Starclimber by Kenneth Oppel

Released March 2009

This is the third book in the series by Kenneth Oppel that started with Airborn and Skybreaker. I loved Airborn when I first read it. It was like a high seas pirate adventure but in the sky on an airship. It had adventure, suspense, action, and a little romance. Skybreaker was good but I didn’t like it as much as Airborn, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from Starclimber. However it only took me a couple of pages and I was off and running into the unique world that Oppel has created with this series. The book hooked me right away and I didn’t quit reading until the end. Starclimber reunites us with Matt Cruse, the former cabin boy who’s now attending the Airship Academy, and Kate de Vries, the fiesty and brilliant girl who’s more interested in discovering new lifeforms than living her family’s wealthy lifestyle. Matt and Kate are going on a new airborn adventure this time around – they’re traveling in the first attempt at reaching outer space. (Oppel’s series is set in a kind of alternate reality – it feels like it’s in the past, but it is also very futuristic. A time and place where space travel hasn’t happened yet, but it’s completely normal to travel in giant airships.) Going to outer space isn’t so strange, but the way they are getting there is. And you can be sure there are several exciting and action-filled sequences and daring circumstances along the way. If you haven’t read any of Oppel’s books, I’d start with Airborn, then keep reading in this fun adventure series.  –Becky Fermanich, Youth Services Librarian

Icarus at the Edge of Time by Brian Greene

Released Sept. 2, 2008

This futuristic retelling of the Icarus fable is written by one of America’s top physicists and illustrated with full color photographs taken by the Hubble Telescope.  Designed to appeal to all ages, it may hold special interest for teens and adults who enjoy science fiction or space exploration.

“The starship Proxima is on a twenty-five-trillion mile journey. Icarus was born on the ship as was his father and his father’s father, but there will be two more generations before the Proxima reaches its destination. As the tale begins, the Proxima is making an emergency diversion to avoid a black hole. Icarus wants to get a closer look. Although his father explains that when something goes into a black hole it never comes out, Icarus is confident that he can journey to the black hole’s edge and still make it back. He sneaks one of the Runabout ships out of the docking station and sets off to explore the black hole on his own. The result is unexpected and startling. Icarus returns to find his world profoundly and forever transformed.

In Icarus at the Edge of Time Brian Greene has given us a fable about fathers and sons, curiosity and wisdom, and the complexity of the universe as only a physicist of his range and lucidity could. Designed by Chip Kidd–with full-color images from the Hubble Space Telescope–it is destined to be a classic for all ages.”  - Amazon.com