The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt

Airships too!
Review by TheMole

I found a synopsis of Stephen Hunt's "The court of the Air" and was a little intrigued. I tested out the libraries recent addition to it's online facilities and ordered a copy of the book which arrived quickly. At nearly 600 pages in length it seemed a little daunting at first but I quickly got into the stories. It is a little strange as a plot line as the Hero and Heroine, who are both orphans, hardly meet in the story and their journeys through the book hardly cross except at a couple of brief points. In addition to that we have 'co stars' whose continued survival in the plot cannot be guaranteed no matter what the 'prophets' may say. I found there to be rather a lot of characters coming and going as we move between not 2 lines through the plot but sometimes 4 or 5 lines. On accasion I felt I ought to have a notebook, but I do have a terrible memory.  Despite these issues the book was, for me, a new approach to fantasy and I did really enjoy the book and found it truly 'engaging' to use a word from the publisher which I find to be very relevant.

The book starts as we meet Molly who is about to lose yet another job and the beadle in charge of the poorhouse where she lives is going to lose his temper over it. Sounds Victorian? It did to me at first but we rapidly learn to make no comparisons between this fantastic world and the world as we know or ancestors knew it. There is a revolution underway, although no one knows about it yet, and it will bring about a 'fairer' society. However the 'sponsors' of this revolution have their own agenda and it will be down to our heroes, amongst others, to save their world if they can.

TheMole's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - CollinsVoyager
Genre - YA Fantasy

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