One of the best things a book can do is make a small change to the world and see how that changes the world. Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel does this perfectly. Matt, the protagonist, is one of the crew on a cargo zeppelin. Zeppelins are much more common in this world due to the existence of a lighter-than-hydrogen gas called Hydrium that caused zeppelins and blimps to be commonplace and even more prevalent airplanes, as they have never been invented. While Matt is aboard the cargo vessel a horrible storm hits and the ship is sent to high altitudes to avoid the storm. Far above the ship the mythical ship Hyperion is spotted. The captain of the cargo vessel, unfeigned by the dearth of oxygen, decides to approach the Hyperion. The cargo vessel tries …show more content…
Matt escapes with a girl called Nadira. Nadira decides to team up with Matt to find and loot the Hyperion. They hire the Sagarmartha, a ship that is equipped for the treacherous trip with special Skybreaker turbines. They are met by Kate a major character from the previous book. They find Hyperion by hitting it with one of their turbines, damaging it. Unable to tow the Hyperion with a damaged turbine they decide to take everything they can, and then crash the ship. They find scientific and technological wonders, including a device that can produce Hydrium and electricity from water. It is figured out that the former owner of the ship discovered a way to make fuel obsolete, he later went into hiding to escape the fuel corporations goons. Rath, a fuel corporation goon decides to sink both the Hyperion and Matt's vessel, Matt and his surviving crew escape in an ornithopter with only a minor fortune in gold. This book was not as good as the first one in the series, and the message came off too strongly, but it still manages to be connectable to other books and easy to …show more content…
The book establishes a sense of isolation much like that of the first part of The Matinen, or even the story of Apollo 13. The book also establishes a timeframe, and a sense of urgency like Saturn Run, except using an entirely different method. While Saturn Run used a race between America and China this book uses the limitedness of supplies and oxygen to create a sense of panic. The author also uses temperature to create a sense of panic. “I’d seen the thermometer outside, it was more than thirty below” (Oppel 196)Is one of the quotes that support this. Because of this and many other improvements made to her books, the author has improved from her last book. The characters were more in-depth and the book seemed to move faster. This second book, had more things that were good about the first book, like more pirates and ship-boarding. It is because of this and many other parts of his book that makes it easy to connect to other
What would you do for love? Would you break up a marriage or assassinate an Archduke? In the short story “IND AFF” by Fay Weldon the narrator must make a choice on whether or not to continue her love affair while examining the Princip’s murder of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife. The story is set in Sarajevo in Bosnia, Yugoslavia where the assassination took place. Through irony, symbolism and setting, Weldon uses the parallel between the narrator and Pincip to show that seemingly inconsequential actions of an individual can have great consequences.
The story of “Unwind” revolves around three main characters that are all scheduled to be sent to a harvest camp and unwound. Connor is a sixteen year whose family believes that he has caused too much trouble in society. Risa is a ward of the state, and due to budget cuts, is too expensive to be kept in the program. Lev is tithe, and individual that has been born with the purpose of being unwound. Connor one day discovers an unwind order in the house and decides to run away. With the help of an honest truck driver, Connor manages to slip away. However, Connor keeps his cell phone and the tracker inside gets him caught. The police attempt to arrest Connor but he resists arrest, runs through the traffic on the road, and grabs a tithed to use as a human shield. This event in turn causes a bus full of state home wards to spin out of control and overturn. Risa is one of the individual on that buss. Risa, Connor, and Lev all run into the woods. The next morning, while the three are gathering supplies such as food and clothes, they come across a storked baby on the door step. Due to past experiences, Connor decides to put all three of them in risk and decides to pick up the baby while a police car slowly passes nearby. Risa, Connor, Lev and the baby all get onto the school bus in hopes of not being suspected by the police car. Once they arrive at the school, they find the nearest bathroom and hide in it with the baby. Lev sees this as an opportunity to escape. As a tithe, he believes that it is an honor to live with the purpose of being unwound, so he finds his way to the school office and turns himself and Connor and Risa in. He then asks for a call, and calls his pastor, who to Lev’s surprise informs him that his face was purposely k...
