The full-color, slightly larger format, all-singing and all-dancing art book to the Leviathan series, also known as The Manual of Aeronautics, is OUT NOW. Actually, several people have found them on store shelves over the weekend, but today is the official release date. (Well, tomorrow morning in the United States. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN . . . )
You can go buy the Manual with your monies! Or ask your librarians for it, or get it online at Powell’s, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, or IndieBound.
UPDATE: Oh yeah, the paperback of Goliath also came out today!
One of my favorite features of the Leviathan series is that each of the books has a splendid color endpapers by Keith, and the Manual is no exception. Which means I get to follow my tradition of revealing the endpapers on publication day.
As a wrap up of the series, Keith and I wanted to do something that encapsulated the whole series, with pretty much all of the characters in it. Also there was a certain piece of fan art about Deryn and Alek posing for the cover photo on Goliath. So we thought it would be cool for Keith to create the photo shoot for the Clanker/Darwninist Co-Existence Treaty signing!
Most likely, the image below wouldn’t really happen in the world of the Leviathan. I mean, all these characters wouldn’t all get credit for what they did to end the Great War (and all of those machines and beasties in the background would be a bit of a mess). But think of this as a visual confection, a collage that reveals the themes of the book (not unlike the frontispiece of that OTHER Leviathan).
So this is what we went with, and from this humble idea Keith created this awesome image:
Click here for the HUGE and zoomable version. And then see if you can find all the amusing (or sad) details.
Feel free to comment on the Manual in this comment thread, given that there aren’t really spoilers for an art book. (Or are there? Hmm.)
So I guess this is KIND OF THE END. You know? I mean, I’ll certainly post about the Leviathan series again, and people will go on talking about it and cosplaying it, and as new people are born and taught to read, they’ll discover it for the first time. Also, it’s completely possible that someone will make graphic novels or movies or interpretive dances of it, or that I will do more work in that universe someday.
But that doesn’t change the fact that with the Manual finally out, the Leviathan series is kind of . . . over now, at least in its original flavor version. *MAKES SAD FACE WITH TINY TEAR*
It’s been a great five years of working with the awesome Keith Thompson, who really threw his genius into this project, making it much better and bigger and realer than I could ever have hoped it would be. (I’m pretty sure I’ll be working with him again. Steampunk card game!)
It’s also been great having so many voluble, passionate, opinionated, and ridiculously creative fans. Thank you for coming along for the ride, and especially for all the amazing fan art. You are the best.
Seriously. Barking spiders to all of you.
WOO-HOO! 150th comment! this page is really getting somewhere (with a little help from myself, of course)
Aw! I wish I could say I lived near you, but I literally live across the country in California. 🙁 Why is America so barking big?
Hey, Mr. Westerfeld, this could make a great movie trilogy one day! XD
Hey Scott-la cmon!!!!! You gotta write more for the series!!! Please!
Make it world war two and have like one of alek’s half cousins be on the German side or something. Oh and have alek’s and deryn’s kid go to fight for the allies! You could make it totally awesome!
@153: I agree!
And a several part musical, but maybe that’s just me. XD
Also I have a question: why does it appear that tazza is chowing down on a message lizard?? Or is it rusty the frog??? Looks like a mustache.
i’m sorry Fireferret. it’s great to know that there are other Ferret lovers here but you so totally stole my idea, i’ve been using it for a long time. go back to whatever you were before, please. if you’re new to Westerblog, i suppose i can excuse you.
and btw NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Midshipman K why oh why must you live in California? *curses out* ah well, if i get into UCLA like i really want to, perhaps you’ll still be there and i’ll drop by. not bloody likely. *ahem* sorry for all that.
sorry, i don’t know if you’re at UCLA. if you are, great for you. i meant if you’re still in California but it kinda came out wrong.
@149-YES YES YES!!! Finally another Californian Levia-fan!! I live in Redwood City, where do you live?
I FIIIIIIINALLY GOT THE MANUAL. Me so happy!!! 😀
No matter how hard I try I always create a spelling error of some type… But not this time!
Mr. Westerfeld,
If you tell us that you are working on a new book (comment 1), you have to tell us at least a little about it. You know, things like its genre, the defining traits of its characters, if it is or is not the continuation of a prior series which involves cross-dressing and flying whales…
@152: I live in Oregon if you haven’t heard. Dry wheat-land.
@153: It would if Scott helps guide it. There are so many ruined movie versions of books. The movies would have to not have odd and/or broad plot changes for me to like them. With said conditions, the movies could be totally AWESOME!
@160- i live somewhere near-ish redwood city…..i think
Wait…so Dr.Barlow’s name is Emma, not Nora? I never liked the name Nora, so I guess I’m happy.
@164-That’s cool!
Hey Scott, look what I found!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenocosmia_crassipes
^A real barking spider!
@165: I liked Nora, but Emma is fine, I suppose.
@167: Cool.
Do you have a barking spider as a pet, Scott? You should.
Whistling Selenocosmia crassipes! No, not quite the same ring to it.
well i’m not able to take care of it but i want that spider as a pet. seriously. but why am i like the only Leviathan fan in the entire Northeast? 🙁 *small tear* why California? and Oregon?
Hey Scott! I found some more differences in the treaty picture. In the book, the wheat/barley and hammer/wrench are both cropped out (but you can still see the tip of the hammer, half-erased), the treaty label is bumped up in addition to the date change, and Keith’s seal is moved to just under Malone’s elbow. The top is cropped slightly, too. I guess the book was of a slightly different proportion than you’d first thought.
@171-Person With Hat lives in New Hampshire.
