Sorry Clankers, I'm a Darwinist through and through. I think the idea of breeding animals in such a way that they become essentially machines is so god damn cool. I'm gonna talk about my favourite beasties on this page, and at the end I'll probably mention some interesting Clanker machines too, just so they don't feel left out :p
The Leviathan is not only the titular beastie of the first book, it is also one of the main settings of the trillogy. The Leviathan is an RAF airship, and she is also a huge whale. She is one of what's called Hydrogen Breathers, beasties who are able to exhale lighter-than-air hydrogen into bladders within themselves, allowing for lighter-than-air travel. She was created primarily with the life threads of a whale, mixed with all kinds of different creatures and the result is essentially a flying ecosystem. I love the idea of a machine that is not only alive, but it also it's own closed and renewable system. It makes me think of Solarpunk, a speculative future artistic/literary genre that envisions a future where we live in harmony with nature with renewable energy, which is kind of the opposite of steampunk in my mind, so it's so fun that it's involved in this very steampunk book. I just really like the Darwinist's whole vibe of working with nature, and I mean also bending nature to their will, but it's such a cool technology and I love it. The scenes that take place on the Leviathan are so cool, because sometimes you forget that it's not just an airship and then it does something that reminds you that it's an enormous living thing.
The Leviathan is pretty self sustaining, and has minimal non-living mechanics, including "motivation engines," which don't really provide forward thrust but encourage the ship itself to move in the direction that the pilots want her to go. At one point in the first book the motivator engines fail, (no spoilers lol) and are replaced with two much bigger Clanker engines. This changes the Leviathan into a kind of hybrid machine, not fully Darwinist and not fully Clanker. I dunno, I think it's a really lovely metaphor for the whole thing.
Fléchette bats are such a funny little beasties. They're essentially bats that eat spikes mixed in with their food and then... release them onto enemies. Let me explain. The bats are trained to follow a spotlight that is manned on the Leviathan, and when the bats are all following the light in a swarm, they can turn the light red, which literally scares the shit out of these bats so their spikes rain down on whoever's below, getting sliced up AND shit on at the same time. Utterly humiliating.
The bats all live in colonies in the tail region of the Leviathan, and there are some great scenes that take place around the tail with Deryn and the other midshipmen need to feed the bats. I really love the Fléchette bats, and the fact that Scott always called them "poo bats," because you just know he thought it was hilarious. And yknow what? he was right.
Huxleys were the first hydrogen breathing lighter-than-air travel beasties to be invented, and they operate similar to hot-air balloons that you have to be strapped into. In one of the first chapters Deryn goes up in a Huxley as part of her entrance exam into the air force, and nearly gets swept off in a terrible storm. It takes her away from the airbase and she ends up free-floating with no way to get back down, and the poor Huxley is so stressed out the whole time. That's my favourite thing about the Huxleys, they're basically awful sacks of flesh but they're alive and have personalities and thoughts none the less. Huxleys are nervous and their tenticles coil and clench when they're anxious about something, and they have a tendancy to dive quickly towards the ground when they get too stressed. And like, same girl. I love their little personalities and their silly little nasty looking bodies.
Huxleys are mainly made out of jellyfish life threads, and they have long tenticles that people use like teather lines to hold them down. They're such a fun concept, and I really think they're very charming. And they definitley aren't supposed to be charming, because look at that thing. It's weird as fuck. And soooooo cute to me (˶◜ᵕ◝˶)
The Perspicacious lorises (lori?) are incredibly cute little rascals that are bred to have incredible talents with observation and making connections. Each loris imprints on the first person they see when they hatch, that person becomes their owner and the loris sits on their shoulder like a real cutie, watches everything, and can tell their human about connections they've made or things they've noticed that the human might not have. They're basically like dogs who are also geniuses and spies. It's such a wild little critter, and really fun when your main characters are kind of stupid teenagers. One of the more irritating things about reading YA, especially as an adult, is that teens can be kinda dumb and oblivious, so it's really fun to have a creature that is specifically to have one member of the main cast that's more observant but like, can't form complete sentences so just has to drop cryptic hints. Plus omg look at em they're so cuuuuute!!!
