Az is one of the Airborn. With a stretch and a beat of their eight foot wings his people travel effortlessly around and between their cities, perched high above the clouds. Its a life of ease and airy beauty. Only Az has no wings, so in his glorious world of freedom and flight, he is a painful - and isolated - oddity. And then one day he is picked out for a job. A job below the clouds. The system of massive automated elevators which send up everything the Airborn need to survive, are breaking down - and threatening to take the Airborn society with them. Someone has to go down to the Ground to find out what has happened and Az, with his wingless similarity to the prehistoric Groundlings, looks to be perfect for the task of hunting for answers beneath the clouds. But on the Ground, in the vast shadows of the cities, Az finds more questions than answers: a benighted people who worship a dim notion of the Airborn and aspire to be like them. A people who fill elevators with tributes to their winged deities. A people who are beginning to think their way of life is part of a very un-natural order of things. And a girl called Cassie Grubdollar, who's definitely no angel ...
Az is one of the Airborn. With a stretch and a beat of their eight foot wings his people travel effortlessly around and between their cities, perched high above the clouds. Its a life of ease and airy beauty. Only Az has no wings, so in his glorious world of freedom and flight, he is a painful - and isolated - oddity. And then one day he is picked out for a job. A job below the clouds. The system of massive automated elevators which send up everything the Airborn need to survive, are breaking down - and threatening to take the Airborn society with them. Someone has to go down to the Ground to find out what has happened and Az, with his wingless similarity to the prehistoric Groundlings, looks to be perfect for the task of hunting for answers beneath the clouds. But on the Ground, in the vast shadows of the cities, Az finds more questions than answers: a benighted people who worship a dim notion of the Airborn and aspire to be like them. A people who fill elevators with tributes to their winged deities. A people who are beginning to think their way of life is part of a very un-natural order of things. And a girl called Cassie Grubdollar, who's definitely no angel ...
Perfect for readers of Philip Pullman An exciting addition to the Gollancz list - a superb new series for teenagers, who already represent a high proportion of the fantasy readership A wonderfully simple and appealing idea: a race of people who can fly, and the story of the one boy who cannot Perfect timing for the boom in fantasy for teenager readers An enormously enjoyable read A series with a very clear commercial potential We have world rights, and this series has immense potential in the rights field
Jay Amory is a debut children's novelist.
Gr 6 Up-Generations ago, sky-cities were constructed above the cloud cover and those who reside there have adapted to the point where they are born with wings. Sixteen-year-old Az Gabrielson, however, was born without them. The people of the sky-cities rely on supplies arriving in elevators from below to sustain them. Mysteriously, the elevators begin to arrive empty and the people begin to starve, so Az is sent down to figure out what is going on. His lack of wings gives him the perfect disguise. He discovers that the Earth is still populated by "Groundlings" who tithe to the elevators with the expectation that when they die, they will be reborn with wings in the sky-cities and live a better life. The conflict on the Ground is rife with parallels to current events. Amory has created a cast of characters both likable and despicable. The Groundlings come complete with their own dialect, which feels natural after a page or two. While it begins with a more traditional science-fiction feel, once Az arrives on the Ground, the story develops into a steampunk odyssey. Plenty of chases and explosions make for an action-filled read, and the brevity of the chapters makes the book approachable for reluctant readers. Give this novel to fans of Philip Reeve's "Hungry City Chronicles" and Kenneth Oppel's Airborn (2004, both HarperCollins) and its sequels. This looks to be the beginning of a series to watch.-Kristin Anderson, Columbus Metropolitan Library System, OH Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
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