The Good News: Actual copies of Leviathan exist in the real world.

The Bad News: They are sealed in cardboard boxes in the impregnable basements of your friendly local bookstore, armed with thermite bombs that will explode if they are opened prior to October 6. These boxes look like this:

If you see one, do not touch it before Tuesday, October 6.

In other news, it turns out that my steampunk “panel” at the New York Anime Festival is just me. So I can rock out, showing images from Leviathan and gabbing to my heart’s content.

By the way, the Festival looks really cool. Lots of costume events and generally awesome. Click here to check out the general lay of the land. And here for the amazing list of guests, which include Gro-Wings, an amazing looking steampunk fashion house.

Anyway, I hope some of you are coming. See you Sunday.

Leviathan: A Steampunk Panel
Sunday, September 27
1:30 PM – 2:30PM
Javits Center
655 West 34th Street

Simon & Schuster’s annual BlogFest is happening right now! BlogFest is a huge group blogging project in which the same questions are answered by me and 39 other S&S authors. (Click here for the full list). Today’s question is, “If you could have any superpower, what would it be?”

Not every author answers every question, but there are usually three or more of us for each one. It’s been cool to see different writers respond to the same stimulus.

Click here daily for the Blogfest homepage.

Now, continuing with my recent (and no doubt short-lived) tradition of Walker Wednesday, behold today’s walker, the Italian, flame-breathing, two-legged motorcycle known as Lrry.

I didn’t run into Lrry until Leviathan was complete, so it didn’t occur to me to include any two-legged motorcycles. The closest thing to Lrry in my world is the four-legged horse walkers revealed here in last week’s Walker Wednesday.

Anyway, I like that Lrry breathes flame. More things should breathe flame. And its walking motion has something uncanny about it. That’s a cool thing about walkers, they set off a weird reaction in my head. I’m used to animals walking and vehicles having wheels, and when those two things get mixed up, it rewires my brain just a little.

I mean, seeing a cat with wheels would be pretty freaky too, right?

But why is this thing called Lrry?

Here’s a (rather long) movie showing Lrry in motion:

Welcome to Walker Wednesday, your weekly source of video about real-life walking machines!

This is, of course, Leviathan-related. One of the main characters in the series gets around in a Cyklop Stormwalker, which I first revealed two posts ago.

But that’s not the only walker in the series. Keith Thompson also created these German horse scouts, which were revealed on io9.com a week ago. (Click here to read that post.)

They look like this:

Anyway, here’s our real-life walker for the week: Plustech’s Timberjack, designed for cutting down trees. (We authors are all about cutting down trees, you know. Think about it.)

Pretty cool, huh?

One thing you’ll notice about real-life walkers is that they walk slowly. Animals are still much quicker than machines when it comes to moving on legs. In fact, animals are generally better than machines at everything, except under very specific circumstances. You might think that cars are faster than horses, but only if you create a very flat surface (aka, a road) for them to use. On almost any naturally occurring surface, horses win.

But I best not say more, as two of my characters have this exact same discussion in Leviathan.

Speaking of walkers, you can buy a fine art print of the old cover of Leviathan direct from Keith. A lot of the book’s interior art will be available after it publishes on October 6, but this piece is ready right now. Click here to take a look.

What with all the trailer hoopla, I forgot to post a new illustration at the beginning of the month! So it’s time for more Leviathan art!

You may have notices that the first three images were all from the Darwinist side of things. (That is, weird beasties.) This was an oversight on my part, because the Clanker side of the war (weird machines) is equally cool.

So I give you . . . the Cyklop Stormwalker!

One of the main reasons I chose Keith Thompson is his equal facility with strange creatures and fantastical machines. That’s the whole point of the series, after all, to see two distinct technologies (or ideologies, or aesthetics, or world views) at war with each other—one biological, the other mechanical. So to make the contest fair, neither one can look better than the other. I think you’ll agree, both are slathered with awesome sauce.

Again, this is only one of fifty pieces of interior art. Two percent!

Click here to see the other three images I’ve revealed.

And if none of this made sense to you, click here to see the Leviathan trailer, WICKED BIG-STYLE.

Update: Forgot to mention that Justine and I will be appearing at Teen Author Reading Night in NYC this Wednesday!

September 9, 6:00-7:30PM
Jefferson Market Branch of NYPL
425 6th Ave, at 10th St.

Gordon Korman, Pop
Justine Larbalestier, Liar
David Levithan, Love is the Higher Law
E. Lockhart, The Treasure Map of Boys
Lauren McLaughlin, Recycler
Bennett Madison, The Blonde of the Joke
Dan Poblocki, The Stone Child
Scott Westerfeld, Leviathan

This official Leviathan trailer is pretty amazing. It’s made entirely out of Keith Thompson’s art from the series, and has been rocking my world.
I’m glad I can finally share it with you.

Enjoy:

Thanks to everyone at Motherland and Simon & Schuster who made this possible. (Click here to see more of Motherland ‘s work.)

Here’s the YouTube link, if you want to embed it in your own blog or see it WICKED BIG.

For more videos about Leviathan, click here.

Leviathan comes out October 6. Spread the word!

A Gentle Reminder: The Uglies e-book is still free, but only till September 4. Click here to go to Simon & Schuster’s download site.

Update: Forgot to mention: Leviathan comes out October 13 in Australia, roughly on October 6 in the UK, and in a year or so from now in Germany and France. The series has also sold in Holland and Turkey, but I don’t know the pub plans there.

Back in late July, I blogged about visiting the recording session for the Leviathan audio book. I got to meet and hang out with Alan Cumming, the voice talent for the audio version, and listen to him work.

And now you do too!

Leviathan has two main characters, one Scottish and one Austrian, which makes Alan perfect for the role. He’s Scottish himself, so no problem there, and he gained fame in the US for his role in Cabaret, so we knew he could do Germanic accents as well. He’s a very dramatic reader, especially in the giant battle scene I heard, so all the explosions and derring-do that are my forte are going to sound awesome. All in all, it was a for-the-win casting choice. Thanks to everyone at S&S Audio for being so frickin’ smart.

Anyway, here’s a sneak preview:

You can buy the Leviathan audio book here.

Or order the regular paper-based version.   
(Select a Retailer)Amazon.comBarnes & NobleIndieBoundBooks-A-MillionBordersBuy.comOverstock.comPowell’sWal-Mart Online

Also available on eBook.

And don’t forget, the Uglies e-book is still free, free, free. Click here to go to Simon & Schuster’s download site.