The book that i chose to do this speech on is Cowboy Ghost. Cowboy Ghost is about a boy named Titus who goes on a cattle drive through Florida in the early 1900s. The main character in this story is Titus. Titus Timothy MacRobertson is a small and weak 16 year old boy that wants to impress his father that kind of ignores him. His mother died giving birth to him and his father “blames” Titus for her death. His father (Rob Roy MacRobertson) is a strong, massive and hardworking man. His brother Micah is a 29 year old man that is described as being a second Rob Roy MacRobertson because of his strength and size, at the end of the book you find out that he was more like their mother. The cattle drive was going really good until seminoles (indians)
In today’s world there are millions of people who grow up in situations that make them powerless. Poverty, violence, and drugs surround children from birth and force them to join the cycle. In L.B. Tillit’s Unchained a young boy named TJ grows up in this environment. With both his mother and father struggling with addiction, he is often left alone on the streets to fend for himself. He turns to a local gang for protection and a sense of place in Jr. High, but is quickly taken out of the life he knows when his father overdoses and dies. TJ is sent to live in a foster home where he learns to care for others and meets a girl and falls in love with her. However, when his mother regains custody of him, TJ is forced back into the gang where he uses violence and drug dealing to stay alive. With help from his foster care manager he soon realizes that he can make it out of his life and return to his foster home and the girl he loves. A central theme of Unchained is that people have the power to make decisions to determine their future.
Written by Katherine Holubitsky, Tweaked is a novel that shows the readers how dangerous drugs are to both the user and their peers. With the two year meth addiction, Chase continues to financially and emotionally drain out his family however; the problems becomes worse when Chase escapes from his dealer's house. Richard Cross, the man Chase attacked, died and as a result, Chase is charged with murder. His mother secretly proceeds to monetarily support Chase but when she was caught, the bond between the family members exacerbated. Time elapsed and Chase was finally caught when stealing a car however, he dies shortly after and overdose and becomes brain dead. Tweaked shows us the reality of how hazardous drugs can be through the physical
3. The book has many moods in it. For the most part, it is an informative book. The book is also a little bit humerous. Most of the time the author will give information about his story, but he will throw some humor in with it. The author was talking about how fishes would land onboard the raft and one time they found a Gempylus (eel looking fish) in Torsteins's sleeping bag.
...t the book was at times, the stories skipped around so you were thrown into Burnham’s situation, and then right back in Holmes’ situation in the same chapter, so that made the book a bit hard to follow. Also, since there were so many names of people involved in both stories, it was difficult to remember who each of them were and what they did to be a part of the story.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take." Proverbs 3:5-6. In the book, Born Again, Chuck Colson was as deadly to political opponents as a lion is to prey. Colson was largely targeted by the media and dragged through the mud, after a scandal that led to an investigation of Nixon's White House administration. He had become a public scapegoat for the media. Through a long and taxing process, Colson was indicted and put in jail. However, through the straining process, he had found a path to God
Out of the Dust takes place in Oklahoma in 1934-1935. During this time, the Dust Bowl is raging through the plains, and everything is covered in dust. Billie Jo and her family live in Oklahoma. Her father, Bayard, is a farmer and her mother, Polly, is pregnant with her younger brother. Billie Jo and her mother love playing the piano and are both very good. The whole family is suffering from the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. The farm is failing.
How 2001: A Space Odyssey makes you think about what mysteries lie beyond the world around us is exhilaration because it brings you into the setting and makes you want to learn more about what is happening to the characters. This extrordinary book was written in a time when it was hard to see us going to any planet much less the moon, but the detail in which is told to the reader is so real that anyone back when the book was made would believe it could happen, even now when it still can't happen it feels very real. The book almost even made you feel what the character felt, emotionally and physically. When the mysterious black monolith is bestowed upon the prehistoric apes in the beginning chapters, you can see it, the way it stands there in the cool desert dawn as the sun hits it with its blinding light. For me this was one of the best books I have ever read.
themes as well as some of the symbols, and try to explain the ending of the book.
In the short story, “Prospector’s Trail”, the author Cathy Jewison makes the characters seem like real people. This can be illustrated by some conflicts that are evident in the story; similarly in everyday life with everyday people. The characters also look authentic because the characters behave the same way the “average” human would and the reader is able to relate to them in some way.
This book teaches the importance of self-expression and independence. If we did not have these necessities, then life would be like those in this novel. Empty, redundant, and fearful of what is going on. The quotes above show how different life can be without our basic freedoms. This novel was very interesting and it shows, no matter how dismal a situation is, there is always a way out if you never give up, even if you have to do it alone.
This is an odd little book, but a very important one nonetheless. The story it tells is something like an extended parablethe style is plain, the characters are nearly stick figures, the story itself is contrived. And yet ... and yet, the story is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking because the historical trend it describes is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking.
The first part of the book focuses on the people and their relationships around the docks and their hometown. It gave an in-depth glimpse into the life and psychological behaviors of fishermen. Given the total length of the book my first reaction to this focus on people was that it was too much. My second reaction was "just right." Less stress would have de-personalized the characters. Towards the end the characters in the book have all learned something about themselves because of this storm. Being that some of the characters are not here anymore makes the book all the more poignant.