One of the things that sets the Leviathan books apart for me is the incredible illustrations done by Keith Thompson. Keith's art is incredible, his Clanker machines are so intricatley detailed and his Darwinist fabs are just a little horrifying in the best way. His experience in horror and machine illustration makes him so perfect for this series.

Scott decided he wanted this series to be fully illustrated because he was inspired by adventure novels that were coming out around 1914. Like those books, the Leviathan books have full page illustrations as well as smaller in-text illustrations. There is always at least one illustration per chapter, and the black-and-white style of Keith's illustrations are so gorgeous. I have a whole list of favourite illustrations, so sorry if this page takes an age to load. There's a lot of pictures coming up.

one of my favourite illustrations is from a goof Scott and Keith played on us during the leadup to Goliath. On Scott's blog he was releasing sneak peeks at art from the book once a week, and on April first he released this image, of Deryn marrying Lilit, who is pulling a knife from her bouquet, and Alek breaking through the wall in his Stormwalker while Barlow and Volger look on in shame. There were so many theories on what this was, from a dream sequence to an actual event that was part of some scheme. It turned out, of course, that it was an April fools joke. We all figured that it must contain parts of other illustrations, because surely Keith wouldln't go through all the trouble to draw a whole illustration just for a goof? jokes on us cause it turns out that he absolutley would and to this day I think it's one of the best April fools jokes I ever got duped with. My favourite part is Bovril being a little ring bearer, he's so cute

Keith Thompson's other art is also incredible, and I highly recommend checking out his website to see his other work. I wish I could post all of my favourites from his site, but that would probably make this page actually impossible to load.

Alternate Covers

The covers of the Leviathan books are fine, but some of the covers from other countries are truly gorgeous. Here are some of my favourites:

The first one is also by Keith Thompson. This was the original cover, featuring one of my favourite artworks, "Alek and his Stormwalker." This is one of the illustrations that I would print out and put in my locker in high school.

This is the Russian cover for Leviathan, which is probably my favourite out of all of them. I not only had a printed version of this taped inside my locker, but I also had one on my wall in University. I used to look at it and try to channel Deryn's confidence and strength when I was anxious

this is the art from the Chinese cover, which has SUCH a great vibe. This image was my icon on my family computer, and then on my personal laptop, until said laptop crapped out

There are two versions of a Japanese cover, and I think both of them are really good. This is the original, which I love specifically because Alek and Deryn look so young, which they are. They're wee babies!!

This is the redesigned version, which is also very cute and I love this Alek so much he's so cuteeeeeee