Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Alternate history 1914, where the Austro-German contingent has massive, striding mechanical walkers, and Darwin's work gave the west DNA and hybridized living creatures for flight and battle. Franz Ferdinand's son flees west, while a British girl dresses as a boy and enlists for the coming war.

Heee. It's kind of like Fullmetal Alchemist with cross-dressing. The alternate world technology is the best thing about this book – giant hydrogen-floating whale ships versus Star Warsy many-legged metal walkers! The story is otherwise cute, and fluffier than you might expect for, you know, the first world war. Relatively light-weight young adult, with a lot of nice color and zing. I'm certainly intrigued enough to pick up the sequel when it arrives.

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The Sexual Politics of Disability

The Sexual Politics of Disability: Untold Desires by Tom Shakespeare


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
An issue survey book built around a structured interview study of a sample of British persons with disabilities. Thorough and inclusive – if anything, the author suggests he oversampled the LGBT population. It's particularly good on barriers to disabled sexual expression, and on unpacking the duel popular perception of disabled sexuality as non-existent but simultaneously perverse. Frustrating in the way of survey books in that I really wanted a half dozen books, each built off a fifteen page section here on the disability fetish market, institutionalized rape, sex surrogacy, etc.

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