Airborn
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| Airborn | |
 1st edition cover |
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| Author | Kenneth Oppel |
|---|---|
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy, Alternate history novel, Steampunk |
| Publisher | Eos (USA), Hodder (UK) |
| Publication date | 15 April 2004 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 433 pp (UK hardback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-340-87855-X (UK hardback edition) |
| Followed by | Skybreaker |
Airborn is a 2004 young adult novel by Kenneth Oppel. The book has been honored by several awards including winning Canada's Governor General's Award. Airborn is set in a time where the primary form of air transportation are airships. Voice radio exists, but the airplane has not been invented, which suggests that the book takes place in an imaginary time period. The book takes place aboard a transoceanic airship, the Aurora, and is told through the perspective of its cabin boy, Matt Cruse.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
This is the story of 15-year-old Matt Cruse, a cabin boy on the luxury passenger airship Aurora. Matt lives to fly, and only in the air can he dream of his father, deceased for two years. When the Aurora finds a drifting, damaged balloon with an old man named Benjamin Molloy inside it, it is Matt who rescues him. Molloy's dying words talk of amazing creatures in the sky and how someone named Kate would love to see them.
A year later, an ornithopter lands on the Aurora, bringing aboard 2 passengers: Kate de Vries and her caretaker, Miss Marjorie Simpkins. Matt learns that the old man he rescued was Kate's grandfather and Kate will let no one stop her to prove that the creatures her grandfather talked about are real. Kate and Matt soon become friends, though Matt is painfully aware of their class differences. Matt has high hopes of being promoted to Junior Sailmaker but the place is given to Bruce Lunardi — a boy who just graduated from the Airship Academy and whose father Otto is the rich owner of not only the Aurora but a whole chain of airships, called the "Lunardi Line". Kate shares her grandfather's log book containing detailed drawings and information of the creatures with Matt. The creatures are born in the air and can stay in the air forever, never touching the ground, though they are as large as a panther.
Then one night, pirates led by the notorious Vikram Szpirglas, a father of one, attacks the Aurora, threatening to down it with cannon-fire if the crew does not cease and desist. Szpirglas' pirates plunder the passengers and crew of all valuables, kill Mr. Featherstone (the chief wireless officer of the Aurora who'd been caught trying to radio for help), and then proceed to leave. But both ships are caught in a storm and Szpirglas' smaller ship crashes into the Aurora, tearing through the ship's skin and causing hydrium gas, the substance that keeps the Aurora afloat, to leak out of the airship, causing it to nearly sink to the waves. Sailmakers begin gluing and repairing the skin but the crew of the Aurora has lost too much hydrium gas and the passengers and crew prepare to abandon ship. Just then, Matt sights an island on which they can land the Aurora, and they do so.
While the crew unload unnecessary baggage so the ship may remain airborne, Kate discovers that this is the very island which her grandfather spotted the creatures flying above. She is firmly bent upon exploring the island, forcing Matt to accompany her. Together they find the skeleton of one of these large winged creatures which failed to fly and crashed. A few minutes later, they find a living one which has a crippled wing and fell to earth at birth. They decide to name these creatures "Cloud Cats".
The Aurora is almost ready to fly again another storm heavily damages the ship's skin yet again. Matt is rebuked for being late for his shift but redeems himself when he remembers that he smelt hydrium on the island. Kate has one last chance to go back and take pictures of these creatures but Miss Simpkins has locked her in her room for associating with Matt. She escapes by drugging Miss Simpkins and runs off with her camera. Matt and Bruce are sent to find her and together discover that cloud cats are dangerous carnivores. Bruce gets bitten on the leg and as they run back to the ship, Matt and Kate lose Bruce and stumble on the pirates.
Szpirglas and his crew don't recognize them; Kate and Matt are forced to act as if they were shipwrecked. They decide to spend the night at the pirate camp, then try and escape at night but are caught and locked in a hydrium pit. They use Kate's pants as a balloon and escape. They then have to rescue the Aurora from the pirates, who are bound to find her. In the forest Matt kisses Kate twice.
They find Bruce in the forest and sneak back onto the Aurora. All passengers and crew are being held hostage by 8 pirates. There is no wind, so the pirates don't notice as they undo all the landing lines. Matt is only a cabin boy, but because of his passion for flying, he knows everything about the Aurora and how to fly her. They switch the controls from the main control car to the auxiliary control car and fly her but Szpirglas soon retakes control. Matt, Kate and Bruce have to defeat 8 pirates and shut down the engines that are carrying them back to the island. Matt gives sleeping potion to the ship's passionate cook, Chef Vlad Herzog, to put in the pirates' food. Bruce is killed by a pirate (Szpirglas' first mate, Crumlin) who in turn is eaten by the cloud cat. Matt and Szpirglas fight on top of the Aurora in the open air and Matt is forced to fall off the hull. He freefalls, then lands with a crash on a fin. He comes to the bitter realization that he is not as light as a feather as he thought, and cannot fly. But he defeats Szpirglas, who is torn apart by cloud cats as he falls. He dies when one of the cloud cats rips off his throat mid-flight. The Aurora is about to crash into the island's mountain but Matt steers her out of harm's way.
The story ends six months later, as Kate is exhibiting her cloud cat skeleton and her pictures of the cloud cats and is going to study zoology at a university in Paris. Matt, with the help of the reward money for finding Szpirglas' base of operation, goes to the Airship Academy in Paris, which is located directly across the river from the university.
[edit] Hydrium
A fictional gas, lighter than hydrogen, used as a cause of buoyancy. It is described as leaking naturally out of pits in the earth, similarly to methane. It gives off a mango-like scent, as well as a hissing sound. In Oppel's book it is used in airships instead of helium or hydrogen. It is actually a combination of helium and hydrogen, the "hydr" from hydrogen and the "ium" from helium.
[edit] Awards and nominations
- The book won the Governor General's Award for children's literature.
- The book was a Michael L. Printz Award honor book.
- Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon award winner.
- The book was a 2006-2007 Nutmeg Children's Book Award nominee. It came in fifth place.[1]
- The book was a 2006-2007 Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award nominee.
- This book won the "Goodrich's Best Book of the Month Award" (March 2008)
[edit] Film adaptation
- The book is currently being adapted into a film, to be directed by Stephen Sommers. Liam Aiken will be starring as Matt Cruse.
