Goliath

This post first published August 24, 2011.

Author: Scott Westerfeld
Published: September 20, 2011
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Series: Leviathan #1
562 pages (galley)
 
I feel sad that the trilogy is over now, but I can tell you, I was not disappointed at all by this final book. I loved Leviathan and Behemoth, and naturally had high expectations for book three. Goliath not only met them, but exceeded them. It’s pretty rare for each installment in a book series to raise the bar higher and higher, but Goliath has done just that. If you love Leviathan and Behemoth, I can almost guarantee you’ll love Goliath as well.

This is the final book, where all sorts of secrets start unraveling and all those events you have been hoping to read about occur (for me, that was Alek and Deryn’s relationship)! In Goliath, the Leviathan airbeast heads toward New York City, all the way in the United States. The crew has rescued a Mr. Tesla in Siberia, an inventor whose gigantic, and dangerous, weapon of mass destruction, Goliath, sits in New York. With the Goliath, Tesla hopes to scare the world into stopping the war.

Loved this book. Truly an epic ending to an epic story! It was fast paced and a thrill to read. Most of my favourite scenes involved Alek and Deryn, especially the eventual revealing of Deryn’s gender (I don’t think this is a spoiler because I think it’s kind of obvious that it would happen in this book).
The revealing didn’t happen the way I thought it would, but actually, I liked the way Westerfeld handled it much better. I think my vision of how it would happen (that is, that Deryn would just outright tell Alek) is kind of predictable and boring anyway. I have been waiting for Alek to find out that Deryn is actually a girl ever since Leviathan, and I’m so, so happy with the way it turned out:  not a perfect happily-ever-after, but the kind of ending that opens Alek and Deryn up to a zillion possibilities in their future. Their relationship just makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside.

The characters are still as wonderful as ever. I still remember walking away from Leviathan liking the story but not really attached to any of the characters. Well, definitely by the end of Goliath I have become quite fond of the quirky cast! Dr. Barlow has become a favourite (memorable quote from her: “… I make it a policy never to appear surprised.”) and Eddie Malone, though an annoying creature to the characters, is funny and lovable (well, unless he was a real person, then I’d probably think he was annoying too, haha). And of course, I love Deryn and Alek (spoiler: highlight to read: though I am a little saddened by the fact that Alek is no longer a prince at the end of the book. Part of the appeal of Alek is that he was a secret heir … but I still love him!).

It is really amazing how Scott Westerfeld weaved his steampunk ideas into real history. Of course, the entire Leviathan trilogy is fiction, but there is an author’s note at the end of the book that points out the real historical facts that Westerfeld incorporated into Goliath and I was pleasantly surprised by how many factual elements are in the story!

This book, and its predecessors, are great books, truly! If you haven’t started this series yet, I highly recommend it. It’s good timing too, since the third book is out now, so you can read them all together! (PS. Thank you Simon & Schuster Galley Grab for this galley :)

My Rating: 5/5