I had loved the first two books in Kenneth Oppel’s zeppelin series, so I was very eager to read Starclimber. And I loved it, let’s begin with that. Lots of fun. But I have a fair number of complaints.
My recollection of Airborn is unabashedly positive. My recollection of Skybreaker is that it wasn’t quite as good as the first one, but had sky squid, so that’s all right. I suspect that my recollection of this third book will primarily be that the main concept, a cable to outer space held at the top by a primitive rocket in geosynchronous orbit, was utterly preposterous and failed to make sense at any of the plot points.
That’s not to say I didn’t have fun. I had a lot of fun. If you haven’t got around to reading any of these yet, and then you read the first one and like it, I would certainly recommend continuing with the rest. After all, if preposterous pseudo-science were going to inhibit your enjoyment, you wouldn’t have made it through the first one. It’s just… there’s preposterous and delightful, and there’s preposterous and doesn’t-work-for-me-somehow.
Still. Victorian spaceships. With gears.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.