The Court of the Air (Paperback)

by Stephen Hunt (Author)
Key Phrases: first guardian, sixth foot, locust priests, Stephen Hunt, The Court of the Air, King Steam (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Two teenage orphans in an anemic fantasy analogue of Victorian London are baffled to find themselves on the run in this overeager effort from British author and blogger Hunt (For the Crown and the Dragon). Molly, pursued by determined assassins with mysterious masters, hides underground, while Oliver, framed for his uncle's death, takes to the air to escape the fey-hunting Special Guard. They also draw the attention of the Court of the Air, a shadowy black-ops organization, and communityist revolutionaries seeking to resurrect ancient subterranean gods. An entire steampunk menagerie is pressed into lackluster service, but the pace leaves no time to focus on any single element. Only the steammen and their refreshingly tender machine culture are affecting and original. The historical and geographical parallels are overly frequent and mostly trite. Hunt has packed the story full of intriguing gimmicks, but the end result is more overload than wonder. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
'An inventive, ambitious work, full of wonders and marvels' Lisa Tuttle, The Times 'The characters are convincing and colourful, but the real achievement is the setting, a hellish take on Victorian London ! the depth and complexity of Hunt's vision makes it compulsive reading for all ages' Guardian 'Wonderfully assured ! Hunt knows what his audience like and gives it to them with a sardonic wit and carefully developed tension' Time Out 'Rich and colourful ! keeps you engrossed ! a confident, audacious novel' SFX 'Like a magpie, Stephen Hunt has plucked colourful events from history and politics and used them for inspiration ! Hunts tells his full-blooded tale with lip-smacking relish, revealing a vivid, often gruesome imagination ! T'he Court of the Air' brims with originality and, from the first, its chase-filled plot never lets up' Starburst

Doorstopper steampunk fantasy from British newcomer Hunt.Hunt's world is a curious past-future blend of aerostats, mechanical computers, psychic powers, self-willed steam-powered robots, Elder gods, talking superweapons and more. When orphan Molly Templar, sold from the local workhouse to a high-class bordello, starts work, her first client turns out to be an assassin. Molly escapes with the help of a steamman (she can fix damaged machines in a trice) and eventually learns from King Steam that she has a rare blood type - and that every person that shared it has been murdered. Elsewhere, another seemingly ordinary orphan, Oliver Brooks, lived four years inside the otherworldly "feymist"; since even brief exposure to feymist causes terrifying psychic powers to develop, the authorities are deeply suspicious of him. (Those less fortunate, whose powers develop, are cruelly enslaved or permanently consigned to dungeons.) Oliver returns home to find his uncle's household massacred, with disreputable spook Harry Stave the sole survivor. Together Harry and Oliver flee for their lives. After more than half a book's worth of adventures, the protagonists - youthful ciphers whose function is limited to forwarding the plot and acquiring the superpowers necessary to its culmination - finally meet, having discovered that they're the good guys in a struggle of prodigious and dystopian import. Watching everything are observers from the Court of the Air, a cadre of executioners dedicated to curbing powerful ambitions and government excess - or so they claim.Almost too inventive - it's just one jaw-dropping page after another - with hypercomplicated, barely intelligible plotting set forth in a breathless style: Harry Potter mugs H.P. Lovecraft, and L. Ron Hubbard explains it all. (Kirkus Reviews)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Voyager (September 3, 2007)
• ISBN-10: 0007232187
• ISBN-13: 978-0007232185
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #895,418 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "They think they are riding a tiger, but the tiger is riding them.", August 28, 2008

By	Church of The Flaming Sword - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Court of the Air (Hardcover)

I am in full agreement with science fiction writer Jay Lake when he described The Court of the Air as being a cross between Jack Vance and Charles Dickens. It is basically a steampunk novel with swords and sorcery. What makes it different is its setting. Instead of taking place during the Victorian Era, it is set in a far future in which several civilizations (our own included) have collapsed and others have taken their place. A phase transition has rendered electronics useless; making virtually everything steam powered, with the exception of transaction engines (supercomputers) and other more complex machinery that utilize crystals. Adding to that, magic (or remnants of a superscience that appears to be magic) is commonplace. Yet the world in most ways seems to be firmly entrenched in the 19th Century with its hansom carts, penny dreadfuls, and labor-management disputes.

Most of the story takes place in a nation called Jackals, which bears a very close resemblance to England. There are two orphaned young protagonists that the story alternates between. The first being young outcast Oliver Brooks, who lives with his uncle because his parents died in an accident in which his own survival resulted in his social stigma. When his uncle and their housekeeper are murdered, Oliver is framed for the crimes. His only ally is a government agent named Harry Staves, who might be as untrustworthy as the murderers pursuing him. The second is Molly Templar, whose disposition is as fiery as her red hair. She is a poorhouse ward who loses every job that she is assigned to until she is apprenticed into prostitution. Of all the dumb luck, her first customer is paid a monumental fortune to kill her. She is able to barely escape, but her luck is not shared by the children of the poorhouse to whom she regards as her family. Both of these orphans seem to be insignicant and powerless against the vast conspiracy that seeks to destroy them, but they soon learn about the incredible world saving power that they contain that levels the playing field so to speak.

