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Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel
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Skybreaker

by Kenneth Oppel

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3242014,425 (4.34)25
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Hurrah, Matt and Kate go off adventuring again. Of course they find a new species, mysterious events abound, danger lurks, sky pirates chase, romantic misunderstandings complicate and all things good I expected from the first book. And the Full Cast Audio performance is a delight as usual. I can't wait for the third book, but this is one that is so enhanced by the audio readings that I have to hold out for Full Cast Audio to work their magic again.
I recommend this to anyone who is a fan of fun! ( )
francescadefreitas | May 26, 2009 |  
An excellent addition to the adventures of Matt Cruse, this text is in many ways better than its predecessor. For one, since Cruse is older and his life more complicated, the tension and layers of conflict deepen and move past the surface level of the simple page-turner adventure story. Although the book has less swashbuckling, the story is no less fun. Oppel makes light of many of the same issues that teens will struggle with in their pursuit of adulthood, including complicated romances, the battle with greed, and loyalty to friends and personal ethics. At a larger level, even though this text takes place in a parallel world to our on earth, it does still deal with some of the same complex social issues that have arisen over the past few centuries, including the European racial stereotype of Gypsies and the battle between costly fossil fuels and inexpensive, renewable energy sources. Overall, the text takes too much of a lighthearted approach to the issues to be considered a true social commentary on them, but they do act as good layers of conflict that make the text more complex. I recommend this book to both adults and kids, with its main audience falling within the range of 8-13, geared more toward boys.-Lindsey Miller, www.lindseyslibrary.com ( )
LindseysLibrary | May 14, 2009 |  
Matt and Kate are back together for another action packed adventure in an airship. ( )
EdGoldberg | May 1, 2009 |  
Forty years ago, the airship Hyperion vanished with untold riches in its hold. Now, accompanied by heiress Kate de Vries and a mysterious gypsy, Matt Cruse is determined to recover the ship and its treasures. But 20,000 feet above the Earth's surface, pursued by those who have hunted the Hyperion since its disappearance, and surrounded by deadly high-altitude life forms, Matt and his companions soon find themselves fighting not only for the Hyperion—but for their very lives. It was just as good as the first book. ( )
DF1A_ChristieR | Mar 23, 2009 |  
i love airships, i love a good story, i love steam, it all comes together here. ( )
drscofield | Feb 21, 2009 |  
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Series (with order)
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People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Awards and honors
Epigraph
Dedication
For Julia Beatrice Oppel
First words
The storm boiled over the Indian ocean, a dark, bristling wall of cloud, blocking our passage west.
Quotations
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Book description

Amazon.com From Amazon.ca (ISBN 0002006995, Hardcover)

In this breathtaking sequel to the Governor General's Award-winning fantasy novel Airborn, 16-year-old Matt Cruse flies higher than he ever dreamed. The former Aurora cabin boy, now a student at the prestigious Paris Airship Academy, is on a two-week training tour with a run-down cargo airship when his captain sights a legendary ghost ship. Matt recklessly heads skyward in pursuit--only to risk sacrificing his entire crew to altitude sickness. The Hyperion, lost in a storm in the dawn of the aviation age and buoyed high above the clouds for 40 years, is rumoured to hold great wealth, and Matt is suddenly the only person on earth who knows her coordinates.

Soon, he and his upper-class sweetheart, Kate de Vries, are embarked on a dangerous aerial treasure hunt, along with Hal, the conceited pilot of a sleek, new altitude-friendly airship, and a mysterious gypsy girl named Nadira, who claims to have the key to the Hyperion's booby-trapped treasure troves. Drawing on the myths of Icarus and Prometheus, as well as classic sea adventures like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Poseidon Adventure, Skybreaker combines an action-packed thriller with a sensitive exploration of the limits of human ambition. Matt's jealousy of the self-made Hal (who he suspects has designs on Kate) and his own furtive attraction to Nadira heighten the emotional tension and raw suspense of the visceral scenes aboard the Hyperion, an ice-entombed version of the Titanic. With pirates, sky monsters, and disturbed spirits, not to mention enough bizarre flying machines to fill an aviation museum (even a bat-copter for Silverwing fans), Skybreaker confirms Kenneth Oppel's reputation as Canada's leading fantasy author for children and young adults. --Lisa Alward

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:02 -0400)

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