Title | : | The Sky: The World |
Author | : | |
Rating | : | |
ISBN | : | 0984183353 |
ISBN-10 | : | 9780984183357 |
Language | : | English |
Format Type | : | Paperback |
Number of Pages | : | 160 |
Publication | : | First published September 7, 2010 |
The Sky: The World Reviews
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The opening grabbed me and actually had me on the edge of my seat – it was fabulous! The superb opening had me fired up and ready for action but what followed was many pages of family history and explanatory passages. The telling was skilled and managed to hold my interest for the most part but I would have much preferred there to have been more action with briefer history lessons scattered throughout. The pacing, however, picks up in the latter half of the book. There are more action scenes and various relationships get fleshed out a little better.
Jack Racine, the protagonist, is a complicated fellow. He grew up under a hard-hearted father who constantly found fault with Jack, but who lavished praise and attention on his younger son, Toby. Still, Jack maintains a cocky and irreverent humor. I really liked that about him. His personal demons hound him mercilessly and he sometimes suffers the consequences of poor decisions made in haste, but still, I had to keep my fingers crossed and hope that all would come together and he would be redeemed. The ending hints at a sort of quasi-HEA for Jack, and while some questions were answered, new questions then arose to replace the old ones. In the end, I was left with the feeling that in life, in all things really, there is a cyclical ebb and flow – finding the correct balance is an art that is learned through experience, and a willingness to accept sometimes imperfect symmetry. This is an intelligently conceived and uniquely executed story that is sure to confound and amuse. I admit, I find myself pondering various aspects even days after I finished reading it.
Laurie-J
Reviewed for
Enchanted Book Tours -
A whirlwind tale of larger-than-life characters that both swagger and roll in the hay with equal frequency and dexterity. I thoroughly enjoyed The Sky, The World and, due to the fresh mix of unusual elements it was not quite like anything I've read before. The book is set in alternate 19th century London which has experienced a completely different industrial revolution than ours due to a magical science brought to England and dispensed by the enigmatic Dr. Azaz. The setting feels kind of steampunk and new weirdish but with a flavor all it's own. The use of Egyptian mythology gives the backstory an exotic slant while the quick pace keeps you wondering what's next. Full of imaginative details and a touch of noir, this is a spicy blend best enjoyed with a cup of chai tea.
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Read the review on my website.
As you all probably know, I’m a big fan of Jessica McHugh’s writing. I’ve previously read and reviewed two other books by her: Camelot Lost and Rabbits in the Garden, both whom I enjoyed a lot. I was thrilled to participate in the book tour for another novel of hers, The Sky: The World. Although this book is something entirely different from the two other ones I mentioned, it was a nice and interesting read as well.
The Sky: The World starts out promising enough with pilot Toby and his pregnant wife Sarah crashing down with their plane. Unfortunately, the EPS appears not to be working properly, something which is unheard of because the only two people who know the location of the EPS are the pilot himself and his engineer. When the authorities investigate the bodies of the deceased, they realize two things. Number one, Toby was on laudanum at the time of the crash, and number two…he was a triap. In a world where its normal for people to be born out of a Fertility Pool rather than out of two people making love to each other, being a triap means being discriminated against, laughed at and a lot more. If the Royal Air Force ever found out Toby was a triap, it would have cost him his job. Even after his passing, it costs him his reputation.
Although Toby’s brother Jack is painfully aware of his older brother’s triap-status, he isn’t eager to believe that Toby was on laudanum. Drugs and opium are Jack’s trademarks, not Toby’s. He’s responsible, ambitious, and a good man. He won’t do anything like that, especially not with a baby on the way. Jack realizes right away that something else must be going on. Accidents don’t happen and EPS’s don’t just quit working for no reason. And when the organisation Toby worked for tries contacting Jack as well, he knows that this is his one change to find out what exactly happened to Toby. But although Jack’s suspicions may be correct, he is in for a lot more than he bargained for. The mysterious doctor Azaz, the sole inventor of aircraft, the fertility pool and most of mankind’s inventions might have something to do with why Toby was in Egypt as well…
The Sky: The World is a book with a lot of levels. On the one hand, it shows us a world other than the one we’re familiar with, where every major invention can be accocounted to one man only: the mysterious Doctor Azaz, who has lived for over a hundred years and is apparently immortal and all-knowing. On the other hand, we meet Jack, a young man who struggles not only with himself and the fact that he’s a bit of a loose canon, drinking, sleeping with several women, etc. but also with the fact that he has spent his entire life in the shadow of his father and of his brother Toby. Whereas Toby was the ambitious one, the good and reliable brother, Jack always was the wild one, the irresponsible one. But losing first his father and then his brother several years later, brings Jack to the verge of depression. Determined to clear his brother’s name and to prove he wasn’t on laudanum at the moment of the crash, Jack is willing to do whatever it takes to find out more about the accident, including working for Mr. Pratt, who was Toby’s previous employer.
