{"id":11,"date":"2011-04-04T10:05:13","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T10:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=11"},"modified":"2012-02-27T14:20:31","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T14:20:31","slug":"april-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/?p=11","title":{"rendered":"Leviathan"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><em>Leviathan <\/em>by Scott Westerfeld<\/h3>\n<p>The reading group met at the North Village Library on Steck on Monday, April 4, to discuss Scott Westerfeld&#8217;s <em>Leviathan<\/em>.  Fourteen   people attended. Thirteen started the book, and nine  finished reading it. Two people had read this author&#8217;s work before.  Seven people intended   to read the next book in the series. Many said  that they would have enjoyed it in their adolescence also \u00a0(the targeted  age group).<\/p>\n<p>Everyone seemed to enjoy the book on some level. Many added  the phrase<!--more--> &#8220;for a YA&#8221; to their compliments; only one person declared  himself to be a fan of Young Adult books. People listed the following  irritations:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The world or premise was not\u00a0believable. \u00a0(How did  Darwin unravel DNA so fast? How did the Germans advance so fast  mechanically?) (3 readers)<\/li>\n<li>The biotech, with its invention and use of animals, was repulsive,\u00a0on the level British colonialism.\u00a0(3)<\/li>\n<li>Thin characterization or dislike of one or the other protagonists (3)<\/li>\n<li>British society did not feel British. (2)<\/li>\n<li>Some scientific details were not accurate. (Mercury is  not red. Hydrogen   does not smell like bitter almonds, although  hydrogen cyanide does. Fencing illustrations were wrong.)<\/li>\n<li>An escape plan that involved heavy gold bars rather than banking arrangements in other countries seemed doomed (and dumb).<\/li>\n<li>Like unfortunately too many books, the ending was abrupt, with no sense of resolution. (4)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, everyone mentioned that despite these  complaints, they kept reading the story. Several described it as a real  page-turner. Others mentioned the wealth of sensory detail made them  willing to suspend disbelief and enjoy the story anyway. Scott  Westerfeld seems firmly   established with us as a good steampunk (or  biopunk) writer.<\/p>\n<p>The sequel <em>Behemoth<\/em> has been published, and its sequel <em>Goliath<\/em> is scheduled   to be published later this year. Westerfeld has another  YA series published (the Uglies) and several adult novels as well.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8212;Madeleine Reardon Dimond<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld The reading group met at the North Village Library on Steck on Monday, April 4, to discuss Scott Westerfeld&#8217;s Leviathan. Fourteen people attended. Thirteen started the book, and nine finished reading it. Two people had read this author&#8217;s work before. Seven people intended to read the next book in the series. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":509,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions\/509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fact.org\/reading\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}