The Last Of The Sky Pirates (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
"The Last of the Sky Pirates" (Edge Chronicles #5) is Twig, who flew beyond the sickness that ate all the great stone ships, then was grounded when the last uncontaminated crew died from bad water. Library mislabeled this as #1 when #5, explains my confusion.Paul Stewart writes, and Chris Riddell draws, a fantastical world. Names are redundant, reminiscent, or whimsical: leadwood, ironwood; woodbee, woodmoth, woodpear, woodmidge, woodcat, woodfowl, woodhog, woodwolf, woodtroll; lullabee wood; pinegrape; wig-wig, tilder, muglump. The author kills people gruesomely without compunction, at odds with the otherwise Family rating and light humor of language.Librarian knights choose three apprentices at a time to leave the hidden sewers of Undertown and sneak past evil Guardians of the Night. Guided by a grokgoblin then a nightwaif, they ride prowlgrins past shrykes to the Free Glades. In Lake Landing, they build individual flyers to explore. The carved wooden ship shapes are lifeforms: Stormhornet, Ratbird, Hammelhorn. When research is complete, students fly home and contribute papers. After an introduction fills in the history of the Edge Chronicles, we follow tiny overly curious Rook Barkwater. His fellow questers are one-dimensional. Stob is always loud, rude, and arrogant. Magda is always quiet, kind, and conciliatory. The sudden insertion of sallow withdrawn skinny traitor Xanth into the Announcement Ceremony Chapter Three, without any line or page demarcation, feels out of place. At least the enemy tower line drawing page could have been put first.Spoilers & Whyning (sic):They get three gifts upon departing. The bloodoak tooth is just the symbol recognized by their Underground Railroad, easily mistaken, for example by booksmart Stob. The invisibility cloak is only used unnecessarily some nights over their hammocks. The spark-stones are not used: light, fire, nought. Potential so valuable, unusual, powerful, sits useless. A single changeable recognition word could have prevented the network destruction. All those loyal hard workers endangering themselves constantly, betrayed? tortured? On the subject of prisoners, why does not Rook unlock all the cells he passes? Diversion, blockades, ending auffering: anything is better than leaving them.The orphan protegé of a famous female (another book) thought his best friend Felix would be chosen; I thought at the very least the brave son of their leader would tag along, or follow later. The callous killing of the next three groups, no further thought of a lifelong BFF, puzzles me. If Felix is another book, shouldn't we get a clue? The valiant lad generously donates his special sword, and poof ... forgotten? When Rook sneaks nourishment to a prisoner, the outcome seems obvious. That a lost boy aka professor motivate a battle finale, seems to bloat minor plot details out of proportion. Is not the main thread our persistent lad finding his banderbears? Two valiant air-crews killed right after their introduction seems excessively blunt violence. I would rather have a small cast I care for strongly, than an abundance of incomprehensible names. When Rook's opening recurring childhood nightmare resolves at the end, I was surprised. I was overloaded in between, and failed to see significance in the huge shape leaning down before he awakes terrified.
This is the first book of the Rook trilogy, which in my opinion, is the best of the three trilogies.First a bit of background. The great floating rock called Sanctaphrax is long gone. It has, however, been replaced with another giant rock, and a new city has been built on top of it, called New Sanctaphrax. However, the rock is infested with a 'stone sickness', which causes it to slowly crumble, and prevents it from floating. Thus it is slowly sinking toward the earth. Not only that, but the sickness has spread from the giant rock to all others of its kind, which means that the great sky ships that plied the skies above the Edge, are history.Politically, things are bad too. A usurper named Vox Verlix seized control of New Sanctaphrax, and began a whole series of works--the Sanctaphrax Forest, the Tower of Night, the Great Mire Road, designed to compensate for the loss of sky commerce. Vox was then himself overthrown by a cult called the Guardians of the Night, who claim that a great storm will heal the sinking rock. Anyone who disagrees with them gets ruthlessly suppressed or killed. This means that earth and sky scholars alike were compelled to flee into the vast sewers beneath Undertown, where they established their library in the Great Storm Chamber. They became the librarian knights.Meanwhile, up above, the goblins, trogs, trolls, oakelves, waifs, and human-like beings, were all enslaved to the Guardians of the Night.Enter Rook Barkwater, a young under-librarian, who grew up in the sewers, has been unexpectedly selected to travel to the Free Glades far, far to the west, in the heart of the Deepwoods, where he will learn how to embark on his treatise flights that will increase the knowledge found in the library. However, the journey to the Free Glades is fraught with danger, not the least of which is the fact that all of this must be done in secret lest the Guardians of Night find out. At the same time, Orbix Xaxis, the evil leader of the Guardians of Night sends a spy named Xanth Filatine to the Free Glades to spy out the librarians, but Xanth actually seems to have a conscience. A very lively and colorful book with illustrations that are the best so far of all the series. Rook is perhaps the most likeable of the three protagonists in these trilogies (the other two being Quint and Twig), and he always seems to rise to whatever challenge he faces. No matter what the situation, Rook always does the right thing. He doesn't have Quint's arrogance or Twig's self-pity. He takes the bull by the horns and does what has to be done.
What do You think about The Last Of The Sky Pirates (2005)?
*REVIEWED FOR PUBLISHER*Years have passed since we last visited The Edge and it is a far different place now – stone sickness has stopped virtually all flight and the once-great Sanctaphrax is no longer home to scholars and knights. In these dangerous times, the Librarian Knights live hidden lives in the sewers below Undertown and their young librarians must face a hazourdous trek across the Mire, through the bewitching Twighlight Woods and into the heart of the Deepwoods to reach the Free Glades, where they will be trained to become Knights. But there is one who can still sail the skies – the last Sky Pirate – who may be able to change everything. This entrancing tale of a young boy finding his way in a confusing world is spellbinding and dramatic and an excellent addition to the wonderful Edge Chronicles.
—Kell
The last of the sky pirates in my opinion is one of the best books I ever read. It is full of exciting events and mysterious plots and I think that the author wrote it magnificently. The book The last of the sky pirates begins in the sewers of undertown where a small shy librarian named Rook gets chosen for a mission to go off into the vast deepwoods and write about what he finds there. As Rook goes off he is unaware that there is plot against him from the evil guardians of the night who have taken over sanctaphrax. Rook must complete his studies and keep the power of evil at bay on his adventure, will he succeed?
—Jules
While the Edge world continues to bring new adventures, it seems that Mr. Stewart’s inventiveness may be grinding down a bit. Having explored the land from the Edge itself to Riverrise, there is really nothing left to cover. We are given a trip through the treacherous Deepwoods but that was been done before with the hapless Twig. Here again Mr. Stewart shows a paucity of imagination. Too many florae, faunae, people and objects seem to have the word wood as a prefix: woodale, woodsap, woodmoth, woodtroll, woodhog, woodwasp, woodwolf, et al. Also, while descriptions of the Edge are bountiful, that of people seem a bit lacking. Rook and his travel companions Stob and Magda get along well enough. But there is little or no cohesion or sense of camaraderie amongst them. Rook separates from them too easily, leaving the reader wondering why they were included in the narrative in the first place. When Stob and Magda go off on their separate quests, you really don’t care much. Rook seems more connected to the mysterious banderbears than other people, a mystery that is conveniently elucidated at the end of the book. This disconnection also plays out with the main protagonists and their immediate families. Time and again in this series, children are often separated from their parents and siblings, either through age, accident or malice. Quintinius lost most of his family except his father, Wind Jackal, who left him in the care of academics at Sanctaphrax to study. When they are reunited, Wind Jackal is killed by a traitorous crew mate. Quintinius has a son named Twig whom he abandoned as a baby with woodtrolls. They are reunited but then Quintinius is lost over the Edge. Twig finds him only to lose him to the Mother Storm. Young Rook lost both his parents as a baby. Mothers fare even worse, dying in fires or getting captured by slavers, e.g. Decades of literary time pass between the books, reuniting us with older men who have aged into near decrepitude (the series doesn’t concern itself much with aged women) and act as narrators to the younger generation. However, it is a bit annoying for adult readers. You meet a youthful character like Twig, Cowlquape or Screedius Tollinix in one book and, in the next installment, they’re withered old men. Isn’t middle-aged adulthood worth writing about here?While chronicles of the Edge world continue to absorb, new blood needs to be injected into it somewhere. A good book but nowhere near as creative as its predecessors.
—Marsha
