Larklight

Art and Myrtle Mumby live in Larklight, a house that orbits Earth beyond the moon, with their father, their mother having disappeared years earlier and thought dead in an aethership wreck, until one day, monstrous white spiders attack Larklight and send them scurrying Can Art and Myrtle save their father, Larklight, and the entire British Empire First off, if I was thirteen, this would be my favorite book of all time Larklight takes place in the 1850s, only it s an 1850 s with Jules Verne esque [...]

2 March 2008 Huzzah What a glorious tale I loved it Certainly one of my new favorite books besides being oodles of fun to read, it was thoughtful, imaginative, charming, adventurous, surprisingly well written with delightful illustrations I would never have believed that a Victorian outer space adventure with aether ship pirates, giant talking spiders, plots against the Empire oh no God Save the Queen and hoverhogs could fit together so perfectly, conveyed by the pen of a brave British boy, wort [...]

I honestly think this is one of my new favorite books Absolutely wonderful Funny, creative, cute, charming, endearing, fast paced, and sweet Delightful characters fill the book from cover to cover The plot is both intriguing and pretty complex without being too confusing or obvious The illustrations add to story and seem very fitting to the style of writing.The book is filled with wit and heart I adored it So, I already love it Just about 100 pages into it, and it s delightful The characters are [...]

It s the steampunkiest This book was so much fun Literally my only complaint is a few things at the end seemed wrapped up a little improbably But wait this is a Victorian Space Drama Who am I to question what s probable Hah Anyway, the narrator is a delightful little opinionated boy, and the plot moves along at a quite a clip, propelled by the chemical wedding in the aether engines, no doubt I would totally recommend this to anybody, it s quick and fun Definitely giggled outloud a bunchA As the [...]

So much fun There isn t any other word for the book just, fun I d pretty much recommend this without any qualifications.More light hearted than theHungry Cities Chronicles I m not sure if it s better I think I like it better, though I don t love any of the characters as much as I loved Hester, because I was really quite annoyed by the way the books ended I couldn t have told you what should have happened, but what did happen felt like a cop out I suppose I might get as annoyed over Larklight s s [...]

A lot of fun and I really liked the cheeky references to classic sci fi, especially H.G Wells

I m normally a huge lover of books directed at kids but this one just didn t blow me away and I can t pinpoint why It s steampunk and directed towards kids in the 10 year age group I m guessing The science is so completely wrong that it s obviously written that way I assume because the story is set a century or so ago and knowledge of space would have been very wrong at best, even though space travel is commonplace in this story For example, space is not a vacuum as we know it it s aether and qu [...]

2016 02 23 Still as adorable as I remember 2007 01 01 I wish I knew how to get people to read this book This book is fabulous It s very much speculative fiction, told in a Victorian style, a what if romp through what might have happened if space had been like people of the 19th century had imagined and the British took their colonization ideals out into the far reaches of the solar system It is amazing and creative and so full of imagination I am not quite sure how all the fantastic elements Ree [...]

Aptly subtitled A Rousing Tale of Dauntless Pluck in the Farthest Reaches of Space, this is an enjoyable read for ages nine or thereabouts and up It is an adventure set in a Victorian space age, written as Jules Verne or H.G Wells might have imagined it The plot is exciting, the writing deft and witty, so that adults are likely to enjoy the reading experience just as much as kids There s some fun and interesting playing with gender conventions, too, as the narrator s older sister yearns and stri [...]

Ugh That turned into quite the chore to read The only thing that piqued my interest was the hoverhogs, which are floating pig like creatures that clean up rubbish That was it I think the general idea of this book had a lot of potential, but only if everything was different Haha But seriously I would ve preferred reading about older kids and leaving the parents out of the picture completely I basically wanted the entire book to be mature My biggest beef with this book Censorship I understand tha [...]

Absolutely fantastic book I laughed, I cried, I wet my pants Well, the pants wetting part isn t true And neither is the crying But I did laugh quite a bit while reading this book.Before I was even halfway through the book, I found myself trying to convince friends to read it by telling them, It s kind of like Scott Westerfield s Leviathan series meets L.A Meyer s Bloody Jack series mixed in with the television show Firefly No I am completely serious And IT WAS AWESOME And funny Did I mention the [...]

In all honesty, I struggled with this book It s beautifully presented, well written and filled with fantastic illustrations that support the story perfectly There s steampunk in outer space And pirates All of these things should make it an incredible read But for some reason I was bored.I struggled to read than a couple of chapters at a time Maybe it s because I didn t particularly like any of the characters Myrtle in particular needed a good slap, although to be fair she did get better Or mayb [...]

This book was a really neat one, a sort of Victorian era sci fi That is, it was set in the 1800s, but in this version of the 1800s, Earth had space travel capabilities, Mars is populated by Martians, and it is far from uncommon to meet alien races There were lots of neat characters, space pirates, exciting adventures, and exotic, otherworldly locales, and I loved the semi Victorian writing style All in all, I thought it was a very imaginative, clever book The inside back cover says the author is [...]

Nice story, wonderful illustrations and I loved the various hints to pop culture Dune, Star Trek, Spiderman, Dracula Don t you want to try and find them yourself now

Middle grade crowd should enjoy this space adventure about Art and his sister Myrtle It has it all, aliens, pirates, adventure, the strange and wondrous.

As part of my go back in time and read happy nostalgic books project, I picked up this wonderful Juvenile fiction novel As with you can read my review here, I found myself captured by the simplicity, craziness,and childish charm of this book Simply put, if I d read it a few years ago, I would have loved it As far as it goes now I liked it quite a bit, but I was missing depth and intricate characters Even though it wasn t amazing, this book was very good Some reasons why 1Airships As you can tel [...]