There are a lot of interesting things going on in this book. One of which is how much of the history of Jackals is dealt with. They have a parliamentary government in which royalty are mere figureheads and scapegoats if public approval is low, thanks to a revolt that echoes Oliver Cromwell. In fact, once a Jackelian prince goes through the coronation process to become king, he has to have his arms amputated so he can no longer "raise his arms against the people". There is also a political philosophy called Carlism that is much like Communism due to its disdain toward religion and the wealthy. Here some devotees take its tenets to rather macabre extremes such as taking a bright child and turning him into a drooling vegetable so he will be "equalized" and no better than anyone else. Basically, people are liberated from being themselves. Furthermore the book is fantastic in addressing how corruption cannot be solved by creating new government functions or ideologies, for they can be corrupted just as easily as any apparatus that were created to correct. I could go on all day.

Consider me impressed. From what I have read on various science fiction websites, this is the first of seven books that deal with this steam powered future. I am not one to usually follow a series since most of them can be told with one book when twelve to fifteen are written. Here, I think I'll make an exception.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fresh and original Victorian-inspired fantasy, July 7, 2008

By	Paul Stotts "alephlogos" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Court of the Air (Hardcover)

Among his many literary contributions, Charles Dickens may also go down as the man who made it hip to be an orphan. Or at least, hip to write about orphans as main characters. It's become so overused that it's now a Victorian cliché. (That is good heroic orphans are cliché; evil orphans are still an underrepresented minority.) So if you are reading a fantasy novel with strong Victorian overtones, you'd expect to see at least one orphan. If not: shame on you, Victorian-inspired fantasist.

Not to disappoint, Stephen Hunt gives us two orphans, Oliver and Molly, as main characters in "The Court of the Air". Hunt also gives us a well-imagined and innovative Victorian-inspired fantasy world populated by a menagerie of stunningly developed characters. The novel mixes together disparate elements like living machines, Loas, dirigibles, parliamentarianism, underground cities, Big-brother inspired eyes in the sky, insect gods and mysticism. Slow to start and get into mainly due to its wide focus, the novel really hits it stride about halfway through as everything comes together beautifully.

Molly Templar lives at the Sun Gate workhouse, a poorhouse that apprentices its residents to local merchants. Far from a conscientious or good worker, Molly finds herself fired from a variety of jobs until she finally is apprenticed to a brothel. On meeting her first client, Molly finds herself inexplicably attacked by the man, and witnesses the murder of another prostitute by her assailant. Only her resourcefulness saves her, but on her return to the workhouse, tragic events make her realize that something dark and sinister may be afoot. Molly flees, only steps ahead of her assailant, an assassin named Count Vauxtion. This starts Molly off on an adventure that will take her to a rebel city deep in the bowels of the earth, and then back above ground, as she continuously struggles to understand the mystery surrounding her.

Oliver Brooks lives with his uncle, who has cared for him since the death of his parents. In surviving the accident that killed his parents, Oliver suffered a prolonged exposure to feymist, an experience that usually transforms the individual into a superpower-enhanced being. However, Oliver remains surprisingly normal. Quite suddenly, Oliver finds his uncle has been murdered and he is being framed with the deed. Only with the timely assistance of Harry Stave, an agent of the mysterious Court of the Air, does Oliver escape imprisonment. Harry and Oliver flee to evade capture, seeking help from a variety of Harry's friends along the way. But when Oliver is given an unusual gift, his whole world changes, thrusting him headlong into a battle not only for his life, but also for his homeland.

Hunt crafts a story rich in detail and complexity. At times, the complexity of the story distracts from the flow of the narrative, overcomplicating the book with unnecessary additions. One example of this is the muddied presentation of the various political philosophies of the major factions. These political systems are less black and white and more varying shades of gray which gives the overall effect that all forms of government are imperfect and susceptible to abuse. While it's a realistic vision of government, it isn't the clearest. The characters and setting are the real strength of "The Court of the Air". An innovative mixture of diverse elements successfully accomplishes the world building, creating a setting that is original and fresh. The characterizations are extremely well done as all the characters, human or otherwise, are quite intriguing.

Last Word:
"The Court of the Air" is a well-crafted, original and fresh story that I found more enjoyable the further I read. Though uneven overall, the amazing conclusion definitely makes up for the slow start, and Hunt definitely left me wanting more. And it is this tantalizing promise of more to come that makes Stephen Hunt an author to watch for in the future and "The Court of the Air" a worthwhile read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The best OK book I've read in a while, January 14, 2009

By	Josh (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Court of the Air (Hardcover)

I sort of liked this book. Orphans are always good. So are flying ships. Robots. Underground cities. Ancient civilizations. War. Guns and swords and exploding tree sap. Magic mind bullets (or something like that). Crab people. Communism. Mutants. Evil insects from another dimension. From the outset I thought it was going to be a twisted Dickensian romp through filthy streets and cloudy skies. What I got was a book so full of good ideas that it didn't have the time to develop anything before rushing off to the next good idea. It was sadly lacking in character growth (which was unfortunate, considering it was about 2 kids growing into their destinies) and the conclusion was fairly predictable. Not a lot in the way of suspense or emotion or comedy. If you like those old Edgar Rice Burroughs books where every story is the same, just set in a new locale(be it Barsoom, a jungle, Pellucidar or Venus), and you never have to worry about what anyone is thinking or if the protagonist is going to survive, you'll probably like this book. A sweeping, sophisticated epic it most surely is not. I enjoyed parts of it, but I think I read it mostly because I needed something to do on my lunch breaks.
It's not bad. Just don't pay full price.