Leviathan

AFTERWORD

Leviathan is a novel of alternate history, so most of its characters, creatures, and mechanisms are my own inventions. But the book’s time line is based on the actual summer of 1914, when Europe found itself lurching toward a disastrous war. So here’s a quick review of what’s true and what’s fictional in the story so far.

On June 28, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife, Sophie Chotek, were assassinated by young Serbian revolutionaries. In my world they survived a first pair of attacks, but were poisoned later that evening. In the real world, however, they were killed in the afternoon. (I wanted my book to start at night.) Just as in Leviathan, the assassinations led to war between Austria and Serbia, which spread to Germany and Russia, and so on. By the first week of August the globe was embroiled in the Great War—now called World War I. These two tragic deaths, and some appalling diplomacy among the great powers of Europe, resulted in millions more.

There were rumors at the time that the Austrian government, or perhaps that of Germany, had secretly arranged the murders—either as an excuse to start a war or because Franz Ferdinand was too peace-minded. Few historians believe this conspiracy theory now, but it took decades to be disproved. Certainly the German military was determined to get a war started, and used the assassinations to do exactly that.

Franz and Sophie had no son called Aleksandar, though. Their children were named Sophie, Maximilian, and Ernst. But just like Alek in my story, these three were forbidden to inherit Franz’s land or titles, all thanks to their mother’s less-than-royal blood. And, just as in Leviathan, their parents had implored both the Austro-Hungarian emperor and the pope to change this situation. In the real world, though, Franz and Sophie did not prevail.

The romantic story that Alek tells about the tennis game and the pocket watch is entirely true.

Charles Darwin really did exist, of course, and in the mid-1800s made the discoveries that are at the core of modern biology. In the world of Leviathan he also managed to discover DNA, and learned to reach into these “life threads” to create new species. In our own world the role of DNA in evolution wasn’t fully understood until the 1950s, however. We are only now fabricating new life forms, and none so grand as Deryn Sharp’s airship home.

Nora Darwin Barlow was also a real person, a scientist in her own right. The columbine Nora Barlow flower is named after her, and she also edited many definitive editions of her grandfather’s work. But she was neither a zoo-keeper nor a diplomat.

The Tasmanian tiger is an entirely real beast. You could have seen a thylacine much like Tazza at the London Zoo in 1914, but no longer. Despite having been the top predator of the Australian continent only a few thousand years ago, the species was hunted to extinction by humans in the early twentieth century.

The last known Tasmanian tiger died in captivity in 1936.

As for the Clankers’ inventions, they are somewhat ahead of their time. The first real armored fighting machines didn’t enter battle until 1916. They couldn’t walk, but used tractor treads, just as tanks do today. The world’s militaries are only now beginning to develop useful vehicles with legs instead of treads or wheels. Animals are still much better at walking over rough terrain than any machine.

So Leviathan is as much about possible futures as alternate pasts. It looks ahead to when machines will look like living creatures, and living creatures can be fabricated like machines. And yet the setting also recalls an earlier time in which the world was divided into aristocrats and commoners, and women in most countries couldn’t join the armed forces—or even vote.

That’s the nature of steampunk, blending future and past.

The conflict between Winston Churchill and the Ottomans over seized warships is also based in fact. But that is best left to the second book, which follows the Leviathan to the ancient city of Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire.