Tag: reading

I’ve reviewed a few of Victoria Williamson’s books in the past; The Haunting Scent of Poppies, Feast of Ashes, Whistlers in the Dark, and Norah’s Ark to date. I think what I admire most about her work is the range of settings she uses, and Skyfleet is no exception.

Firstly, I wish I could go back in time and give this book to 12-year-old me. At that point, I was desperate to be Han Solo, and the idea of a child my age, getting to pilot something as cool as the Firehawk would have guaranteed obsession over this book from me. Actually, the whole thing feels reminiscent of my own childhood – there are Han Solo Star Wars elements in there, but there are also shades of Starship Troopers,* Disney’s Rescue Rangers, and Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds. There are fact files about the individual aircraft – something pretty much guaranteed to appeal to any Pokemon fans out there. Case in point; as youngest was reading, much page-flicking occurred in an effort to decide which craft would be best-suited to deal with which incoming Mutabug species.

I have to admit – I stayed up way past my bedtime reading this and have absolutely no regrets. It was so much fun to lose myself in brightly-coloured escapist adventure again, in a way I haven’t for years. Certainly not since the first time I watched Pacific Rim.

My singular qualm about this book was the layout – it took a bit of coaxing to get the aforementioned youngest kiddo to dive in because of the tiny page margins. I think the blocks of text seemed slightly intimidating. Admittedly, said kiddo is 9, and perhaps a little younger than the main target audience, but it’s worth mentioning in case other small folk out there also find packed pages slightly off-putting. That being the case, it might be a book to read together, rather than to send a young reader off with.

On top of that, I found the change in font for the dialogue when characters were talking over the radio slightly distracting, but as my reading sped up as the book went on, I got used to it, and can definitely see why the decision to differentiate was made.

Otherwise, this was a stonkingly good romp that felt nostalgic without being old-hat. I really hope it’s the start of a series. I’ll definitely be passing out a few copies this Christmas.

Huge thanks to The Write Reads for this book, and to the author for the incredibly fun ARC pack – and massive thanks to Sabrina at Booktails for the photo.**

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*Don’t judge my parents too harshly – they didn’t know I was watching this. Or if they did, they turned a blind eye to my sneaky video-mislabelling antics.

**So, little known fact about me; I use a Nokia flip phone rather than a smart phone. It’s something I started doing in 2016 as a way to stay sane. For the most part, it’s excellent, but for photos… less so. I do have an old DSLR which I use when I’m out and about, but as its currently got its macro lens on for a uni project, it’s of less use for photographing Mutabugs… They’re much too big!

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I’ve set up a ‘bookshop‘ of sorts, over on Bookshop.org, so that I can point you to somewhere to buy that isn’t Amazon. I get a small commission for any sales made there. This helps to support me running this blog. If you’d like to get your copy of Skyfleet this way, please just click here. Thank you for your support.