I admit that as I started reading this book I felt a great deal of trepidation: I haven’t read much speculative space fiction set in a Victorian or Edwardian setting, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to enjoy this kind of story. Kenneth Oppel’s Matt Cruse series takes place in a slightly alternate history than we are familiar with, and this is an early twentieth-century technology that relies on dirigibles as the main form of travel and transport, which I like. In this book, however, Matt, Kate, and a new cast of characters train for space travel, and I began reading the novel unconvinced that author Kenneth Oppel could make this kind of travel plausible given the type of technology he had already established in his world building. I chastised myself for my resistance, however, especially after considering the tradition Oppel is operating within: French author Jules Verne wrote about space travel in From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and Off on a Comet (1877), American writer Edward Everett Hale theorized about space stations in The Brick Moon (1869), and English author H.G. Wells wrote about space colonization in The First Men in the Moon (1901). There are also examples from Russian writers as well! Clearly, there is a tradition of speculative space travel fiction spanning over a decade and a half, and rather than ask whether or not space travel is possible for this world, I needed to ask if it is internally consistent with the world Oppel has created and the literary tradition he is operating within as a whole. My attitude safely in check, I was able to read this final book of Oppel’s trilogy with new eyes and embrace the adventure. As with the previous novels in this series, Oppel has created a quest narrative that is action-packed and rich with tropes that are meaningful and relevant to young adult audiences, and the text reads like an action movie with vivid imagery and beautifully written adventure that kept me scrambling to see how Matt and Kate’s story ends.
Matt manages to foil a terrorist attack on the tower—he always seems to be in the right at the right time—and then plans a special birthday celebration for Kate. With all the excitement around space travel, companies have started to sell the right to name the stars, and Matt has purchased a star to be named after Kate; he plans to present her with the certificate during a romantic and private stargazing session at a local observatory. Instead, he gets the surprise of his life when she tells him that she has been summoned home to Canada by her parents. Now that she is of marriageable age and from a wealthy family, her parents feel it is time that she is married and properly settled. Matt is devastated; the social divide between them is significant, but while they’ve been in Paris, he’s been able to put off thinking about the future and how their lives will take them in different directions. But all is not lost: The owner of the company Matt once worked for, Mr. Lunardi, has thrown his hat into the space race and is looking to recruit “astralnauts” for his program. Both Matt and Kate are selected as candidates, and the training will take place in Lionsgate City in Canada, where both their families live. After years abroad, Matt and Kate are going home.
Upon arrival in Canada both return to their respective homes and Matt is made to feel, once again, their difference in social class when he is invited to the de Vries estate with his family for a garden party. Matt sees Kate with her family for the first time, and recognizes that her parents not only have plans for Kate, they have potential mates already lined up. It is obvious that Kate’s parents are going to pressure her to get married, but that still seems a while off with both Matt and Kate are due to start astralnaut training in the city. But even this gets thrown into doubt when Matt discovers that Kate is guaranteed a spot as a science officer, while he is going to have to compete against over a hundred other candidates for his spot. Despite this, he makes friends within the program, particularly Tobias Blanchard, an underwater welder with a fear of heights who is also of a similar age. While the other candidates try to show their independence and refuse to work together, Matt and Tobias take care and support each other, and their relationship is especially important to Matt as he struggles with his feelings for Kate and the risks in the mission he is hoping to be a part of.
But before there can be a mission, there’s a whole series of problems that must be dealt with. Kate and Matt are asked to travel to the home of famed journalist Evelyn Karr to recruit her for their space mission; even though Matt’s spot isn’t assured, he knows that if Evelyn doesn’t go, Kate’s parents won’t let her go either. A Babelite infiltrates the training facility and plants a bomb, which must be located before it detonates and sets back the program. Then there are Kate’s activities as a suffragette: she aligns herself with a militant faction and brings embarrassment to the space program, as well as exposing Matt to expulsion from the program when Kate tricks him into being present while she vandalizes a building during an organized protest. Despite being allowed to continue in the program after the mishap with Kate, Matt isn’t one of the three chosen astralnauts, but Tobias is. And finally, at the ceremony announcing the crew of the Starclimber, Kate walks in wearing another man’s engagement ring, her “ticket to outer space” (169). It is only after one of the three chosen crew becomes injured that Matt is selected to go, and he must make his journey into space despite being furious with Kate.
