Customer Reviews

Skybreaker (High School Musical Stories from East High)

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the most perfectly paced novels I have ever read, and I have read hundreds of books in my life. Like many writers, Oppel can make you care about his characters, but that is just one of the levels on which SKYBREAKER succeeds. His ability to twist a cliche sideways and make it ring true is superb. His tactful descriptions of Matt and Kate's feelings for each other are realistic and enjoyable. The adventure aspects abound, yet never seem rushed or over done. All in all a very entertaining book, and one that I hope is just the second in a long running series.

I loved Oppel's Airborn. I describe it as shades of Titanic (in the air) with a touch of Mysterious Island and Pirates of the Carribean thrown in. In this sequel, Oppel takes us back to the world of graceful hydrium ships and into a search for gold.

As a Paris Airship Academy cadet, Matt Cruse is serving on a rust bucket freighter when the crew sights a long-vanished phantom ship, the Hyperion. Like the Flying Dutchmen of shiplore; the Hyperion is more rumor than fact. The ship is at an unreachable altitude but Matt's captain is foolishly determined to capture it. As the crew falls victim to the crushing altitude, Matt is able to save their lives by disobeying a direct order from his captain.

Back in Paris after this episode Matt is wondering if he has a future at the Academy or with the lovely Kate de Vries. Kate wants to prepare an expedition to find the Hyperion though she is more interested in scientific discoveries than the legendary treasure.

Matt alone knows the the ship's last position and others want his knowledge. Should he let the dream of wealth overtake him and join in the hunt for the Hyperion or should he plug away at his studies and forget the whole thing?

Like treasure hunters searching for Spanish galleons at impossible ocean depths, the team will have to break the sky in their quest. A beautiful gypsy girl, a privateer with questionable motives, a prim governess, brilliant Kate and brave but confused Matt make up the party and are in for the flight of their lives.

As Kate suspects, there are other lethal creatures in the sky besides cloud cats. The other presence in the story is the Captain Nemo/Howard Hughes-type eccentric who built the Hyperion so many years ago. Is his spirit ready to part with the secrets of the ghost ship?

Horation Hornblower meets Jules Verne -- this is a cracking read. I hope Oppel will visit this world again. His fascination with bats continues by the way.

A wonderful fantasy adventure read.

This is a book written with an adolescent audience in mind, however it has the writing quality and story line to keep most adult fantasy/adventure lovers contented.

Personally I liked this book better than "Airborn", (which I felt had some very convienent solutions to solve some of its near impossible situations). This book, (featuring the same main charcters and the same zepellin like airships), seemed to me, to have a better conclusions for the various twists and turns that the heroes encountered.

I found this book hard to put down and would have no hesitancy in recommending it for anyone what wants an interesting, action packed story.

5 Stars!

Skybreaker is probably the most original book I have ever read. From it's flying jelly-fish squids to it's flying spiders. Along with supernatural creatures the book also has some remarkable realism, for example, when the story leads to being 20,000 feet in the air.... the book describes how the air was much thinner then it was at ground level. Matt Cruse, the main character, is around 16 years old and he really enjoys being in the sky on an airship (he was actually born on one). The story is basically about Matt's journey to find another airship, the Hyperion, that mysteriously went missing about 40 years ago. It was said that the Hyperion had treasure on it, but no one new for sure. The author creates very mysterious situations in which I found my self not able to read fast enough to see what would happen next. Overall , if you're looking for a book that will not let you take your eyes away from the page then Skybreaker would be my recommendation to you!

Having read "Skybreaker" without having read "Airborn", I can still enthusiastically recommend this yarn. Too often, sequels depend on the earlier volume and have little integrity as stand-alone titles. And this one stands boldly on its own, head and shoulders above many other YA adventure books. This is a richly detailed alternative-history/light fantasy with interesting characters and intriguing turns of plot, all set in a unique, pseudo-realistic world. Precocious younger readers will enjoy the manageable complexity and scientific elements; older readers will share Matt's desire to assert his independence and prove his worth. Parents and teachers may rest assured that it is uncontroversial, with the possible exception of a scene or social drinking and cigar smooking.

I was so eager to get to SKYBREAKER after AIRBORN I ordered it from the bookstore, started it and five hours later was done. I couldn't put it down. After AIRBORN I had no idea what else could happen to Matt and Kate, but Oppell continues to surprise and astound you with his vivid imagination and talent to bring his story to life. As I read about their adventures in obtaining a mystical, ghost-like air-ship in the sky, I felt as if I was seeing the movie in my head. His attention to detail and ability to bring the characters to life leave you wanting more. You also find yourself cheering on Matt and Kate, and a few other new characters, as they try to obtain what everyone else has failed at...the elusive HYPERION. Now, I'm am anxiously awaiting a 3rd book! This second book was just as good as the first, similar to Harry Potter in nature this book will appeal to all kinds of adults and children. I would recommend reading AIRBORN before reading this one to get the full background on our hero, Matt Cruse!

I loved this book! I simply couldn't put it down. Kenneth Oppel has a great way of keeping my eyes glued to the book. I couldn't hold the suspense most of the time; I found my eyes skipping to the bottom of the page. Luckily, I forced myself to go back and read it so I would understand what was happening! This book took me 2 days to finish reading, it was very captivating and I had a hard time putting it away. I like the way he told the story because every chapter continued from the last and it was very exciting to read on although it was a long book.

