Zombies vs Unicorns - edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier

This anthology is composed of short stories that are either about zombies (braaaaaiiins!), or unicorns (aka horses with horns that, in one story in particular, have farts that smell like flowers), and sometimes even both (these stories are usually filed under the "unicorn" stories, though, because let's face it, zombies are already awesome on their own - they don't need extra supernatural help). All written by a bunch of great writers, including Cassandra Clare and Scott Westerfeld, whose novels I enjoy very much and who were both members of Team Zombie. Yeah, zombie stories in general are just better than unicorn stories, with their dystopian elements and whatnot.

I must admit, though, that some unicorn stories were better than I expected - The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn by Diana Peterfreund was probably my favorite unicorn story, probably because its unicorns were deadly predators rather than fawning pictures of perfection. An honourable mention goes out to Kathleen Duey, whose story was a first-person narration by a very creepy unicorn. It  really creeped me out.

My all-around favorite story of the bunch (and favorite zombie story to boot) was definitely Love Will Tear Us Apart by Alaya Dawn Johnson, though; it featured a partial zombification caused by a prion (yay, science!), characters that don't necessarily fit typical, expected paradigms (yay, non-heteronormativity!), and tons of references to some of my favorite music (yay, Arctic Monkeys!).

So yeah, I enjoyed this anthology. And for future reference, here are all the authors included in the anthology (why should I write their names down when I can just type them up, leave them here and check back later when I'll want to read new stuff/when I won't be swamped in projects and lab reports?):

Team Zombie (aka TEAM AWESOME):

• Alaya Dawn Johnson
• Carrie Ryan
• Maureen Johnson
• Scott Westerfeld
• Cassandra Clare
• Libba Bray

Team Unicorn:

• Garth Nix
• Naomi Novik
• Margo Lanagan
• Diana Peterfreund
• Meg Cabot
• Kathleen Duey

Hey, look, there's a short promo film here! It features the - pretty epic, I must admit - cover art that's under the black cover for the cover (I'm thinking about the hardcover version, here. Wait, did I even make sense?). Anyways, the cover art's great!

Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld

This alternate history novel takes place during the first world war. You know, the one that started when an Austrian archduke called Franz Ferdinand was killed, followed by the biggest freak-out over an assassination that the world had ever known.
In this particular alternate history novel, the archduke has a son, Alek, who escapes after his parents' assassination with a few loyal people in a Stormwalker. A Stormwalker is a specific model of machine, fitted with cannons and guns, that walks. I imagine it as a non-intelligent robot, and it is one of the many constructs the Clanker alliance uses. Because, by the way, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman empire are all allied, and they are very partial to mechanical technology.
The other side in the war, the Darwinists (Includes Britain, France, Serbia, Russia, etc), are more partial to genetically modified technology. Yes, Darwin managed to discover DNA, and to find ways to design creatures by genetically modifying them. One such creature is a HUGE modified whale called Leviathan with hydrogen bladders, symbiotic hydrogen-emitting bees, and a plethora of other species on which its survival depends. This modified whale is the biological response to the Clanker zeppelins, and it is used for essentially the same functions.
Okay, I'll stop now or else I'd be summarizing the whole story. Let's just say that it was a fun, easy read, with nice illustrations, kickass cover art, and that I'm looking forward to the sequel. It's steampunk that doesn't fall into the tired clichés of the genre.

Bogus to Bubbly - Scott Westerfeld

An Insider's Guide to the World of Uglies.
Or, in other words, THIS IS A RATHER SPOILERIFFIC BOOK; DON'T READ IT IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE Uglies-Pretties-Specials-Extras SERIES YET. If you have no intention of EVER reading the series, though, you can go ahead and read this book; it's interesting even if you don't know the literary context.
It provides background information on the technology, the science, the history and the societal structure of the world of the Uglies/Pretties/Specials/Extras. AND includes maps. Which is nice, since it helps clarify and explain the (future) world in which the series took place, which wasn't clearly done in the series.
It is written for a teenaged reader's reading level, which makes sense considering the Uglies series is YA fiction; I found it rather vague on details in the chapters dealing with science, but that's okay.
According to my library, this book is a 813.6 on the Dewey Decimal Classification; it is a non-fiction book on American literature in English, about fiction. Well look at that.