But Matt’s feelings for Kate and his insecurities about space travel must be set aside as they prepare for launch into space and the mysteries they will discover there. There are new adventures, new forms of life for Kate to discover, and a new catastrophic failure that leaves the crew struggling for their lives. They’re in a race against time to figure out how to survive this most recent disaster.
As with the first two books, it is the blended storylines that make this story such a smart and fun read: Matt’s insecurities are real, and his feelings for Kate reflect true teenage confusion and discovery. The characters are complicated, and motivated to operate in ways that give them depth that sometimes feels lacking in novels written for young adults, and this is the main reason why I would strongly recommend this novel to reluctant readers, especially boys. At times the plot seems slow and reflective, but the number of plotlines creates an intensity that is engaging and makes this book hard to put down. For example, the reader gets to meet Matt’s mother and sisters, and to see the special connection he has with them, even though he has been gone for a considerable portion of his life. Matt’s desire to protect and provide for his family has been important throughout the series, and I appreciated that Oppel allows the reader into this relationship: Matt always weighs his decisions against how they will impact his family not just because of his character, but also because he truly loves and cherishes his relationship with them. I found the relationship between Matt and his mother to be especially poignant; it is clear she loves him greatly, but she wants him to have the freedom to develop into who he is meant to be.
One of my favorite parts of the book is initially the one that caused me the most unease: The method Oppel has chosen for his manned space exploration, the space elevator. In this method there is a counter-weight planted deep in the earth and a cable attached to a rocket that is in geo-synchronous orbit. This idea for space travel dates back to 1895 and Russian scientist and author Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and modern scientists continue to argue that it may be the most practical and cost-efficient method for mass space travel. I’ll freely admit that I’m not the best with scientific concepts, but this is one that is entirely consistent with the futuristic storytelling conventions of the Victorian period and fits with the technology available to the characters. The characters prepare extensively for the rigors of space travel and, unlike other texts, there is a real sense that these ‘astralnauts’ will be severely tested in an unfamiliar and hostile environment.
One of my strongest criticisms with this book has to do with the suffragette storyline that involves Kate and the repeated comments she makes throughout the story about being free to pursue her interests and career choices. While I think it is an important element of the story (and it definitely fits in with the true history of the first two decades of the twentieth century, I feel like this was never fully developed beyond both Kate’s fiancée and Matt telling Kate that they will allow her the freedom she is asking for as they vie for her hand in marriage. It feels like a poorly developed element of an otherwise well-written adventure narrative, and feels a little strident or designed to placate the female readers of a male-dominated story. I’m glad that Oppel inserts it at all—the target audience for this book should be thinking about these issues—I just wish it were done a little more gracefully.
This book is rated ages 10 and up, and I feel this is a fairly accurate rating. There are episodes of terrorist violence, physical violence, as well as death, and these require a degree of maturity to understand, but they shouldn’t be problematic for the age 10 and up crowd. There is limited romantic contact between Matt and Kate, and this relationship develops in a way that is age appropriate. Additionally, the vocabulary is simple enough to allow a YA audience to fully engage with this text, but I find that the easy vocabulary doesn’t mean a simple story; the imagery is vivid and powerful, and some of the best moments in the novel occur in the dialogue between the characters. I highly recommend this story for children and adults who love space adventure, but particularly for reluctant readers who need high interest material to keep them engaged with the text.
The final book in the Matt Cruse trilogy picks up a year after Skybreaker, and the reader finds seventeen year-old Matt on summer break from the Academy and working in Paris as the pilot of the aerocrane Atlas. The world is in a space race, and the two most powerful nations in the world, France and Canada, are furiously working to be the first to succeed. France is constructing the Celestial Tower, a massive structure that will reach all the way to space, and is employing a vast number of workers. This works out for Matt: He needs the income to help support his mother and little sisters back in Canada, and although he is highly doubtful of the success of the project as a whole, the money is welcome and this job keeps him near Kate, the young woman he increasingly sees as vital to his happiness. But the French project isn’t without its political issues, and in addition to his emotional confusion, Matt has to navigate the threat of violent protesters known as “Babelites,” who feel that space travel is an abomination and are trying to destroy the tower.
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