Interview with LEVIATHANS IN THE CLOUDS Authors Steven Savil & David Parish-Whittaker

[Untreed]

Time to get subjective:

There is beauty to be found in the strangest places. Look at the symmetry of a wasps nest, say, or the almost fractal growth of mould. Out in the garden we’ve got a dead tree. It is rotten. It’s also a beautiful feature so it stays.

More on the nature of beauty, extraterrestrial shrimp and additional weirdness at Open Book Society and find out more about the Space: 1889 & Beyond series at Untreed Reads.

Leviathans in the Clouds by David Parish-Whittaker & Steven Savile:

It all seemed so straightforward at first...

Quantity surveying in the rain drenched swamps of Venus. How hard could it be? Endure a bit of rain, dig about where directed and Bob’s your uncle. To be sure, there were the local carnivorous lizards the size of houses, occasionally hostile natives and the local German colony, which had never proved particularly reasonable when it came to servants of the Crown digging about in what they clearly felt was their back garden. But by now, that sort of thing was barely more troublesome than setting out an afternoon tea for the good crew of the Esmeralda II.

True, some might call a plan a touch problematic if it requires bailing out of an airship in a single-seat experimental glider while a Venusian storm rages. If said plan also involves landing in German-controlled territory in order to meet a marginally sane geologist named Jungle Ned, one might even call the whole affair tricky.

But things go from tricky to worse when they arrive at Ned’s hideout and find it ransacked and covered with indecipherable symbols. Of Ned there is no sign other than a single hidden note: The gods brought themselves down. Before they discover its meaning, our heroes will find there is more to Venus than just peat bogs and hungry fauna. Forgotten secrets linger in the mists. And sometimes what is forgotten is still very much alive…