Skybreaker - Harry Potter 6 Books

Product Description

Former cabin boy Matt Cruse, now a student at the prestigious Airship Academy, is first to identify the Hyperion, the private airship of a reclusive and fabulously wealthy inventor that disappeared forty years ago with its owner. Armed with the Hyperion's coordinates, which only he possesses, Matt, heiress Kate de Vries, and a mysterious young gypsy board the Sagarmatha, an airship fitted with the new skybreaker engines that will allow them to reach the Hyperion, 20,000 feet above the earth's surface. Pursued by others who want the Hyperion and will stop at nothing to get it, and surrounded by dangerous high-altitude life forms, Matt and his companions are soon fighting not only for the Hyperion but for their very lives.

In this thrilling sequel to Airborn, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book, Kenneth Oppel evokes the classic storytelling of Robert Louis Stevenson and Jules Verne, creating a world in which a new discovery can have unimagined consequences -- on earth and miles above it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #332960 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-01
• Released on: 2005-11-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 369 pages

Amazon.com Review
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

From School Library Journal
Grade 6-10–Oppel does it again! This action-packed sequel to Airborn (HarperCollins, 2004) starts with a bang and doesn't let up until the satisfying ending. Matt Cruse, now a student at the Airship Academy, finds himself training as a navigator aboard a worn out, tumbledown cargo airship piloted by a reckless captain. Flying through a typhoon at dangerously high altitudes, they see a ghost ship that set out 40 years before and was never seen again. The captain risks his life, the crew, and his ship as he tries to reach the Hyperion to claim the fortune in gold that's rumored to be aboard. His attempt fails after the crew is stricken with altitude sickness. Only Matt remembers the coordinates of where Hyperion was last seen. This knowledge plunges him and Kate, now a pilot in training herself, into a breakneck race against a pirate intent on getting to the riches. They find themselves aboard a new type of pressurized ship called Skybreaker piloted by Hal, a wealthy and dashing captain with designs on Kate. What they discover aboard Hyperion is a more fabulous treasure than any of them could have imagined. That is, if they survive to tell anyone about it. This worthy companion to Airborn maintains its roller-coaster thrills in true swashbuckling style.–Sharon Rawlins, Piscataway Public Library, NJ
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Gr. 6-9. In this anticipated sequel to Oppel's steampunk sky opera, Airborn (2003), selected as a 2003 Printz Honor Book, adventure calls when officer trainee Matt Cruse obtains navigational coordinates to a ghost ship stranded at dangerous heights. Realizing the ship's loot could help him vault class-related social obstacles, he warily joins a salvage expedition aboard a high-altitude skybreaker. Headstrong heiress Kate deVries participates, but many new characters are introduced, most significantly an intriguing Romany girl and a brash captain whose respective presences threaten the romance between Matt and Kate. The plot cleaves closely to that of Airborn, confronting the protagonists with a mystery left behind by an eccentric genius, a new airborn species, and adrenalin-pumping clashes with pirates. As in the first book, Oppel's loving evocations of his airtight alternate reality are more successful than his characterizations, a weakness that is troubling in exoticized descriptions of sandalwood-and-spice-scented gypsy Nadera. There's nothing new here, but Oppel fans and newcomers alike will happily stay aboard to the tinglingly good conclusion. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

A Terrific Choice for Jr.Hi Boys who are Above-Avg. Readers!
I really love this author! I am a junior high school English teacher, and this is a series I have recently come upon that I love recommending to my above-average-reader students, especially boys. Most of them have never heard of it, but they always come back after reading it with such positive reviews. They love it! It's so imaginative and unique and just loaded with old-fashioned action and adventure! The characters are so charming and fun and easy to relate to.
When someone first gave me Airborn, I looked at the cover and thought, "Airships? Ick. Boring." But I couldn't have been more mistaken. It was a delightful, compelling read. I enjoyed it thoroughly! And I liked SkyBreaker even more! So original and exciting! I'm already watching like a hawk for the next in the series! Can't wait!

Another exciting adventure tale can stand alone
"Skybreaker" is lucky. Or just good. See, unlike most sequels to excellent, successful books, "Skybreaker" is something strange and delightfully surprising - a good book that can stand alone, by itself.

While many of the characters are the same (seeing as it's about the same people), and while sparks of inspiration from "Airborn" appear, it is still original, different, interesting, and exciting in its own way. If need be, this book could have just been a book, not a sequel. And what a joy that is.

"Skybreaker" gives us something different, but still cool. Matt and Kate (heroes from "Airborn") have grown a little and things are different. For example, Matt is finally fulfilling his dream of studying about airships (which turns out to be a whole lot harder than he imagined). After an incident of near death (and obeying a captain's foolish orders), Matt finds himself in a dangerous position of knowing the coordinates of the "Titanic" of the sky. This ship, "The Hyperion", at dangerously high altitudes, is the treasure ship of the sky, thought to be a myth. Everyone wants to be in on the gold that can supposedly be found there.

And so begins a new journey. Emotions run high as the altitude grows, and there's plenty of plot to the adventure as well. Written clearly and quickly, "Skybreaker" will provide readers with another grand tale from Oppel. It flows well, is engaging, and on the whole enjoyable and exciting. Very fun!

Awesome Book
This is a really great book for young and old people alike. It's recommended that you read the first book, Airborn, first. Otherwise, you probably wouldn't get many of the different parts. Skybreaker is very well-written, complete with plot twists, cliffhangers, and a very interesting storyline/plot. There's some excellent character plot development, and you actually feel as though you are personally aquainted with Matt Cruse, the main character. This action-packed novel keeps you guessing and wanting to know what's going to happen next: it's nigh impossible to put it down. Supurb for people who like fantasy/action-adventure type books. 4 Stars.