Jack’s inner struggle will porbably look familiar to a lot of us, and I could relate to it fairly well myself. I was not a fan of his behavior, his constant switching between women (choose one, already!) and his sometimes cruel behavior towards Kat, who has loved him since they were both very young. At times, I didn’t like his attitude at all, although it is in a way understable. Jack grabs booze and laudanum when he cannot longer handle the world, and he has trouble commiting to one person for the same reason as well: whenever it gets tough, he wants to escape. Throughout the book, he does grow as a character, which was all the more reasons for me to like him better. He has sort of this James Bond-esque/Indiana Jones-esque style and attitude, and with the addition of Egypt, ancient Amulets, century-old secrets and the mysterious Doctor Azaz I could not help but imagine him as looking like Indiana Jones as well.
I loved the many notions of aircraft. I’ve never been in an airplane before in my life, but it must feel great to fly through the sky like that, freedom at your fingertips. The mystery surrounding Toby’s death, and how the intrige builds with every passing scene is excellently done as well. Add the dystopian myth of Doctor Azaz, the references to ancient cultures, and you have an adventure novel I personally greatly enjoyed. On the downside though, the pace picked up quite slow, and it took me several chapters to really get into the story, especially as Jack first reminisced about his childhood and his relationship with his brother Toby. I do have to mention that the pace picks up significantly in the second half of the book.
If you like Indiana Jones style novels, then you’ll probably like The Sky: The World as well, although Jack has a lot more depth than Indiana ever had. Jessica McHugh’s writing style, as always, was flawless. A nice read, but I have to admit that I did like her other books better. -
The Sky: The World takes place in an alternative history of the early 1800′s in which an enigmatic person named Doctor Azaz has given humanity progress beyond that of it’s own time period. Locked up in his ivory tower and having no interaction with the outside world, he still commands an almost God-like presence over the world. Azaz has created birthing pools in which fertile women bathe in to be born with the perfect children. Child-bearing through normal means is largely a thing of the past. The most famous of Azaz’s gifts to humanity is aviation. Jack and Toby Racine are two of London’s most famous pilots, and both are triaps: children born through regular pro-creation. After Toby dies in a plane crash seemingly caused by flying high, Jack is left to pick up the pieces and cope with his brothers death. Spending his time in women and laudanum, Jack is a man who lives to excess, fearing he is treading the same path as his alcoholic father. When he is recruited by Azaz to fly a top-secret mission, he begins to question what happened with his brother and may even find a way to become a better man.
The book had me hooked rather instantly with the story of the Racine brothers and the different paths they took in life before finally finding their separate paths, together. Toby the good and Jack the scoundrel, the former a proud member of the Royal Air Force; the latter deciding to become a stunt pilot, forming his own flying team known as The Sherwood Six (even though there are only five of them). It started to fall apart for me shortly after all this though.
It is a fun read and moves along at a brisk enough pace but it’s ambitious nature is under-cut by the story’s brevity. The book is full of weighty ideas and multiple characters that should have been fleshed out more (i.e. there is a storyline involving a bit of intrigue with a side character who never actually appears in the novel). The crux of the story, that the world needs Azaz since he gave them progress, is a sentiment the author seems to stand with, even as she has Azaz choose Jack for the mission because of his status as a triap. The moral complexity of whether or not speeding up humanity’s progress beyond it’s natural time frame is never really touched upon. With all the ideas at work, if McHugh had put a bit more time into it expanding the storyline and making a few tweaks, it could have been an epic.
As it stands, it’s a fun read, but just a couple steps short of great. -
A lot to like with this book. There's a scoundrel for a leading man, a lot of sex and a lot of drugs, and it's all set in this alternate timeline where a creepy mysterious "impure" magician in an ivory tower sets the rules for a precocious Western World on the edge of a tomorrow that would-be today. It's a bit of a who-dun-it, with a lot of snappy dialogue and imagery so well-worded that it might as well have been cgi. This is a mystery, an adventure, a love story, and a redemption tale. Did I mention the witty banter? This book has it in spades. Captain Jack Racine and his crew are like characters straight out of a WWII era movie, only they're not. They're out of the McHughinverse, as they should be.
The first chapter is a little tough to chew through, because there's so much going on, so urgently in this familiar-yet-strange reality. Stick with it. The narrative voice is consistent, and though I personally didn't think I was up for 3rd person, eventually I got used to it. (That was strictly a mood thing, nothing to do with the writing.) I enjoyed understanding more and more what happened in that first chapter as the book moved on. I don't think there's any other way it could have been done!