Larklight takes many historical notions about space and runs with them Instead of vacuum we have aether a breathable if thin atmosphere between planets The moon is populated by mushrooms, Mars by rust coloured elves, and the great storm of Jupiter is a thinking being Colonies are firmly established on Mars, the Moon and once Venus, and interplanetary travel a matter of alchemic engines.There is endless amount of adventure in this middle grade story, told by Art, and with excerpts from his sister [...]

3.5A steampunkish space adventure based on the old Victorian adventure stories, complete with huzzahs to the glorious Empire but also those against the Empire and characters pointing out how not so glorious it is to come about and muck with people quite happy on their own, thanks much It s hard to really say whether this is sci fi or fantasy One would expect sci fi since there are aliens and space adventures however, there s nothing remotely realistic about the science, what with people running [...]

There is a lot to like about Larklight It has the form of Victorian scientific romance and the stylistic flair of postmodern irony The touch of absurdity is, dare I say, Lovecraftian, and yet beneath all the nonsensical madness, there is the honest desire for a better past, a better present, and a better future To be fair, I don t think Reeve intended it to be a story about how things could be better, but you have to admit, writing about a different past reveals than listlessness but a sense of [...]

I must have read this series a dozen or times Utterly captivating and imaginative Admittedly, Reeve s casual use of the imperial adventure tropes made popular by H Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling is troubling For an adult reader, it is easy to attribute a layer of irony to Art s blind patriotism but I suspect that those lines are easily blurred for the target audience However, it is true that foregrounding such tropes does make them easy to discuss and easier to debunk, unlike the covert imp [...]

Normally I reserve 5 stars for books that make me think or speak to me on a deep level, but this one was simply pure whizz bang fun from beginning to end And unlike some other children s books I ve read recently I m looking at you, _House of Power_ , the prose, the plotting, and the character development lived up to the gosh wow premise And also, who wouldn t love a book with a subtitle like a tale of dauntless pluck in the farthest reaches of space I ve already started the sequel, _Starcross_.

I loved the steampunk aspects of this book As it is the only steampunk novel I ve read so far , I really have nothing to compare it to, but Victorian space travel is very appealing Some parts seemed a bit detached, though that may have been because the first person narrative only gave one viewpoint Other than that, it was a delightful, fun and exciting book, and certainly a good introduction to steampunk

Much light hearted than Reeves s Hungry City books Like, by a lot I loved the Victorian adventure story feel of the thing The world building is fairly well done, and it s a very different version of space and space travel Myrtle could get on my nerves sometimes, but she seemed to be improving by the end of the book, and I think there s hope for her character I m interested to see where this is going, because I generally have a lot of faith in Reeves.

This book is captivating tale of adventure of space pirates, giant spiders and mysterious beings The book kept me on the edge if my seat and I m looking forward to reading the other books in the trilogy.

SummaryAnother good book for young readers that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys 19th century English culture and imaginative space adventures, for this book blends the two quite admirably Set in an alternate past in which Newton s discoveries led not only to the advancement of physics and math, but allowed a steam powered generation of enterprising Englishmen to launch themselves into the depths of space, Larklight follows the adventures of a young 11 year old Arthur Mumby and his slightl [...]

Book was read in english, but review is in german Sorry to those who cannot comprehend it o Wir schreiben das Jahr des Herrn 1851 Im britischen Imperium herrscht K nigin Victoria ber England, die amerikanischen Kolonien und die Besitzt mer der Krone auf Mond, Mars und anderen Planeten des Sonnensystems Das Universum von Larklight ist definitiv nicht das, welches wir kennen 1703 entwickelte Isaac Newton den therantrieb, seitdem eifers chtig geh tet von den Alchimisten der Royal Alchemists Society [...]

NOW READING WITH MARCUS.ORIGINAL READ 8 10 finished 17 January 2009 This book is totally insane It s also absolutely gorgeous and I loved it.While I think I had heard of Philip Reeve previously, I had never heard of this book before I saw it reviewed on someone s blog sorry, I didn t bookmark the link and I no longer remember where it was if it might have been you, drop me a note and I ll add a link to your review While a children s book, it sounded like a lot of fun and something being a childr [...]

To begin with I feel I should explain that at first I resisted reading anything by Philip Reeve because honestly he seemed to be all over the place and writing fantasy and science fiction and I ve been burned already by Scott Westerfeld s lack of writing skills, in spite of his really imaginative stories I felt, unfairly it seems, that a book with such a good sounding plot must surely be badly written, like Leviathan and Behemoth But on hearing that Peter Jackson was interested in The Hungry Cit [...]

It is the mid nineteenth century, Queen Victoria is on the throne, and the British Empire stretches into the stars With their absent minded father for their only human company, Arthur and Myrtle live in a ramshackle house named Larklight floating in deep space But then giant spiders invade Larklight and kidnap their father, and Art and Myrtle barely escape They join up with a pirate crew led by the notorious Captain Jack Havock and have a number of thrilling adventures whilst evading the spiders [...]

Space pirates, alien spiders, and flying pigs The story of Art and Mrytle Mumby takes place in an alternate Victorian England The Brits have taken to Space during Queen Victoria s reign Alien spiders have a bone to pick with the British, and the Mumbys are the first to feel their wrath Art and Mrytle must escape from the clutches of alien spiders, and team up with notorious space pirate Jack Havock to try to save the world.There s a lot of adventure and humor The book is told mainly from Art s p [...]