HA HA HA VICTORY!!! thank you so much, Middy Joe. i take it you know Person With Hat? okay, now i must ask so i can potentially have fan club meetings: where in New Hampshire? although with my luck, it’s probably the farthest corner from me.
@160: Middy Joe, I live near to you! Across one of the many bridges, I think….Fremont? Sort of southeast bay….
@163: Cool! I love Oregon. I want to go to college there….
@158: Scorpio-Ferret I wish you the best of luck with UCLA, but I don’t think I’m going to go there….I live about eight hours north of there, too, so….:(
175- hey I live in fremont
and fremont is EAST bay
@174-I don’t know PWH in person.
@175&176-AWSOME!!! Finally some Californians!!!
East bay, southeast–What does it mater? XD I don’t really look at maps….unless they’re of Darwinist/Clanker Europe or Middle Earth (only maps I can read XD)
Congrats on a wonderful, amazing, perfect story. Could you perhaps explain who all the characters in that illustration are? I can’t place some of them. Like the photographer in the front and the kid behind him.
I’m still working on catching up on your previous books while I await whatever you write next (finished Midnighters, recently read So Yesterday, have Peeps and the Uglies series on my shelf). And between them, I’ve got this very amusing Team Human to finish.
(Actually, if you did decide to write even the occasional short story in the Leviathan-verse, I’d like to see more of Jaspert. I always thought it was too bad that he disappeared after those first chapters, and we never got to see his reaction to what his sister’s made of herself.)
okay, then. Person With Hat, could you please inform me as to which part of New Hampshire you live in? i have a friend who’s a fan too maybe we could get together and do weird fan stuff…
I like how all the people who’ve passed on are still in the picture – remembering the past while celebrating the present. I mean if it weren’t for people like them – Zaven and Franz Ferdinand – we wouldn’t have a lot of the things we love in the entire series. I guess that goes to show that nothing really is ever “over” for as long as people still remember.
Also- Very funny. I can’t believe Keith managed to sneak the UN symbol in there, but he did and it is awesome. That is all.
@179-The photographer is Eddie Malone, and the boy behind him is Newkirk.
This whole post made me tear up a little bit. :'( I don’t want it to end. I refuse for it to end.
Newkirk is….. Blonde?! *cough* I was not expecting that. At all. I love the facial expressions. The smirkiness. The box. Everything. It’s awesome.
He’s just so blond.
@150&174- Actually, I live in southern NH, about 2 hours from Boston. I go to Boston about once a month, give or take a few weeks.
@180- That’s slightly creepy but whatever, I’m sure you mean no harm.
I’m back from the land of no internet connection!!!! And I officially hate sunscreen.
; n ; D-don’t say it’s over.
When the Leviathan movie trilogy is born the fandom will explode all over again.
And the overwhelming renewal of fame will spark your imagination to create a new book. Just watch.
; n ;
First of all, I am a barking dumkopf. I had, like a hundred dollars in bookstore gift cards, and then I FAILED TO PURCHASE THE MANUAL. Yes, shocking, I know. I have however been hinting that I would like a copy as a Christmas present.
All this talk about where all us fans live made me wonder: Any other Canadian Leviathan fans out there?
@189-Me!!!! I live in Canada, I mean.
@allofyouwhomadetinytearfaces
that includes YOU scott-la!!!
Why the TINY tear??? Why not bawl your eyes out because its done and over with and because it was the first ever series I actually truly fangirled over??? no it has to be BIG crocodile tears to show your true fangirl pride! TToTT
As for the treaty picture, secretive glances are secretive >.> *coughcoughalekandderyncoughcough*
And could you at least hint as to what *genre* it will be? Just so that we know if we would know if we’d either LOVE the book or HATE the guts out of it (like I do with vampire novels. please say it’s not going to vampires in it)…
And kind of a funny story, since I wasn’t counting down the days till the Manual comes out, I (completely by accident btw) went to B&Ns just to catch up on what I was missing out on and apparently I came on the day the manual was released and was all “holy heck! how did that appear on the shelves! Wasn’t it supposed to come out on-on-on… ah I see…”
sadly I didn’t buy it because my mother said she had a coupon to a different place and because I wanted to save my money I agreed but next time I will definitely buy it!
@ C Milly
@ Scott
btw, if everyone who-is-important-to-the-books died were meant to be in the picture wouldn’t Tesla also be in the pic somehow? Just wondering…
I FOUND A PAPERBACK GOLIATH.
It was insanely weird. I felt like I should’ve been holding Behemoth or something….Okay, you have to understand that I have most of this book memorized, or at least know the positions of sentences/paragraphs/scenes wherever they are in the book. But I learned all this with a HARDBACK copy. Everything is still on the same page, but it is still insanely weird.
And the only reason I know this is because wherever I go to a bookstore, I track down these books (if they have them; if they don’t I don’t like the bookstore) and I carry one of them (sometimes all three) around with me while I am in the bookstore. Yeah….
@192-He is.
@193- I actually do that too.
I have the Manual and I love it so much. The final picture’s especially great just with Bovril playing with the wind up Clanker Mammothine. It’s so cute!
Thank you Mr. Westerfeld and Mr.Thompson for writing this amazing series.
I can’t wait to read your new book.
@190 – That’s great! Where in Canada? I live in southern Ontario, myself.
YESSSS Just bought it and it is AWESOME
@197-Ahhh…I live in Vancouver…kinda far away.
@193&195-I don’t do that, but every time I’m in a bookstore or library I look for all three books to make sure they’re there. And whenever I find a map I label all the places that are important in the books, like Austria, Glasgow, Istanbul, etc.