the main loris in the books is named Bovril, he's the one with the spiral on his haunch. I love him so much, he's so cute and also such a little shit. He's so funny and snarky, even though he can only say a few words, but he makes good use of the ones he can say. Lilit named Bovril because she wanted to give him an english name and bovril is the only thing from england she likes. Apparently bovril is like a meat jam, which sounds nasty to me but yknow, whatever you like Lilit. Bovril and the other loris in the book gradually start to be able to say more and more words, and it appears like they could learn to speak in full sentences and maybe carry on a conversation, which imo is a little too uncanny valley for me. I like them best when they can say the odd phrase or word and make little noises in your ear like a bird that's fluffly. Whatever you think of them, the lorises are a big part of the books and oooh boy do i think they're so neat.
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Tazza is a thylacine, which looks kind of like a dog or a dingo with tiger stripes on its back half. It's also sometimes called a Tasmanian tiger, because they're from Tasmania. Because, unlike every other creature on this list, Thylacines are real creatures and not fabricated beasties. Or, they were real creatures. The last thylacine died in the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania in 1936. They were a strange little creature that were closely related to kangaroos despite looking like dogs, and sometimes they would pop up onto their hind legs to walk around. Tazza in the books does this when he's particularily stressed. Tazza is Dr. Barlow's pet and companion, and goes everywhere with her. He's a sweet and completley tame boy, and Deryn and the other midshipmen are often tasked with walking him around the Leviathan.
When most characters are first introduced to Tazza in the books their reaction is something along the lines of "what is it for? what kind of fab is it?" and Dr. Barlow has to explain that he is a completley natural creature and a pet. It's an interesting look into how a society that uses animals like machines would think about animals as a whole. There isn't a lot of talk about pets in the books, most animals serve a purpose. Tazza is a fun character for precisly the reason that he is not FOR anything. He's just here for the vibes.
this is a video of the last known thylacine in captivity that has been colourized from its original black and white. There's a rumour going around that his name was Benjamin, but apparently she was actually a female with no reported name. I love this video because she looks like she should be a puppet or something, like she doesn't look real. I wish we still lived in a world with thylacines, but they were hunted to extinction in Tasmania because they posed a threat to farmer's livestock. But like, cmon! Look at those massive fluffy paws! and that big ol' muppet mouth! and the EYELINER on her!!!! These animals are so cool, and so little known about, so now that you know about them tell someone else who doesn't know about them!! spread the thylacine word!!
There are a lot of beasties and fabs in these books, so here's a handfull of other ones that show up a lot and make me smile about. Not all of them have illustrations, but the ones that don't are pretty straightforward tbh
Message lizards are super usefull little guys, they're able to essentially record short bursts of speech and play them back by perfectly mimicking the speaker's voice and tone. Sometimes when they're nervous or scared they'll repeat back random parts of conversation, so when there's trouble there's a lot of babbling lizards saying random nonsense. They're super useful and very neat.
the bees on the Leviathan are not very complicated. They've just been fabricated to not have stingers or feel any need to defend the hive from humans. Their job on the ship is to make honey for the Leviathan to eat and make hydrogen with. "Eat" might be a strong word though, really I think it just ends up directly in the Leviathan's guts for her to digest. Although, she does seem to have a mouth. I wonder what that's for.... damn now I have to think about this more!
these are the weirdest dogs in the world i think. Hydrogen Sniffers are essentially dogs but they each have six legs with little spidery feet so they can grip onto the ratlines of an airship, and two snouts so they have double the noses for smelling. They are used to detect leaks in the airship, since a hydrogen leak can mean both that the ship could start to crash and that highly flammable hydrogen could end up in places where it could be ignighted. They have a purpose for looking as weird as they do, and I personally think they're pretty cool, but a lot of characters, expecially the Clankers, have a lot of issues with them, and tbf i can see why.
