Customer Reviews

Kaimira: The Sky Village: Book One

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Sky Village is the soaring debut to Monk and Nigel Ashland's new young adult series, Kaimira. The Ashlands take the reader to a futuristic world where humans, animals and intelligent machines called meks have been fighting for decades.

In China, twelve-year-old Mei Long's mother has been kidnapped by meks. Her father sends her to live in the Sky Village, an intricate web of hot air balloons that flies high above the earth, while he remains on land to search for his wife. He entrusts Mei with the care of the Tree Book. Mei's mother would read to her from the Tree Book each evening, telling her fantastic tales of children with names like Breaker and Lizard Girl. Her father warns her not to open the book, but Mei, desperate for a way to find her mother, disobeys him. She soon discovers that the Tree Book is no ordinary book. The children from the stories are real, and Mei's book allows her to communicate with Breaker, a teenage boy whose real name is Rom. Rom knows Mei as Dragonfly from his own parents' stories.

Rom lives in the ruins of Las Vegas, where the beasts roam freely and humans have been forced into hiding. Rom's younger sister, Riley, has been kidnapped by beast-mek hybrids known as demons. Rom enters the seedy Las Vegas underground where he is forced to learn the art of demonsmithing to save his sister. Rom's father was a master demonsmith, and Rom shares his father's natural abilities. The demonsmiths conjure beast-mek hybrids for elaborate fights to entertain gamblers in the underground.

Mei and Rom discover that they share the mysterious kaimira gene - a gene that mixes beast and mek elements with their human DNA. The gene gives both of them power that they don't fully understand and must struggle to control. Will this power enable them to save their loved ones? What might it cost them in the process?

I loved the imagery of the Sky Village. The colorful hot air balloons seemed so full of life that they made the contrast with the barren Las Vegas even more apparent. At first I was much more drawn to Mei's story, but over the course of the book I really connected with Rom. His devotion to his sister and his determination to do anything to save her was very touching.

I did feel that the book lagged in some parts, while it seemed rushed in others. There is a lot going on in this book, and some elements aren't explained as fully as they could be, which may be confusing to younger readers.

The Sky Village is a solid introduction to the series, and I am definitely going to pick up the next installment. I hope that we'll get to meet some of the other characters mentioned in the Tree Book (particularly Lizard Girl) during the next four books in the series.

Kaimira Sky Village is the first in a five part series of young adult fantasy fiction. Set above the skyes of China in the Sky Village, and deep beneath a ruined Las Vegas in the caves, this is a fast paced, energetic story of two kids struggling to survive in a terrible world. Although Mei and Rom have never physically met, they know each other intimately from the stories their parents have read to them in the Tree Books they carry. When Mei is forced to leave her home on the land for a new one in the sky and Rom is forced to participate in brutal fights for money, the two find comfort in each other through their unique genes and their tree books.

The Trianry wars have pitted meks, beasts, and humans against one another. In their struggles to survive and save the people they love, Rom and Mei rely on one another and themselves to make it through.

The imagery in this story was beautiful and terifying both. The story was quick and entertaining. I am excited to see the series blossom over time.

The Sky Village is the soaring debut to Monk and Nigel Ashland's new young adult series, Kaimira. The Ashlands take the reader to a futuristic world where humans, animals and intelligent machines called meks have been fighting for decades.

In China, twelve-year-old Mei Long's mother has been kidnapped by meks. Her father sends her to live in the Sky Village, an intricate web of hot air balloons that flies high above the earth, while he remains on land to search for his wife. He entrusts Mei with the care of the Tree Book. Mei's mother would read to her from the Tree Book each evening, telling her fantastic tales of children with names like Breaker and Lizard Girl. Her father warns her not to open the book, but Mei, desperate for a way to find her mother, disobeys him. She soon discovers that the Tree Book is no ordinary book. The children from the stories are real, and Mei's book allows her to communicate with Breaker, a teenage boy whose real name is Rom. Rom knows Mei as Dragonfly from his own parents' stories.

Rom lives in the ruins of Las Vegas, where the beasts roam freely and humans have been forced into hiding. Rom's younger sister, Riley, has been kidnapped by beast-mek hybrids known as demons. Rom enters the seedy Las Vegas underground where he is forced to learn the art of demonsmithing to save his sister. Rom's father was a master demonsmith, and Rom shares his father's natural abilities. The demonsmiths conjure beast-mek hybrids for elaborate fights to entertain gamblers in the underground.

Mei and Rom discover that they share the mysterious kaimira gene - a gene that mixes beast and mek elements with their human DNA. The gene gives both of them power that they don't fully understand and must struggle to control. Will this power enable them to save their loved ones? What might it cost them in the process?

