Skybreaker
Kenneth Oppel
Eos, Nov 2005, $16.99, 384 pp.
ISBN: 0060532270

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