Glowworms are, basically, exactly just that. They're little worms that live in the walls of the airship, and a bunch of other places where they're usefull, and give off a green light when a certain command is played on a whistle. Some characters think their light is eerie, as it can be pretty dim and it's a pale, almost sickly green, so it probably is eerie on principle. But idk, I think it could be kinda nice. they are great at giving an air of mystery to sneaking around scenes, that's for sure
The strafing hawks live with the fléchette bats in the tail of the Leviathan, and they are used for air battles. They're each fitted with either a net made of acidic spider webs or with steel claws they can use to rip into airships and planes. They're, honestly, pretty terrifying. They're also pretty cute, when not in battle. We know they're fabs, which means their dna must have been mixed with something, but I don't know if it's ever revealed what else they're mixed with. Maybe dogs or something that's easy to train? idk, I feel like these behaviours could be acheived with natural hawks that have been sufficiently trained, but what do I know. A lot of the actual warfare in the books are done with the strafing hawks, along with the fléchette bats. They're like coworkers who are adorable and also will tear your shit up.
alright, just like I promised, now it's time to highlight a few of my favourite heartless Clanker machines for all those mech fans out there :p
Alek's Cyklop Stormwalker is the main walker in the first book. It's the machine that Alek and his men escape towards Switzerland in, and it turns into like a cute little clubhouse they're on the run in. I mean, that's a real simplification of the whole thing, but honestly the Stormwalker becomes a character in itself in the first book. The scenes where Alek is learning how to pilot are really special to me. He has to work so hard for it and he is my beautiful son and i'm so proud of him.
The Stormwalker is a two legged war walker that is controlled with two foot pedals and two hand-controlled saunters. They way the controlls work are so interesting to me, and I think the scenes are written so well because I really imagined them well. In relation to other walkers the Stormwalker is very small, and though it is supposed to carry a crew of four it is pretty cramped with a full crew. And it's even more cramped since there are five people living in it when they're on the run to Switzerland. I genuinly think that the Stormwalker is a really important character, as much as the Leviathan, at least in the first book. I think she deserves more respect!!
Ooooohhhhh the Şahmaran..... she's so cool. Şahmaran is a walker from the Ottoman Empire, where they make walkers that are more beautiful and are made in the shape of animals. The scenes that take place in Istanbul really show how different places in the world make their walkers. The walkers in Europe are all very mechanical and industrial looking, and frankly ugly. But the Ottoman walkers are all so beautiful. Şahmaran is made in the shape of a Kurdish goddess, and looks like a caterpillar with a woman's face. She is a seriously massive woman, big enough to hold a person in the palm of her hand. I think she is the only walker in the books with hands, or at least the only one that gets a lot of screen time. She has a segmented body and fourteen legs, which makes her the walker with the most legs in the whole series. She's so cool. Her face opens up in the middle and that's where the pilot's seat is. She's my giant beautiful girlfriend and i love her
The Dauntless is another Ottoman walker that's made in the shape of a giant elephant. She is so gorgeous, and is used mainly for parades and showboating. She belongs to the English embassy in Istanbul (if i'm remembering right lol) and she needs five pilots, one for each leg and one for the trunk. The trunk swings back and forth like a real elephant to move pedestrians out of the way of the huge feet (which were cut off in this image :/) People ride on her back over the masses beneath, and the Dauntless is supposed to represent power and royalty. The Dauntless and other Ottoman walkers were inspired by the real-life art instalation Le Grande Elephant in France. Scott wrote on his blog about his visit to the "Machines of the Isle of Nantes" which is a wild carnival/moving art exhibit in Nantes, France, which is the birthplace of Jules Verne. Apparently it is still running to this day, and now I have a new place I want to visit because it looks SO COOL!!!
there are so many other cool clanker machines, and darwinist beasties, but if I kept doing this page I'd be doing this for the rest of my life maybe. TBH I might come back and add more to this page some day, but for now I think I'm done here.
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