Airborn

This novel is the perfect young-adult adventure story. It has everything, including shipwrecks, pirates and romance, all in a steampunk setting. Unlike other YA adventure stories I’ve read recently, this novel stands out in the fullness of the characters. The two main characters, Matt Cruse and Kate de Vries, are likable and show all the positive and negative characteristics common to teenagers. Even many of the secondary characters are well-developed. Matt shows a charming and self-deprecating humour in his narration. The concluding chapters were very exciting, and I stayed up well past my bedtime to finish the novel.

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel is the first of the Matt Cruse series. Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the luxury airship Aurora. He was born on an airship (a rare occurance) and his father died working on the Aurora. Matt, now, desperately wants to have the career taken from his father but a newly appointed Academy graduate has taken the job of assistant sail maker.

Now into the mix of this coming of age story of a cabin boy learning a hard lesson, add a heaping scoop of Robert Louis Stevenson pirates with a heathy dollop of the lost world exploration of a Jules Verne story. To top it off, frost it with a plucky young woman with a thirst for adventure.

All of this adventure is set in an alternate world. Oppel does a wonderful job of fleshing out show more this world, starting with the recognizable (the destination — Australia). Then he adds in the details, new names for oceans, a mango scented element needed for lighter than air travel. And finally he tosses in the unexplored — creatures even the people of the Pacificus don't know about.

As it happens, I listened to the audio — twice. It was produced by Fullcast Audio. While I appreciate their desire to turn a ripping yarn into a theatric production, I think they often go too far. Matt Cruse who serves both as narrator and protagonist, suffers from the usual problem of these Fullcast Audio performances: too much earnestness.

The written word has moments of rest, of the quietly mundane — passages that should be read quietly, and perhaps with some flatness of voice. NEVER can one of these performers do that. I suspect they are directed to act each and every word with complete heart and soul. It comes off as insincere, melodramatic and sometimes slap worthy. show less

Matt Cruse, a cabin boy on board the dirigeable Aurora, was born to fly. In fact, he was born in the air and ever since, has felt more comfortable above the clouds than below them. Although he spends his shore leave with his mother and two sisters, who live in a tiny apartment in the heart of Lionsgate city, he only sleeps well when he is on board the Aurora, his true home. Matt hopes to be promoted to sailmaker soon, a step toward his deepest desire: to one day be able to fly his beloved ship. Everything seems smooth sailing until he meets Kate, a wealthy passenger with an unpleasant chaperone and some ideas of her own. Together they embark on an adventure that involves an attack by pirates, a shipwreck on a deserted island and a show more discovery of a new species. Oppel's pacing is outstanding in this swashbuckling adventure novel. The characters are original, likeable and well rounded and the alternate reality Opeel has created is close enough to our own to suspend disbelief. I would recommend this book for children around ten years of age or older, especially boys who like airplanes and flying objects and are not that fond of reading. Having said that, I wouldn't leave out the girls who are in need of a fast paced riveting adventure story! show less

As I was collecting my basic information for this book, I noticed something on Goodreads. People seem to either love this book or hate this book. I am one of the people that love this book, and I’m having difficulties understanding what people didn’t like. I saw one reviewer complain about the first person narration (valid, if that’s not your deal), some complain about the female lead being annoying (and okay, Kate is a bit haughty)… but one person said the book started too slowly. My only response to this is an inquisitive head tilt and a feeling that we might not be reading the same book. As I review books I am learning that I am a plot reader. I can deal with books that are primarily about the development of the main show more character when it’s done well (a la John Green’s books), but plot is mostly where it’s at for me.
And I thought the plot development of Airborn was fantastic. We start in the ship with Matt Cruse, cabin boy for the airship Aurora. He generally acts as a lookout for the ship and as a waiter for the passengers, but in the very first chapter they spot a hot air balloon is distress. Matt (as the lightest on the ship) has the job of swinging out on to the balloon to hook it so the crew can save the poor old man in the balloon. The man asks Matt if he saw “them,” and Matt lies to appease the dying man. Again folks, this is still the first chapter or two.
Then we jump to two years later, and Matt is stewarding for passenger Kate de Vries, a wealthy girl about his age. He learns that she is the granddaughter of the old man and that she is looking for these odd winged panthers he wrote about in his journal just before his death. This might be the slow part the review was referring to, but I can’t for the life of me see why. From here there’s a bit less plot, but we get super-detailed world building about the general goings-on of the ship… until the plot really takes off.
Another point I was really fond of: Bruce Lombardi is a character that is the “other guy” in a lot of respects. He and Matt are in fairly constant competition, but Bruce is still a really likable character (which is especially a feat, considering the first-person narration). Kate is a bit much to deal with sometimes, but I’d rather have a feisty, bossy heroine over a swoony, blank-page heroine any day. Plus, let’s remember that she’s young and immature. Hermione was a pain in the first Harry Potter book too, remember?
So why am I holding back from giving it a 10? I don’t really know. I really, really like it, but it’s not hitting that book-so-good-I’m-obsessed stage, where I would recommend it to everyone (like White Cat by Holly Black or The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins). Possibly it’s because it’s so super into its genre, which I feel might be a moderate turn-off for all the reviewers who didn’t like it on Goodreads. We shall see if that changes after Skybreaker. Stay tuned!

