Larklight

By: Philip Reeve

Narrated by: Greg Steinburner

In 1851 a mysterious visitor to Art Mumby's space home has plans for a calamity that will destroy not only the entire British Empire, but also the known universe. Can disaster be prevented with help from Art's irritating sister Myrtle, a few exotic space creatures, and an extraterrestrial pirate?

Author Phillip Reeve was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize Children's Book Award.

©2006 Philip Reeve (P)2007 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"A Jules Verne-like concoction filtered through the sensibilities of Douglas Adams....The climax is an absolute hoot, and leaves the door wide open for any number of sequels. Ages 10-up." (Publishers Weekly)

"This wonderfully imaginative story would make a perfect gift for any adventurous preteen." (Children's Literature)

"This fun read will appeal mostly to fans of the steampunk genre." (VOYA)

So Good

I absolutely love this book, such a fun adventure, clean for kids and exciting for all ages. Highly recommend for the adventurer in you! Great story, great humor and the narrator crushed it!

surprisingly delightful

what an imagination. very enjoyable. recommend for all ages. can't wait to hear book 2

The empire’s style

Very like mortal engines great voice for the reader too really made the book
Loved it

Victorian space adventure

I'm of two minds with Larklight. First and foremost I am bowled over by the world Reeve has created. I can't recall ever reading a book with a more fully realized and original world. It seems as if every page contains a new species, device or concept - it's almost overwhelming. At the same time, the bits and pieces pulled from Victorian England are - to my remembering - historically accurate. Absolutely worth reading for this alone.

On the other hand, the plot itself isn't as compelling and drags at the end. Furthermore, the characters aren't nearly as well rendered as their environment, making it difficult to be that emotionally invested in what happens to them. It's almost as if Reeve had to decide where to put his efforts and plunked all his eggs into the world-building basket. What he created was extraordinary, and I hope that future efforts spread his talent around a bit more evenly.

Fantastic Story!

This story harkens back to the HG Wells style of classic Sci-Fi with a lighthearted spirit. The narration by the young protagonist is really fun. Highly recommended. The sequel is just as good.

Excellent Story, Almost Excellent Narration

The Larklight trilogy is definitely one of my top five favorite middle grade series of all time! The characters are unique and there is enough colorful action to keep even a less than enthusiastic young reader engaged.

That being said, Steinburner's narration does not do the story justice. His voice is quite pleasant, but the rhythm of is reading is off and this wildly distracts from the the story. He speaks very slowly, with hundreds of loud breath sounds between sentences. I think that often these sounds get edited out of the final audio production, but that is not the case here.

The feature for speeding up the reading in Audible is not an acceptable solution, as it causes Steinburner to sound very rushed and excited in the middle of sentences. The problem isn't his overall speed of reading, it is just that in between sentences he takes a very long (and loud) time to breath before saying the next sentence.

This is a book that is impossible to use Amazon's immersion reading, because of these long pauses between sentences. The story is worth it though...but maybe it would be best to simply read it aloud yourself.

Great fun!

This is a magnificent story; great for the whole family, particularly if you have little Star Wars addicts like we do. Excitement, adventure, and a richly imagined and researched alternative history. In brief, this is a "young-orphans (not really, but they think so) make-good in the British Empire" story, with the added twist that, in place of the usual sea adventures, we have space adventures. HRM Victoria's empire includes the moon, Mars, and various Jovian satellites. Wow. The author manages to capture the speech and manners of Victorian England while still communicating to a modern young audience - no small feat! Fans of "real" history, particularly the history of science, will find fun tidbits scattered throughout for their consumption. Reeve does his homework.
In the words of the narrator: Huzzah!

Get a Brit...

Oh what a lovely book: smart, and funny, and imaginative - if only it had been read by someone with a real British accent and a sense of mischief equal to the author's. It's a testament to the story that I stuck it out, mispronunciations and all.

Enjoyable adventure for younger audiences

Read this series as a kid and I am pleased to see it still holds up quite nicely. Good bits of humor and a cool alternate history setting

Great Adventure Story for the family

With two chidren 4 years apart and one of each, finding a book to please them both is difficult. We listen to audio in the car. We enjoyed listening to this book so much, we didn't want to get out of the car. Great adventure and creative characters. Not crazy about the narrator, but we even requested the author make it an animated feature.