100 Books in 2010: 10
Posted by Adrienne on February 1, 2010 under Books | 
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If I can continue to average 10 books a month like I did for January, I’ll get to 100 with no trouble! And if all of the books I pick to read in the coming months are as interesting as the last two, 10 books a month is definitely doable.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I generally love the idea of alternate histories, but usually am disappointed with the execution. Not so this time! Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan was a great read. Like the Uglies trilogy that I finished recently, Leviathan has interesting characters, a fast-paced plot, and an extremely detailed setting.
In the early days of the twentieth century, Europe was just waiting for an excuse to go to war. Between tangled-up alliances, angry minorities, and new, more efficient weapons, a war was pretty much inevitable. This may sound familiar, because it’s what Europe was like just before World War I in our world. In Westerfeld’s world, Europe is the same, but the weaponry is completely different. Airships roam the skies and large tank-like vehicles (I kept picturing AT-ATs from “Star Wars”) stomp along the ground. And the alliances are a bit different, too. The countries are the same, but the reasoning is different: Germany and the Austria-Hungarian Empire are “Clanker” nations, who have harnessed the power of steam and gears to build their war machines. Britain, France and Russia are “Darwinist” nations; they use the genetic discoveries of Charles Darwin to create specialized species of animals that act as weaponry. The Leviathan, that is, the airship from which the book takes its name, is a kind of gigantic flying whale, and the largest airship in the British military.
In this setting, the reader meets Alek, a prince and heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and Deryn, a midshipman on the Leviathan. As the Clanker and Darwinist nations get closer and closer to war, the story brings these two together. Westerfeld’s story is gripping and exciting and, unfortunately, has a cliff-hanger ending with no sequel yet. I hope it comes out soon!
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Kazuo Ishiguro is a novelist who is studied in literature classes, much like George Orwell or Margaret Atwood. I wasn’t sure how much I’d like Never Let Me Go. It’s a dystopian fiction, along the lines of 1984 or A Handmaid’s Tale, both of which I read but neither of which I really enjoyed. I’m not sure that I really enjoyed Never Let Me Go, either, but it was a fascinating and well-written novel.
Kathy attended a private school as a child. Halisham was one of the finest schools in England. Now that she is an adult and a caregiver, she has begun to run into some of her old classmates and friends from Halisham, and this prompts her to look back on her time there and to analyze it more closely. Kathy is a very perceptive person, one who can guess well what others are thinking and feeling. Her memories of Halisham are strong, clear, and, as the plot unfolds, a little bit disturbing.I don’t want to give anything away (although I did figure out the deep, dark secret of Halisham fairly early on) so let me just say that this is a book that makes you think, the way that really good science fiction should. Give it a try, especially if you have to choose some serious literature for an English class!
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