Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel

I'm a little mixed on Skybreaker, although I promise that it falls well on the side of "this is an awesome book" in the end. It wasn't as shiny wonderful as Airborn is, I guess -- my expectations were set foolishly high, and so it's not terribly surprising that in some ways Skybreaker fell a little short.

We start quite promisingly. Matt Cruse is completing a field placement for school -- he's a student now, at the Airship Academy -- on a rickety old freighter named, appropriately, the Flotsam. Caught in a storm and pressed forward by their foolhardy captain, the Flotsam nearly wrecks, saved only by Matt's quick thinking and mutinous action. But before they manage to get the ship under control, they have seen what many think impossible: the airship Hyperion.

The Hyperion had vanished nearly forty years before, and with her, what is believed to be a huge fortune in gold. Soon Matt, the only one who can remember the co-ordinates of the lost ship, is dodging pirates again, and then he's off to catch the Hyperion, helped by a Rom girl named Nadira, Kate de Vries, and the salvage skybreaker captain Hal Slater (along with the, er, "charming" Miss Marjory Simpkins, and Hal's truly charming crew). Things become complicated by a love quadrangle, dangerous airborne creatures, yet more pirates, brilliant inventors, and good old-fashioned greed.

In trying to put my finger on what I found less than engaging about this book, I'd have to say that the love quadrangle probably comes out as the culprit. I'll admit I'm prejudiced against them anyways, but this one didn't feel particularly well done to me. Because of the relationship tangles, much of the time we spend in Matt's head is spent on both confusion and frustration. It does feel pretty genuine to the teen thought process: "I felt pulled in different directions, and I hated it. I did not like myself" says Matt at one point, and boy, do I remember feeling that exactly. But for the most part, it really didn't click with me; and at times, the characters didn't feel like they were clicking with each other, even when they were supposed to. Furthermore, the resolution to this whole situation was just... way too fast and convenient, although the book immediately gets a lot better as soon as the situation is resolved.

The other thing I didn't buy was Matt's supposed newfound greed. At all. I think he buys it, but I didn't. It's just not in his character, and it's not portrayed convincingly enough for me to believe that he had such a change of personality. In fact, it seems a bit uncharacteristically ham-fisted of Oppel -- but again this was a major driving force for Matt's actions, at points, and so I had to buy it a little bit. So I deliberately suspended disbelief.

At this point, you might be wondering what did work well. The setting, once again, is just incredible. It feels completely real and it was completely creepy at points, too. The Hyperion is a ghost ship; for all intents and purposes, she is shipwrecked -- it's just that she's floating, not at the bottom of the ocean. I've always had a strange relationship with shipwrecks. I grew up spending summers swimming over the two schooners washed up in the cottage bay, and to this day I am both drawn and frightened by them. So the setting, on this aged and very eerie airship, is very very much my kind of thing. Is she haunted, is she not? Just where is the little manservant's body? And is anything, at all, left alive?

Another thing I really liked was the characterization work on Hal Slater, the captain of the salvage ship. He's not a villain, and he is a hero, but he's also not tremendously sympathetic. He's mercurial, and the reader doesn't know what to expect of him any more than the other characters do. His character is complex and fascinating, and an interesting exercise is to read him and wonder exactly how it is that he is so unlikeable and yet still almost likeable. He's the sort of character not seen particularly often in books for kids, or adults for that matter -- and I'm not sure I've ever encountered an unsympathetic central character who isn't a villain written so well.

And finally -- the last several chapters of this book just fly. They are so good. They make up for the frustrations I had with the earlier parts of the book. More than. There was a little twist at the end that I didn't see coming, although it was so perfect that I felt I should have seen it. There were times, through the last chapters, that I had to put the book down and go do something else for a bit -- but not too long! -- just so I wouldn't injure myself with my tensing. I'll admit I wasn't particularly anxious to read Starclimber, but then I got to the end. Now Starclimber is on hold at the library for me. This isn't a cliffhanger situation, by the way, although there are a number of little unanswered questions. I just want to spend more time in Matt's world.

If you like a good adventure, please read these books. Start with Airborn, and stick with the parts of Skybreaker that frustrate you (if they even do -- I might just be more prejudiced against love quadrangles than I realize myself) because the payoff is so very, very great.

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

Currently, if I was asked to pick my favourite adventure story, I would jump up and down and wave Airborn around like a fool. This book is amazing, everywhere from the fast-paced, fascinating, and layered plot to the deep, sympathetic characters to the imaginative setting. This book is well-crafted and very well-written.

