The book is well written just over 8 hours long and fun. The same night I finished the book they had a piece on the news about scientist today who are growing body parts outside the body. It is not available in audible, but you can get Neal Asher's The Skinner, which if full of all types of biological monstrosities. West of Eden by Harry Harrison is one of my favorite books. Each side thinks the other side is disgusting. The make fabricated animals as there battleships and a variety of other things. Everything the Darwinist have are living. The Clangers are basically mechanically inclined who built walking battleships and all things mechanical. You have the Clangers, who are a steampunk society and one of the lead characters is a clanger and then you have the Darwinist and one of the main characters is a Darwinist. The characters are in there early teens, determined but naive. I had just finished two long books, one that was silly and a little boring and one that was really good, but very serious. I came upon this book just a the right time for me. Two masters of their craft come together to create a truely imaginative work. 'Barking spiders!' and a 'rattled attic,' all without uttering what we would consider profanity today, which we all know sailors are prone to doing. Is that true Brittish slang of the time or did the author make that up as well? I don't know, but I love it.

As I said, I work with words myself, so I find the slang of the mid-shipman protagonist highly entertaining. He even gets the differences between the common Brittsh and 'posh' Brittish. I don't know how accurately Cumming is doing these different accents (Austrian, various Brittish and I can only assume that Russian will come later) but they are a hella lot better than I could do them on my own head if I were reading the novel. I hate to admit it, but it is because I am from the United States and not well traveled - that's why I love books. But this story was significantly enhanced by having it read to me by a European man.

I work with words, so I prefer to see them. For the most part I use audiobooks as a way to pass the time. But I thought proper tribute needed to be made to Alan Cumming, the narrator. And I want to say that the last I learned about WWI was in ninth grade (more than 15 years ago) but I still knew what was historical fact and what was made up. I didn't know about the steampunk genre when I picked this up, and it is an excellent introduction.

Most of the reviews talk about how outstanding the story is, and I agree wholeheartedly.

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld