Airman

After reading one of Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl books, which I really liked, I thought I’d give his Airman a try. A stand alone historical novel, set at the dawn of flight, on a group of islands just of the coast of Ireland. Conor Broekhart, son of Captain Broekhart is friends with Princess Isabella, they grow up together but when Conor is framed for murder and thrown into a squalid prison, his life takes an altogether turn for the worse. Conor must reinvent himself in prison, yet never give up his dream to fly.

From a writer’s perspective, this was a useful read, I often read about how your character must go on an emotional journey within your story and how you must track those changes and I’ve never read a story before where that’s been so clear, from the boy with an idyllic island life, playing with the princess, to hardened prisoner, back to a return to his family.

And once again Colfer is really good at doing villains, makes me realise how appalling my villains are in my current work in progress (appalling as in flat, boring and virtually non-existent).

From a reader’s perspective, this was a ‘nice’ story, quite old fashioned in a way (unlike the Artemis Fowl series). I particularly liked the final flying scene, thought that was really gripping.