Additional Thoughts: Now that books are available to me in so many formats (and I am without a job outside of school for the first time… possibly ever) I find myself rating books on a monetary betting system. FOr example, I know that I will buy Red Glove in hardback the day it comes out. I loved White Cat that much. Anything by John Green generally also makes the buy first, ask questions later list. Other things, like Anna and the French Kiss get e-readered because I’ve heard good things, but may not be totally sure they’ll be my kind of thing. And then there’s the library, where I grab anything and everything.
This series may have started in the library for me, and it’s going to continue in the library due to lack of funds, but at some point in the future there WILL be a complete hardback set with matching covers of this trilogy gracing my shelves. I would definitely re-read Airborn, and from reading the back cover of Skybreaker I imagine the trend is just going to continue.
This book won a Printz Honor award, so that means official people thought it was awesome too.
Wikipedia also tells me that there is a movie based on the book due out sometime this year, but they’ve already tried to adopt it into a movie that didn’t pan out in 2008. So the movie might be stuck in movie-limbo right next to the Ender’s Game movie (and probably for about the same reasons).

Rating: 9: Super-close to perfect show less

It took me a little while to feel gung-ho about this steampunk/swashbuckling/Victorian-y story, but once that horrible little red critter chased the main characters, my heart was in my mouth for the rest of the story.
I like the way Kate is both intelligent and willful, but still reasonable, and Mat in an enjoyable narrator, his wonder is contagious.
The Full Cast Audio production was fantastic.

I often seen Airborn labeled as steampunk. As steampunk fare goes, Airborn starts off on the softer side. The airship is there as a setting and a means of carrying characters to the story, rather than being a tangible part of the story. Many problems faced by traditional airships, such as fire, are removed with the invention of a new gas - Hydrium, which smells like mangoes.
The story itself is a tad slow to start, but when it starts to pick up, it is enjoyable. Oppel does a good job capturing the spirit of the time, and also characterizing cabin boy Matt Cruse. Matt is in what amounts to the service industry, and as such he has been trained to be professional and curteous to passengers' needs. True to a Victorian standard, Matt also show more gets all flustered when he sees a girl who is not wearing stockings.
The character of Kate De Vries is a wonderful member of the story. She is a rich girl, yes, but she has ambitions and the brains to back it up. Always accused of being unladylike by her family, Kate is driven and proactive in achieving her goals. She's not a girl in need of constant rescuing - in fact, one such rescue mission finds her perfectly calm. While Matt often wishes she wouldn't drag him into her adventures, he never criticizes Kate for being unladylike, or for her ambitions of becoming a scholar.
Later into the book, the airship becomes more signficant in the story, to a degree where I find it reasonable to qualify this as a steampunk story. It would be a good idea to study the map of The Aurora provided at the start of the book. The story also becomes more suspenseful and exciting as time goes on. The last few chapters make it impossible to put down.
This book is part of a trilogy, but if you wanted to just read it on its own, it makes a good stand-alone. The only cliffhanger offered is the want to hear more about these characters and their lives. show less

A cabin boy aboard an airship faces off against one of the sky's most feared pirates.

This was a reread for me, and I think I enjoyed this even more the second time around. It's been a while since I read any of Kenneth Oppel's work, and I'd forgotten just how readable he is. His AIRBORN series isn't quite as affecting as the SILVERWING SAGA, but it's still a ton of fun.

AIRBORN reads up right quick, and it's fresh and engaging from the first page to the last. I'm a sucker for a great seafaring tale, and this would fit the bill to a tee if it weren't for the fact that Matt and his friends sail the airways instead of the ocean. It has all the elements of the most entertaining high seas adventures: technical sailing details, a healthy dose show more of swashbuckling action, dangerous encounters aboard ship, and pirates. What more could you want?

The characters are great, too. Matt is a sympathetic protagonist; it's easy to feel for him as he faces each new threat to his beloved ship. His relationships with the other characters are also nicely developed; his rivalry with Bruce felt real, and his friendship with Baz was also very natural. It's his rapport with Kate, though, that really makes the book. The back-and-forth between them is great; they bounce off each other very well, and Oppel does a great job of showing us how their friendship develops throughout the course of the book. There's enough romance mixed in to satisfy those who crave it, but there's not so much that non-romance fans will be put off. Oppel focuses in on their friendship, above all else.

Oppel's alternate world is a delight to visit. He's made some logical name changes to let us know right off the bat that we're not in the world we all know, and he's thrown in some really interesting technological developments. The largest of these is, of course, the airship. Oppel's airships use a lighter-than-air gas called hydrium in place of the real-world helium, and they've been employed so effectively that no one has ever felt the need to invent the airplane. Airships share the skies with ornithopters, (helicopter-like contraptions based on designs by Leonardo da Vinci), and with mysterious airborne creatures.

AIRBORN is classed as fantasy by the publishers and the author himself, but I'd consider it more of an adventurous science fiction novel. It's basically steampunk lite. Most reviewers class the world as Victorian, (I personally think it has more of an Edwardian feel), and the science shapes just about everything that happens. The airships are, of course, a major factor, and Kate's interest in the natural sciences also drives much of the book's action. It perhaps most closely resembles the romantic, swashbuckling science fiction penned by authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs back in the 1910's, albeit with a more modern approach.

All in all, it was a wonderful read. I highly recommend it to YA readers and to anyone with an interest in adventure novels. I've lent it out and recommended it to readers of all ages, and I've yet to hear of anyone who was disappointed with it.

(This review originally appeared on my blog, Stella Matutina, in a slightly different form). show less