Leviathan is a steampunky alternate history set in the summer of 1914, during the build up to, and first days of, World War I—so we're not stretching things a bit to say that warfare is on everybody's mind in this novel.
There are quite a few action-packed battle scenes, and we probably could have packed our quotes list with lines from those scenes, but that would have been sort of a cop-out because there's also some really important thinking about and reflecting on war and its nature in this book, and we think a little reflection is just as important as a lot of action—thematically speaking, anyway.
Questions About Warfare
- How does Alek's private war with the forces that are hunting him differ from Deryn's participation in a war between nation-states?
- Are the causes of the war ever made clear? According to the novel, what are they?
- How does the assassination of Alek's parents lead to war?
- Does fighting on the same side make either Alek or Deryn a traitor to his or her country? How and why?
Chew on This
In Leviathan, warfare provides the background plot, but the book itself is far more about Alek's and Deryn's growth as individuals.
Their experience of warfare is central to Alek's and Deryn's growth as characters; they would not be the same people without it.