John Marco

The Skylords — (2009) Ages 9-12. A steampunk fantasy trilogy for younger readers. From the Author's website: What would life be like if you could fly? Young Moth of Calio wants to know. He’s obsessed with the airships around his mountain home and dreams of becoming a Skyknight one day, to take to the air like his heroes... And thanks to the inventive genius of Fiona’s grandfather Rendor, humans have finally taken to the sky, not only in giant airships but in small, ornithopter contraptions called dragonflies as well. Not everyone is happy to see mankind’s progress, however. For thousands of years, the mysterious and powerful race known as the Skylords have jealously guarded their heavenly domain. In all this time, an uneasy peace has existed between humans and Skylords, but Moth and Fiona are about to breach themagical boundary between the two worlds.

Starfinder
Starfinder is the story of Moth, an orphaned child obsessed with learning how to fly, and Fiona, the granddaughter of the Governor of Calio, an outpost on the edge of civilization. Calio borders on the Reach, a featureless miles-wide expanse that is supposed to be impossible to cross, covered in an impenetrable mist that conceals and confuses the traveler. The Reach separates the human lands from the mythical Skylords, angelic beings who jealously guard the skies to keep any other race from achieving flight.

Moth is given the Starfinder, the most powerful magical artifact of the Skylords, by his dying guardian and is charged with crossing the impassible Reach and returning the Starfinder to the wizard Merceron. Fiona accompanies Moth, and the two are relentlessly pursued by her grandfather, intent on acquiring the Starfinder for his own purposes.

Starfinder read like two books. The first half kind of meandered along. The plot was slow and the characters seemed flat and cliché. I was having problems staying interested, and kept finding other things to read. About half way through, however, the writing took on a new life as the pace quickened, the characters developed another dimension, and a new character was introduced — Alisaundra, an enslaved Redeemer whose tragic focus underscores the depravity of the Skylords. I actually stayed up late to finish the final chapters of Starfinder.

Fiona and Moth both grow up a lot in this book, and it will be interesting to see what happens in future Skylord volumes. John Marco writes gripping fight scenes and is able to give each of the races a different fighting style appropriate for their abilities. Starfinder is a YA novel, but deals with some serious matters. Marco doesn’t sugarcoat the action and there’s no magical ending where all the characters are protected from anything bad happening to them.

Marco manages to tie up most of the loose ends (though I’m still confused about what being a child has to do with being able to work the Starfinder) and he sets up an ongoing conflict that will be played out in future volumes. I hope Marco gives a better explanation for The Reach and why it is exists, and why it is believed to be uncrossable when the characters in this book traverse it so easily.

Starfinder was uneven, but the second half was good enough to make me want to read the next Skylords book. I hope Marco can sustain the quality. —Ruth Arnell