Star Climber by Kenneth Oppel

Starclimber

Okay, I admit. I have a prejudice against space elevators. I read a space elevator book in fourth grade and found it dumb and boring and completely foreign to anything I had real experience with. So I had declared for a long time since then that I liked books that happened on planet earth. Then my husband starting writing science fiction and they didn’t take place on Earth. So, I had to be a bit more open minded, so I could be supportive and read his books, some of them multiple times. Cause that is what a good wife does.  Surprise, surprise, I really  liked Wolfhound.  So, I started reading more “doesn’t take place on Earth stories.”

So, I am sort of proud of myself for continuing on with this book because inside the front cover there is a large, although cool, sketch of a space elevator. Skeptical, I read on because I really enjoyed Skybreaker and because I’m married to a science fiction writer, right? So, I have some kind of obligation to get over these prejudices.  

To make the long story short I really enjoyed StarClimber and thought it was an excellent novel. After their adventure aboard the Hyperion Matt and Kate go back to business as usual. Except mankind is now determined to reach space. France is building a huge tower up into the atmosphere so they can be the first to claim that they reached space. Canada however has choses a different tactic. As Canada is both Kate and Matt’s home they are both invited to join the space program. Kate is automatically accepted as their zoologist expert, to see if there is really life in space. Matt however is merely accepted for the training program. He has to compete with dozens of candidates in order to be accepted on the space crew. The competition is extremely tough and the first half of the book is about the training regimen that Matt and his fellow astralnauts have to go through. This is actually pretty entertaining stuff seeing how they have to pass impossible tasks and be pushed to the limit.

The second half of the book deals with the space trip and the adventures there. Matt and Kate find that there are some type of strange creatures in space. When  unexpected circumstance place the entire crew in an emergency situation and it will take the entire crew’s mental and physical talents to return to earth alive. This one is an excellent space adventure.  

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Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel

Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppal

Sky Breaker is the sequel to Airborn, a steampunky action-adventure novel. I think I really liked this story better than the first one in the series.  Matt works hard at the academy in Paris as he trains to get his pilot’s license. Kate is still trying to convince the scientific community that cloud cats still exist, and aspires to become a respected zoologist.  So, while Matt completes an internship aboard a small plane the crew runs into an old ship  Hyperion, rumored to hold the treasures of a reclusive millionaire that was something of a mad scientist. They crew is almost destroyed as it climbs up to high altitudes to capture the ship.

When Kate finds out that Matt has seen the ship with his own eyes she sets out to hire an expedition so that she can take a look at the ship herself. It is rumored to have not only lots of gold but an amazing collection of zoological specimens. This could help Kate get her name recognized as a zoologist, while Matt thinks of buying his mother a nice home, and having enough money to finish paying for his pilot school. They team up with a captain of a special high altitude ship and go off to the last known coordiantes that only Matt remembers.

Only once they reach the ship and begin to explore it. They find out that there  are dangerous squid-like creatures that dwell with in it, but that isn’t the only danger they face. The high altitude and freezing  temperatures threatens all of their lives on more than one occasion. Then the pirates that have been hunting down Matt since they discovered he was the last one that saw the coordinates of the Hyperion catch up to them.

I really loved this one! There was something fascinating to me about exploring the old abandoned ship of a mad scientist. There were some pretty cool inventions and discoveries made by their investigations on board. Also, I thought the author did an awesome job of creating a believable air creature, which  turned out pretty cool. They were lethal and useful, which made them fascinating to read about. Combining the discovery and exploration story line with running from pirates under dangerous conditions from being that high up in the sky and you get a great story with enough challenges and tension to keep you reading from start to finish.

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Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
“Matt Cruse is the 15-year-old cabin boy aboard the Aurora, the 900-foot luxury airship he has called home for the past two years. While crossing the Pacificus, Matt fearlessly rescues the unconscious pilot of a crippled hot air balloon. Before he dies, the balloonist tells him about the fantastic, impossible creatures he has seen flying through the clouds. Matt dismisses the story as the ravings of a dying man, but when Kate de Vries arrives on the Aurora a year later, determined to prove the story is true, Matt finds himself caught up in her quest. Then one night, over the middle of the ocean, deadly air pirates board the Aurora. Far from any hope of rescue, Kate and Matt are flung into adventures beyond all imagining. . .” (summary from author’s website)

So, it has been several months since I finished this book, and I am now just sitting down to write a review. I was originally attracted to this series because I heard it was steampunk. I was immediately hooked at the beginning when the Aurora stumbles upon the damaged air-balloon, during a routine flight. The man inside the basket is seriously ill, and taken to the ship’s infirmary. A short-time later he dies, but not before he confides to Matt that he has discovered something out there in the sky. I found this mystery to be very intriguing, but I had a hard time reading the book for a while afterward because the mystery is dropped for a while until this man’s granddaughter, Kate, appears on the ship trying to discover what her grandfather last saw.

The action picks up again when pirates cause the ship to crash land on an island. The island that Kate’s grandfather described in his air log, while there they discover more than the strange creatures that her grandfather described. I really liked this section of the book. It has a bunch of adventure and discoveries, as Kate and Matt discover the really cool creatures that her grandfather drew and mentioned in his log book.

So my reaction to this book was mixed. It had some slow parts that gave me some difficulty, but had some really fun action-adventure, and age of discovery type feel to it that was enjoyable. This would be a great novel to hand over to a young men, but tis also enjoyable for girls, as Kate is a spirited and unique character in her own right.

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