How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Deryn snorted. A few people—Monkey Luddites, they were called—were afraid of Darwinist beasties on principle. They thought that crossbreeding natural creatures was more blasphemy than science, even if fabs had been the backbone of the British Empire for the last fifty years. (4.12)
A luddite is a person who rejects new technology, and we assume monkey is a reference to human evolution. Perhaps the Darwinists are saying that those who reject fabrication are not as highly evolved as those who accept it.
Quote #2
But before Deryn had been born, the great coal-fired engines had been overtaken by fabricated beasties, muscles and sinews replacing boilers and gears. These days the only chimney smoke came from ovens, not huge factories, and the storm had cleared even that murk from the air.
Deryn could see fabs wherever she looked. Over Buckingham Palace a flock of strafing hawks patrolled in spirals, carrying nets that would slice the wings off any aeroplane that ventured too close. Messenger terns crisscrossed the Square Mile, undeterred by the weather. The streets were full of draft animals: hippoesques and equine breeds, an elephantine dragging a sledge full of bricks through the rain. The storm that had almost snuffed out her Huxley had barely slowed the city down. (8.5-6)
Here we get a clear picture of how integral fabricated beasties are to London life. It seems like they've at least been good for clearing the air of pollution caused by other forms of energy. Maybe we need to get some beasties into all the energy debates: definitely sounds cooler than coal versus natural gas versus something else that's not as cool as a beastie.
Quote #3
The Leviathan's body was made from the life threads of a whale, but a hundred other species were tangled into its design, countless creatures fitting together like the gears of a stopwatch. Flocks of fabricated birds swarmed around it—scouts, fighters, and predators to gather food. Deryn saw messenger lizards and other beasties scampering across its skin.
According to her aerology manual, the big hydrogen breathers were modeled on the tiny South American islands where Darwin had made his famous discoveries. The Leviathan wasn't one beastie, but a vast web of life in ever-shifting balance. (8.44-45)
This is Deryn's first view of her beloved Leviathan, and it gives the reader a pretty good picture, as well. We have to confess that we always think of Leviathan as the whale's name, and of the other creatures as "crew" who are also aboard. It's hard to remember that the whole thing makes up the airship.
Quote #4
But Deryn's favorite lectures were when the boffins explained natural philosophy. How old Darwin had figured out how to weave new species from the old, pulling out the tiny threads of life and tangling them together under a microscope. How evolution had squeezed a copy of Deryn's own life chain into every cell of her body. How umpteen different beasties made up the Leviathan—from the microscopic hydrogen-farting bacteria in its belly to the great harnessed whale. How the airship's creatures, like the rest of Nature, were always struggling among themselves in messy, snarling equilibrium. (11.19)
Just so we're clear, this is one part of the book that puts the fiction in historical fiction. Darwin did not discover DNA, though he did do quite a bit of work on the idea of ecosystems in balance—and sadly, Darwin didn't discover a way to grow new animals in eggs, either. That would have been cool though, which is why it makes a good story.
Quote #5
In summer the fields passing beneath the airship were full of flowers, each containing a tiny squick of nectar. The bees gathered that nectar and distilled it into honey, and then the bacteria in the airbeast's gut gobbled that up and farted hydrogen. It was a typical boffin strategy—no point in creating a new system when you could borrow one already fine-tuned by evolution. (19.24)
Yeah, there's a lot of talk about the importance of farting to the Leviathan's ecosystem. We recommend you don't try this with your biology teacher. Seriously though, there's an important point here about using what already works rather than constantly trying to invent something new.
Quote #6
Dr. Barlow released her chin, giving a shrug. "Well, I'm sure you're not the first boy to come into the service a bit young. Your secret is safe with me." She handed back the rigging knife. "You see, my grandfather's true realization was this: If you remove one element—the cats, the mice, the bees, the flowers—the entire web is disrupted. An archduke and his wife are murdered, and all of Europe goes to war. A missing piece can be very bad for the puzzle, whether in the natural world, or politics, or here in the belly of an airship. You seem like a fine crewman, Mr. Sharp. I'd hate to lose you." (19.53)
And here it is: a big thematic link between two parts of our story. The idea, in both politics and in nature, is that we can never just adjust one element because moving one thing will always affect others. It's the old domino effect.
Quote #7
"What if they don't leave?" Alek said. "What if they can't?"
"Then they won't last long," Volger said flatly. "There's nothing to eat on the glacier, no shelter, no fuel for a fire. Just ice." (22.19-20)
Ugh, this makes us think of Jack London and other folks who basically wrote about how nature will kill us all. Thanks, Volger.
Quote #8
"They weren't laid, but made in a laboratory. When you create a new beastie, they have to stew for a while. The life threads are in there, building the beasties out of egg muck."
Alek looked down with distaste. "It all sounds very ungodly."
Dylan laughed. "The same thing happened when your ma carried you. Every living creature's got life threads, a whole instruction set in every cell of your body." (26.48-50)
Life: wonderful and amazing… and gross, the way Deryn describes it. "Egg muck," really? You're trying to win the dude over with the idea of "egg muck"? We'll never eat an omelet again.
Quote #9
The head boffin stepped forward.
"The Alps were once the bedrock of an ancient sea," he said. "But now these peaks are the highest in Europe, not fit for man or beast. If you look around, you'll see no insects, plants, or small prey for our flocks."
[…]
Dr. Busk's gaze swept across the glacier. "And in this awful place, nature herself is empty." (27.31-32, 39)
Way to go, nature, being all barren and such. What Dr. Busk is saying is that the Leviathan can't heal itself—it's meant to thrive as part of an ecosystem, which is all around it, not just on board. It can't thrive if it can't access the parts of the greater ecosystem that it needs. In other words, not the best place for a crash landing.
Quote #10
The captain drew himself up taller. "And my first responsibility is to you, the men of my crew."
The men—not the fabricated creatures. Did he mean taking the beasties' food? But surely the captain wasn't saying…
"To save ourselves we may have to let the Leviathan die." (27.44-46)
Whoa, these are big words, especially for a Darwinist. The captain makes it clear that, however much they may use the beasties, humans still have the upper hand and consider themselves the most important part of nature. He makes no bones about it: the lives of the men (and a couple of women) are more important than the lives of the beasties.