Metawritingreading

Hola!  Guess what?  I finished another book, YAY ME!  Sorry, still a bit sleep deprived and loopy, but very very happy to have gotten a chance to read Afterworlds by one of my favorites Scott Westerfeld.  I actually got this book back around January with one of the gift cards Hubbin got me, but have just now gotten to read it.  Do I love it?  Lets find out, but first as always SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!

This is a bit of a tricky one to sum up, so I'll just try and quickly get the basic points across.  The premise of the book is unique in that it alternates chapters between an actual story and the fictional author who wrote it...confused yet?  It seems very complicated, but it actually works very smoothly.  I will sum up the two stories separately so that we don't get to mixed up.
 The Story - The story portion of the book (helpfully highlighted in black) is called Afterworlds and is the story of Lizzy a girl who survives a horrific terrorist attack by playing dead.  She plays dead so well that she accidentally finds her way to the Afterworld.  In this strange world of the dead she meets Yama a supernatural hottie who has been the lord of the underworld for a very long time.  He sends Lizzie back to the world of the living where she discovers that she can now see ghosts.  She discovers she is what is commonly referred to as a psychopomp, a living person who can navigate the afterworld and guide the souls of the dead.  Lizzy also meets Mindy, the ghost of her mothers friend who was murdered when she was 11 years old.  Lizzy uses her new powers to try and help Mindy out, all while getting all kissy faced with Yama, and learning some very intresting and disturbing techniques from Mr. Hamlyn, a twisted psychopomp who has taken a liking to our heroine.  Lizzy ends up killing the man who killed Mindy and this causes a rift between her and Yama.  She is sad, but learns to move on with her little ghost friend and carries on with her life on both sides.
The Writer - The other half of the book (helpfully marked in white) is about the author of the above story.  Darcy Patel is an Indian-American 18 year old who wrote the book in her last year of highschool.  She gets a huge signing deal for the first book and it's unwritten sequel which makes it possible for her to move to New York and write.  We follow Darcy as she struggles with becoming an adult and working on her writing career.  We watch her try and balance her writers integrity with the need to please her editors, deal with a brand new relationship with fellow new writer Imogene White, balance her budget, and just survive.

Ok...so that was probably a super simplistic summation of the book, but that is essentially what it was.  The question is, did this make for a good read?  I think it did for several reasons...want to hear them?  Good.  The book as a whole seemed to be a big commentary of the world of YA writing, which is not really surprising as I feel most of Mr. Westerfeld's books are a commentary of some sort.  What works so well in this book is that he also tells a great story and creates his signature worlds.  The story side of the book was a very typical (if original) YA paranormal romance, it has all the elements of the genre and checks all the boxes.  I have read a few reviews where people were complaining that the story was a very typical YA paranormal romance and that they expected more, but I think that was kind of the point of the story.  The story side was supposed to be written by a 17 year old girl writing her first novel that was to be published by a company looking for its next big money maker, not an established adult male author who is known for writing original stories.  All that being said, I still thought the story idea was pretty original.  On Darcy's side, I thought it was kind of fun to watch her make decisions about her book and then read the changes in the next chapter.  I like watching her try and juggle her new life, her new relationship and her new career all at the same time.  This allowed the author to bring up several different topics and discuss them in different ways.  The topics of cultural appropriation, writer's integrity, money, sellability, customer expectations, deadlines, stealing ideas, sharing idea's, other authors, and other writery things.  There is a bit of a"wow this girl is super lucky" feel to Darcy's journey, but even this is addressed in the book.  It was fun learning a bit about the process of writing and publishing, while reading the "book" that was being written and published.  Overall I give this book 7 out of 10 ramen noodle bowls and would recommend it to any Westerfeld fans, people who are interested in writing or like a typical paranormal romance.
What do you think of the duel story format?  Do you like knowing how the sausage is made?  What kind of book should I write?

Darwinist Vs Clankers

If this rambling is even more rambly and incoherent then normal, just blame it on the 36 straight hours I just worked...I'm gonna blame a lot of things on that :-).  I did however find time to finish a couple of books, so lets ramble shall we.  Today I will ramble about Goliath by Scott Westerfeld, the last book in the Leviathan trilogy.  This conclusion to our steampunk/alternate history series packed in a lot of stuff so lets get right to it.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