I've been meaning to read anything by Kenneth Oppel for a while. His book Silverwing struck me as a very creative idea with a ton of potential, but I hadn't quite gotten around to it -- many, many years after it's been published -- and then Airborn caught my eye. I've always loved the idea of airships -- what would have happened if the Hindenburg disaster had never happened? What if there was some lighter-than-air element that was available in large amounts, and inert? (Even better if it smells like mangoes!) Oppel appears to have been curious about the same questions. I think he's fascinated by anything flying.

Matt Cruse, our first person narrator, is fourteen years old when the story opens, and he participates in a daring mid-air rescue of a balloon pilot stranded over the Pacificus. A year later, the balloonist's granddaughter comes aboard the Aurora, the airship on which Matt is the cabin boy, to prove that her grandfather was not, as many have suggested to her, insane -- that there is an undiscovered species of aerial animals that congregates over an island in the Pacificus. And then there is a pirate attack, and the adventure begins...

The thing that makes this book so easy to read is Matt. He's a great narrator, fairly self-aware but also subject to very human flaws. He's interested in all the things I'm interested in as a reader, and he's not afraid to admit when he's been wrong although he may not be happy about it. He's a very hard worker, abides by the rules, and he loves what he does. He idolizes the Aurora's Captain Walken, has a chummy relationship with his cabinmate Baz, and absolutely adores, without reservation, the Aurora herself. Through his eyes, the airship takes on a character of her own and we come to love her too. Maybe not quite as much as Matt, but I'm pretty sure that's not possible.

And then there's Kate de Vries. From her spectacular entrance, Matt is alternately fascinated, attracted, and infuriated by Kate. She's a girl his own age with money to spare, and she's on a mission. She's not hampered by her ineffectual and highly irritating chaperone, she's spirited, and she's very, very smart. She's single-minded, occasionally to the point of being a danger to those around her, but she's never deliberately malicious, just enthusiastic and thoughtless. She loves books and words and ideas, but most of all she wants to be a scientist and isn't prepared to abide by society's rules when they stand in her way. Which they do, because the book is set in a time period somewhat before the 1920s, perhaps closer to the late 1800s. A reader more versed in history will probably figure that out a lot easier than I, but it's never stated and I don't think it needed to be.

I think this quote goes straight to the heart of Kate's character, and illustrates why I love her so much:

"We just start," she said. "Bones could be anywhere, if the creatures just fell from the sky. Of course, they might have been picked up by other animals. Unlikely, though -- there are probably no substantial mammals on the island." A little furrow of concentration appeared over each eyebrow. "But all animals feed on carrion. So, around trees with bird nests, or the lairs of skinks and lizards." She paused. "That's fun to say. Skinks and lizards."

See?!

Actually, Oppel knows how to use dialogue to expose character and does it well. I really enjoyed his dialogue. Take this interaction between the captain and his first mate:

"Well then," said the captain, "I believe this may be a good time to organize a party to explore the island."

"There may be inhabitants, captain," said Mr. Rideau.

"Precisely what I am hoping," said the captain.

"They may be a savage lot, sir, with no love of visitors."

"We shall have to be exceptionally charming, then," said the captain.

Captain Walken is a great leader. He's calm and professional and unfailingly positive even in the face of disaster; Mr. Rideau, on the other hand, is a rigid, by-the-book officer and prone to narrow-mindedness.

Since this post is starting to get dangerously long, two more quick points on why I think this book works so well. First, the aerial animals that Kate is chasing? They stay wild. They're a large predator, and like any large predator they are both beautiful and unpredictable. Oppel never offers to make them anything but a wild animal -- they're not preternaturally intelligent, or friendly towards humans just because -- and I appreciate that. Because this book is not that kind of book and was never set up to be.

Second, the villains. They're villainous, and dangerous, and generally very despicable. But they're not inhumanly evil. Not all of them are as fleshed out as the pirate leader, Szpirglas, but Oppel does a good job with a very little bit of space in the book of showing the humanity of his villains which makes their villainy both sad and even more frightening.

Overall: Airborn is a great adventure tale for any age, thrilling and touching, funny and occasionally sad. The characters are all genuinely wonderful and the setting is brilliant. Highly, highly recommended. I'm asking for it for my birthday because I'm going to read this one again and again.