I understand there's a reformat going on to deal with a technical issue, so perhaps inquire to that status before you dive in, but do dive in, at some point in the near future. McHugh's created a truly unique world here like no other. There's a lot of steampunk going around these days, but this isn't that. I did use that shelf tag because I think it will appeal to readers of the genre. This is wholly unique, borrowing nothing quantifiable from any steampunk trope I can name.
Don't miss this. Rarely do we get to see inside the imagination of such an inventive mind. I suspect McHugh's a bit of a Dr. Azaz, herself, truth be known. But what do I know? I'm just a triap trying to keep my secrets in a ruthless world. -
After a few pleasant (if startling and creepy) encounters with Ms. McHugh's short fiction works, I chose this as my first novel experience. Turns out, it's kind of a mix of a bunch of genres I like: kinda steampunk, lots of action/adventure, seriously speculative, a bit of heaving bosom romance tossed in, and ultimately a lovely, if somewhat gritty redemption story. It's the 19th century, but not the one we're familiar with. The mysterious Dr. Azaz has transformed the world through his many inventions, including aeroplanes and a strange crystalline technology that has changed everything, including the reproductive process. Jack Racine is a world-famous stunt pilot, and a near-perfect anti-hero type. His prowess in the air is only eclipsed by his prowess in the bedroom (or dark alleys, or... well anywhere for that matter,) and his seemingly insatiable appetite for booze, opium, and laudanum. When his brother Toby is killed in a plane crash, along with his pregnant wife, the official report is that the crash was caused by Toby's intoxication. Knowing that this couldn't be true, Jack sets out to investigate and clear his brother's good name. He's called to meet with Dr. Azaz in his tower of isolation, where he learns many of Azaz's secrets, and is thrown headlong into a conspiracy to steal the knowledge that has made Azaz the benevolent icon he has been for decades. This one is a real page-turner!
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Everything about The Sky: The World drew me in: the cover art, the name, and the mysterious Doctor Azaz. I wanted to get to know Jack Racine and therefore it immediately jumped to the top of my “to be read” list. I have always been intrigued by the steampunk genre, but had yet to read anything in it. If they are anything like The Sky: The World, I will be sure to read more. The characters are engaging and believable, no character being all good or all bad. Egyptian Mythology is worked so well into the plot, you can almost believe that this world exists. Even while I wasn’t reading it, parts of the book were always in my mind. And to me, that is the mark of a good book. Something that not only makes you think, but something that makes you think of it long after you put it down.
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An interesting take on an alternate Britain, incorporating some ingenious steampunk elements. Admittedly, I found it a little slow to start, with much backstory to get through, but once I got past that, I couldn't put it down. At times, it read like as if I were sitting down listening to a master storyteller recite a tale. Thoroughly enjoyable book.
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You can find my review of this amazing book on my blog:
http://mybookaddiction.blogspot.com/2... -
LOVED this coming-of-hero story set in a steampunk world.
Touches of Egypt and its lore add to the adventure and mystery which makes this a colorful story. -
This was one of the most unique books I've read in a long time! Highly reccomended!
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Toby Racine, his wife Sarah and their unborn child are killed in a plane crash and it’s left to Toby’s brother Jack to find out the cause of the accident. The story is set in a world very different to ours where women’s eggs are fertilized in a fertility pool built by the recluse Dr. Azaz rather than in the conventional way of being impregnated by a man. People ‘created’ the natural way are known as ‘Triaps’, lower class citizens who are looked down upon, inferior to the true children of Azaz.
The first two or three chapters are devoted to background information, explaining the way this world has developed and how it is run. I have only read one other book by Jessica McHugh (rabbits in the garden) and even though this is a totally different type of story the writing still flows in the way I enjoyed from JM’s other novel.
Jack is a hard person to understand, he acts like an ass, he drinks heavily and takes drugs but there is something about him that makes you believe that it’s all for show and underneath he is really a nice guy. Or maybe it’s just that ‘I’ want him to be one of the good ones!!
As the story unfolds we learn Toby’s life wasn’t as it first seemed, at the time of his death he was on a ‘special secret mission’ which opens up the question was their death an accident or was it murder? Jack is approached to complete the mission his brother had failed in, a task Jack takes on in the hope to find out the truth about Toby’s death.
I can’t help but feel sorry for ‘Kat’ she is clearly besotted with Jack but his treatment of her is sometimes cruel and the story didn’t play out exactly as I’d hoped for the pair. I enjoy reading a book with an epilogue, not only does it finish the story but it takes you that bit further …. In this case 20 years on, it’s nice to find out where the characters end up even if it’s not always where we want them to be.
There was action, intrigue and suspense in this well written and interesting novel!
Book supplied for review.