I loved the imagery of the Sky Village. The colorful hot air balloons seemed so full of life that they made the contrast with the barren Las Vegas even more apparent. At first I was much more drawn to Mei's story, but over the course of the book I really connected with Rom. His devotion to his sister and his determination to do anything to save her was very touching.

I did feel that the book lagged in some parts, while it seemed rushed in others. There is a lot going on in this book, and some elements aren't explained as fully as they could be, which may be confusing to younger readers.

The Sky Village is a solid introduction to the series, and I am definitely going to pick up the next installment. I hope that we'll get to meet some of the other characters mentioned in the Tree Book (particularly Lizard Girl) during the next four books in the series.

Decades after the devastating Trinary Wars--when humans, beasts, and the intelligent machines known as meks fought each other for control over the Earth's territories--humans all over the globe have adapted to their precarious new position on the food chain. In China, 12-year-old Mei's village has been destroyed by a troupe of meks, and most of the inhabitants, including her mother, taken prisoner. While her father has gone off to battle the meks and recover his wife, he has sent Mei to live in her mother's birthplace--the floating community known as Sky Village, which shies from the events taking place on the ground.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe deep in the ruins of Las Vegas, where beasts prowl the streets, 13-year-old Rom struggles to provide for himself and his sister. When the father who abandoned them suddenly returns and tells his children to retrieve a hidden book, Rom's sister, Riley, is taken hostage by gangsters who live in an affluent underground city. In a desperate effort to free her, Rom agrees to fight in a gladiator-like battle where "demons" comprised of both beast and mek qualities are summoned and controlled by one's own will.

Both Mei and Rom find a connection through the Tree Book, one of which has been entrusted to each of them by their parents. Each remembers their parents reading them stories of other children from this book, and is amazed to find that the other is an actual person and not just a story. Through the book, and the strange entity called Animus which claims to be trapped within, they can communicate to each other and share their ordeals. The mysterious kaimira gene that they seem to have inherited ties them to the beasts and meks in ways that no one fully understands, and they will both need to gain control of their abilities before they manage to destroy the people around them.

The new Kaimira series opens with an exciting first book that pulls you directly into the world of the Kaimira Code, and I am eager to find out what happens in the next installment, which is due out in the fall of 2009.

[...]

The cover of THE SKY VILLAGE is wonderfully mysterious and drew my eye immediately. The forthcoming paperback edition makes even more of this brilliant image. My imagination seems to catch fire every time I'm offered a peek or romp through a new world. Not only does the cover offer this, but the story delivers on that promise.

Written for the 9 to 12 year old crowd, the book offers a lot of adventure for consenting adults as well. With the deluge of great books offered for kids these days, I find my reading time torn between adult and juvenile fiction. THE SKY VILLAGE will capture the attention of new science fiction readers as well as more experienced ones.

The authors, Monk and Nigel Ashland, have written a wonderful adventure filled with lean prose and characters just deep enough to think about. The illustrations by Jeff Nentrup bring the world to life and provide more visuals. That, apparently, was done by design. Judging from the book and authors' website, they intend to take the property to a cartoon or movie franchise. I would be happy to see them do either or both. I think this could be a successful transition.

I had to invest a little bit of time and effort into the book before it fully came to life for me. The beginning is interesting because Mei is being given to the sky village people by her father so he can go in search of her mother, who is missing and presumed dead or captured by the meks. Mei's situation is easily empathetic and will draw young readers in instantly to find out what happens to her next. The sky people live over what used to be China.

I was more curious about the sky village because the idea of people living suspended from hot air balloons and never touching the ground intrigued me. I can't wait for my 11 year old to read this book. As soon as he does, I'm sure he will have plans underway to build our own balloon in the backyard. Good books do that to people.

The fish out of water plot involving Mei is an old standby in fiction, and it works well in this book. But the authors keep up a frantic pace to move their readers along and lay out the groundwork of this new world. I wanted to know more about how the sky village worked, how they went through their day to day life. I didn't find out everything I wanted to know, so that alone will pull me back into the next book.

When her father leaves her, Mei is also given a mysterious book. Her mother and father read her stories from the book when she was little, but they never allowed her to handle the book herself. Most of the stories were about a boy named Breaker. After she opens it, she discovers that the book is part of the technology that was lost after the world was destroyed by the meks. It's a threat, but Mei also believes it could be the key to something wondrous.

While working in the sky village, Mei offends the sky villagers' greatest allies, the birds. She doesn't understand how that happens, but thinks it must be because she has the blood of humans, beasts, and meks in her DNA.

