intrigue, hair raising escapes, and suspense.  Tension is created between the main characters; a young woman posing as a boy to serve in the English air corps, and an aristocratic German who is trying to pass himself off as a commoner.

The design of the book is superb; it is set in Hoefler text.  The line spacing and layout are very easy on the eyes.  The jacket design and photo illustration are by Sammy Yuen, Jr.

This is highly recommended, especially for people who read steampunk or atlernate history.

Daily Thoughts 12/19/2010 (First Break All The Rules, Unmarketing)

“Dig” / Sadie Wendell Mitchell. 1909. LC-DIG-ppmsca-15753, Found on:
http://imagespublicdomain.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/reading/


Daily Thoughts 12/19/2010

I read a little bit more of First Break All The Rules. I also put Unmarketing : stop marketing. Start engaging by Scott Stratten on hold.  It is about viral marketing and other word of mouth techniques.

While I was at the laundromat, I rewrote my review of Behemoth by Scott Westerfield.  I had written it last week, but was not satisfied, so I rewrote it this week.  This is one of the first times, I have not just put something out immediately for people to read.


I am still thinking about ebooks.  I am also thinking about the Meetups which I went to.  I remember some advice I received from Ron Suarez from Loud Feed while I was at the Content Strategy Holiday Party on Thursday December 9, 2010 at Eight Mile Creek about starting something new.  He told me that I should not try and do something on the bleeding edge, find something you can do and start while you still have a job.  Make sure you are not the first one doing it.  Find a niche which people really need.  It has to be a need.


The other piece of advice which I received was from Peter Chislett one of the founders of the New York Coworking Community at Tech Drinks XXMas.  It was to dig deep and find something that you really like doing.  Find something you can identify with that you know, focus on something where you can show your knowledge and use that to generate what people want.


I have found the meetups to be very interesting. They are a very good way to network and talk to people.  A number of the meetups have been about learning something.  The Future of Digital Books at New Work City was fantastic.

It is also an excellent way to meet people in your profession.  I met a number of people in the New York Librarians Meetup.  They gave me the impetus for methods to speak up for libraries.  I learned a lot from them.  They helped me understand groups like http://www.ilovelibraries.org and http://www.savelibraries.org
They also helped me start building connections through Linked In and Facebook which are steadily growing into a network.  It helped me understand social networking much better where people were there that you met face to face, not just through an online connection.  It also helped me understand Twitter as a communication tool, more than just a marketing tool.