When we left our exiled Austrian Prince Alek and his friend midshipman Dylan Sharp (who is really a girl disguised as a boy by the name of Deryn) they had just gotten back on the Leviathan after helping with the Ottoman revolution.  They are now flying their big beastie across the world on a secret mission.  They end up in Siberia rescuing a Serb scientist and his guards.  The man turns out to be Nikola Tesla, the man behind the Tesla cannons from the last book.  He is convinced that the mass destruction of the Siberian forest they were rescued from was from his new mega weapon that he has dubbed Goliath.  Tesla convinces Alek that just the mere threat of a weapon that can completely destroy a city should end the war.  Alek (who still feels it's his destiny to end the war) decides to back Tesla and the captain of the Leviathan is instructed to assist him.  Along the way Alek (with the help of his perspicacious loris Borvil) finally discovers that Dylan is actually the girl Deryn.  After a bit of a falling out the two reconcile and agree to never have secrets again.  The Leviathan and crew head to America via Japan to bring Tesla back to his Goliath.  While in Japan, Deryn and Alek get to
experience a culture where both fabricated beasties and steam powered machines co-exist in a peaceful harmony.  The Leviathan ends up in California where they are greeted by William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper man with Clanker leanings.  We learn that America is another country that has both Clanker and Darwinist factions, but unlike Japan, they are frequently at odds with one another.  Hearst sabotages the Leviathan so that they end up crippled in Mexico.  Pancho Villa, the Mexican leader of a rebel group helps repair it...along with filming it.  Along the way Deryn get's hurt and the obnoxious reporter Eddie Malone discovers she is a girl and intends to reveal it in print when they arrive in New York.  Alek and Deryn discuss the future and how they are sad that they will part ways in New York, Alek staying behind to help Tesla and Deryn either continuing with the Leviathan or being punished for her deception.  Alek disembarks and after surviving an attack by the Clankers, convinces Eddie Malone to write about him being the heir to the throne instead of Deryn.  Alek and his company go with Tesla to perform a test/demonstration of the Goliath to the world to try and prove the vast strength of the weapon and hopefully get the world to end the war.  Aboard the Leviahan Deryn discovers that the Clankers are going to send a weapon machine to destroy Goliath.  Deryn convinces the captain to go back and defend Alek and company.  All sorts of chaos and action occurs and Tesla decides that he needs to actually destroy Berlin to prove his point.  Alek decides that he cannot justify the destruction of a city, along with the loss of countless lives, even if it does stop the war.  He and Tesla tussle and Tesla ends up electrocuted.  The Goliath essentially self destructs and a major disaster is averted. America finally enters the war, based on the Clanker attack on home soil.   Deryn finally gets through to Alek that he and his parents are not responsible for the war.  Alek decides to not become "king" of Austria, instead working with Deryn to help as many people as he can.  We end with our intrepid duo planning their next adventure and the fate of the world still undecided.

This book was very very full of everything.  We went all over the world, were introduced to a ton of people, saw beasties and machines everywhere, whew!  Overall I felt this book lacked a bit of focus that the first two had, but I could understand the author was trying to finish everything up as plausibly as possible, which I appreciate.  The author was also trying to impart a bit of flavor from everywhere, showing us how complicated the real WWI era was.  I appreciated the thought, but personally found it a bit excessive.  I could have done without the Poncho Villa part, and he could have probably skipped the California part as well, both parts were well written and added some flavor, but over all

felt a bit excessive.  I also wanted the perspicacious loris's to play a bit of a bigger part as they had been built up so much in the previous books.  I thoroughly enjoyed the crews stop in Japan, it was cool to see a place where technology, science, and life melded so well together, the author once again made a a place I am dying to visit.  Deryn continues to make me happy, she is really a great character, and the author does a great job avoiding some of the triteness of the whole girl dressed as a guy scenerio.  I liked how the "romance" between Deryn and Alek played out.  Deryn has had time to come to grips with her feelings and instead of making hopeless advances, accepts how life is and is content to be Alek's friend.  After the discover of Deryn's girlness, Alek goes through a couple of very realistic reactions, culminating in the two of them valuing their friendship as too important to ruin.  The eventual morphing of the friendship into romance is natural, realistic, an did not make me want to throw things which is awesome.  I liked the open ended conclusion as well, with America entering the war, but no actual resolution to it, just the hope that it will end sooner rather then later. The illustrations as always add just the right feel and very much compliment the series.  Over all this was my least favorite book in the trilogy, but it was still awesome.  The trilogy as a whole feels complete and the world the author created is wonderful and whole.  This is one of those series that has me running to my books and internets to research the real version of this alternate history making the idea of the book last even longer hurrah!  I give the book 6 out of 10 recording frogs and the series as a whole 7 out of 10 fighting bears and recommend it to anybody who likes steampunk, science, alternate history, history, good writing and excellent world building.  Happy Reading Everybody!
Are you a Darwinist or a Clanker?  What era would you like to see an alternate history set in?  Is my writing more or less coherent on no sleep?