Meanwhile, in what used to be Las Vegas, a young boy named Rom struggles daily to provide for his younger sister Riley by scavenging leftover tech. He also has a copy of the mysterious book. It's called the Tree Book and it's supposed to allow special children around the world communicate with each other. The purpose of this is hinted at throughout the book, but it remains to be seen what purpose it actually serves.

Rom's world is well described and dangerous as well. He has a special ability as well, part of his strange genetic background. He's linked to humans, beasts, and meks the same way Mei is. In the underground world below Las Vegas, Rom learns to "summon" a mechanical demon that has to fight in an arena. This concept is sure to catch hold of the imaginations of young boys. I really like the idea of being able to walk into a salvage yard and raising a mechanical fighter out of all the junk I found there. Hopefully, there will be more exploration of Rom's powers.

The authors cut back and forth between Mei and Rom, pushing the adventures of both to the brink and leaving the readers hanging from chapter to chapter. Once I got started, I had a hard time putting the book down. I finished it in three sittings and could have read it in one if I hadn't been so busy.

Both characters are easily understood by the young crowd and empathized with by adults. This is a book that parents and children can each read, then sit down and talk about. The action is fun and exciting, and easy to visualize. If you have a reluctant reader in your house, THE SKY VILLAGE would be a great book to encourage that kid to read.

The Sky Village: Kaimira rushes you head long into a mysterious and creative world where mechanical beasts called meks, freed zoo animals referred to as beasts, and people co-inhabit a wild world. Humans have sworn off using any advanced form of technology and live in what appears to be an uneasy peace base on territories belonging solely to mek, beasts, and humans. In this world we meet two fascinating children who are continents apart but share more than just a forbidden piece of technology that lets them talk to each other.

Mei, who is of Asian descent and living in a floating village, is discovering she has special abilities that allow her to talk to meks and beasts. Rom, living in the ruins of Las Vegas, finds that he has special abilities in a fighting rink that have him questioning if he is more mek and beast than human. The question becomes how will these two find balance with their strange new abilities and will balance come too late.

More than anything I feel this book puts a new perspective on two topics many adolescents find confusing; the rates of animals becoming extinct and are getting put on endangered and protected species lists as well as the speed at which technology is effecting our environment. This book seems to preach that humans need to find balance between the natural world and our technology. In the world of Sky Village it would appear that balance was not kept and the resulting tip of the scales was enough to cause a devastatingly massive battles referred to in the book as the Trinary Wars.

On a whole the book itself has moments where it is a little rushed and seems a tad contrived and other moments where the story seems to lag a bit. I believe this is just the story trying to find its pace. Hopefully it (and some of the plot gaps) will be resolve in the future books of what promises to be a good read for young science fiction fans.

I haven't much more to say than the other customers on this page, but I wanted to briefly rave about the book anyway in the hopes that more people will read it.

A brand new copy of this showed up at my library's bookstore, which I bought for a dollar. After reading it, I have to say that I absolutely would have paid full price, as it was well worth the purchase.

In this first book of the KAIMIRA series, we are introduced to a rather depressing post-apocalyptic world in which humans are fighting to survive amongst beasts (wild animals) and meks (robots). Not only that, but the beasts and meks also carry on a war against each other. Despite the bleak outlook for life on the ground, one group of people have taken to living in the sky, amongst hot air balloons - this is the Sky Village.

On the flipside of things, there is also life underground in what is known as the Demon Caves. The book takes us between both settings as we follow the adventures of two kids, Rom and Mei. They are both connected via a special gene in their blood known as the Kaimira gene. Not only does this give them supernatural abilities, but they are able to communicate through a magical book known as the Tree Book.

Every page of this book left me breathless. What I enjoyed most about the writing was that, in spite of being introduced to outlandish fantasy elements, the authors made it easy to understand what was happening, helping the reader become absorbed into a new world. Each character, whether they had a bit part or not, had a unique and believable personality and role. The plot and action throughout the book truly sparks the imagination, and could easily be brought to life as a new movie or anime series.

In addition to the story, there are some excellent illustrations included, mostly to set the ambiance for the scenery. In the back of the book, there are extras as well - short story excerpts and bonus material relating to the book itself. It also directs you to the book's website at www.kaimiracode.com!

My only lament is that there doesn't seem to be enough exposure for this title. I work at Borders, and was able to get two copies in, but they didn't sell. An unfortunate fact is that most teens (the target age of this series) seem to only be interested in reading books about high school and vampires now. But as for me, I'll be looking forward to the second book in this series, and will no doubt pay what it's worth this time.

This is a powerful fantasy of soul searching and growth in the struggle for survival. Highly recommended to parents of Chinese heritage. Your children will find Mei (the Chinese character in the book , one of the few kids enpowered with the mysterious Kaimira gene) as a strong role model unlike anything Hollywood has ever presented.