I predicted that there wouldn't be treasure on the Hyperion. But, there was gold...so I was wrong about that! I think that the story plot was very original, imaginative and creative. Everything was very detailed and I could almost picture every scene. Especially when they were hiding from Rath and his crew, and when they (______) Hyperion. I think he described Hal, Kate, Nadira, and Matt's personality very clearly. When Nadira was being accused of leading Rath and his crew to the Hyperion, I knew it wasn't her because of the shadow in Matt's room. I think that the idea of flying squid-like things (aerozoans) and cloud cats and flying spiders with wings were very creative. When Kate and Matt were hiding in the wolf case from Rath and Barton, I thought that Rath knew that they were in the room somewhere and was waiting for them to come out of hiding. Also, when Matt was saving Kate from Rath and Barton, I thought of the idea of shooting the glass separating the aerozoans from them; and that's what Matt did! At the ending, I predicted that Kate and Matt would find the blueprints in the ornithopter but instead, they found something else.

Overall this was an excellent book, and I would rate it 9 out of 10.

Matt Cruse is back. He's in the flight academy, where he goes on a navigation-training seminar aboard the Flotsam, an old cargo ship with a sort of deranged captain. As they are going through a large storm they spot a ship, the Hyperion a ship 4o year old mystery ship told to be worth millions. The ship is flying at about twenty thousand feet- way too high for any airship. The captain get s deranged with envy, he takes the ship up everybody gets hit hard with the effects of the altitude. Even Matt suffers a little, but when enough, enough Matt takes the ship down and is the only one to have seen the coordinates. When they land Matt, Kate and some friends embark on a journey heading for the Hyperion.

Skybreaker is the book after AirBorne; Skybreaker is Kenneth Oppel's sixth book. These books take place in a highly technological world that uses lesser materials like wood and rope, unless your talking about air ships, which are very high tech.

In my opinion this is better than the first. Skybreaker is a little bit historical fiction, but mostly fictional fantasy. I really liked this book. I think boys and maybe some girls would like it, but I would recommend it to 12-15 year olds.

anonymously,

anonymous

As a teenage first year student at the Airship Academy, Matt Cruse like all other new pupils, was sent on an on the job assignment. He sails through the air on the dilapidated cargo ship the Flotsam. However, when the crew spots the legendary ghost SKYBREAKER the Hyperion at about 20K up from Antarctica, Captain Tritus gives the order to soar upward so that they can grab the vessel and claims its rumored millions that belong to a wealthy inventor. However, the Flotsam is not built for high stratospheric conditions and the crew begins to suffer from hypoxia. Matt intercedes before they all die from mistakes caused by the increasingly thin oxygen.

Someone from the crew sells the sightings story to the newspapers, while Matt's tells his best friend from the Aurora escapade Kate de Vries that he was on the Flotsam and saw the Hyperion. Kate persuades Matt that they should salvage the Hyperion. She also brings Captain Hal Slater of the Saga to pilot their expedition and they are joined by Gypsy Nadira. Passion is heating the Saga though that must stay in the background as sky pirates and deadly rivals such as the Sagarmatha are also AIRBORNE racing for the prize.

Readers should picture a Victorian teenage Indiana Jones who performs courageous feats in the stratosphere to understand the concepts behind the exciting SKYBREAKER. The story line is action, action, and more action, but the key cast members seem real due to the feisty amusing relationships. The rectangular romance augments the capers so that teenage action adventure fans (both genders) will appreciate Kenneth Oppel's latest thriller, the sequel to the exhilarating AIRBORNE in which Matt was a hero.

Harriet Klausner

I really liked Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel. It is an excellent sequel to the first book, Airborn. It's setting ranges from France all the way to Antarctica as the game goes on. Although no time frame is given, I believe that it was set in the past. The genre is a mix between historical fiction, sci-fi, and mystery. The past setting separates it from other sci-fi stories, and the fact that it strays so much from historical fact (flying jellyfish-squid things) seperates it from pure historical fiction. I believe that anyone who likes a good adventure story would like this book, due to the fact that that is what this book is.

The main character is Matt Cruse, the same main character as in the last one. He's around sixteen years old in this book. He really enjoys being in the sky on an airship, and he was actually born on one. He also develops a crush on his friend Kate as the story goes on.

The main goal of the book is a treasure hunt to the lost airship, the Hyperion, which disappeared 40 years earlier under mysterious circumstances. Fearsome creatures such as the flying jellyfish-squids known as the Aerozoans, the pirate John Rath and his cohorts, and the sheer fact that the Hyperion is so high up that it's freezing cold and the air is thin don't make the job any easier.

After an introduction to the goal of the story, a restaurant-related introduction to Matt and his friend/crush Kate de Vries and what the two of them did since the last book ended, Matt's first meeting with the villainous John Rath and his rescue by the gypsy girl Nadira, Matt going to Kate's house only to see her talking with a man named Hal Slater, the story starts to heat up. As Matt, Kate, Nadira, Hal, Kate's chaperone Miss Simpkins, and the crew of Hal's airship Sagarmentha leave the airship port, they are fired at by John Rath. A bit later, they run into the first encountered with the aerozoans, which results in the death of one of the crew members and gives Matt an opportunity to get a position on the crew. Eventually, they come upon the Hyperion, which has drifted to around 20,000 feet over the Antarctic Sea.

Oppel did really well with the humorous lines in it, like "It seems like whenever I'm with Kate, a new species pops up and tries to eat us". I also like the realistic detail that the air is very thin at 20,000 feet. My favorite scene is when Matt thinks of a clever way to defeat John Rath (which, to be technical about it, just defeats Rath's cohorts and scares Rath off). I can relate to the fact that at one point Matt is stuck on whether he likes Kate or Nadira more. All and all, Skybreaker is a really great book.