Airborn

“There now, we’re almost aboard, and Doc Halliday will take a look at you and get you all sorted out.”

The Aurora’s doctor, Doc Halliday, alludes to Doc Holliday, friend to legendary lawman Wyatt Earp. This inclusion of a detail that is not quite historically accurate cements Airborn’s alternate history status, presenting a world that is both the same and different from the one in which readers live.

“I never dreamed of [my father] when I was landlocked, only when I was aboard the Aurora.”

Matt’s dreams throughout the novel correlate to his anxieties, especially his anxiety about getting back up in the air. This parallels the way his employment aboard the Aurora is a byproduct of his grief over the loss of his father. His anxiety about leaving the ship relates to his fears of forgetting his father or leaving him behind.

“It would be an hour before we were over open sea, but my heart was already beating for that moment when I saw the endless horizon and I felt like anything was possible; the whole world unfurling before you.”

Though airships can travel equally well over land and sea, Matt’s observation of the sea as something that provides freedom and adventure parallels seafaring adventure novels. Thus, though the mode of transportation changes, Airborn shows itself conversant with adventure novels beyond the steampunk genre and adopts conventions and motifs accordingly.

“A man with your courage and skill will not go unrewarded.”

Captain Walken’s words here, coming in the wake of the news that Matt will not be promoted to junior sailmaker, seem an overly optimistic prediction from a fond mentor. Ultimately, however, they prove to be foreshadowing, as Matt receives a significant financial reward for vanquishing Szpirglas’s crew.

“Mostly it was the ladies in the lounge, as the men seemed to prefer the smoking room where they could take their drinks and talk about important matters like profits and the price of things.”

Matt’s flippant discussion of what the rich men on the Aurora find important illustrates the disdain he has for the privileged passengers. These passengers, who prove useless during the incidents with the pirates and the time on the island, show that their “important matters” are really only important within the narrow spheres of their own elite society.

“I stared at that last page for a while, the final words, the nothingness after it, and it got me feeling strange, so I had to close the book. I felt a keen disappointment.”

Matt here experiences a form of grief that links both to Kate’s loss and his own through storytelling. The abrupt ending of Molloy’s story parallels the absence of stories in Matt’s life following his father’s death, while the blank pages in the journal present a stark visual representation of Kate’s loss of her grandfather.

“‘We mustn’t get too attached to our worldly possessions, after all, must we? What are they but things, baubles, trifles, bits of stuff?’ He thumped his heart. ‘It is here we must find our treasures and store them up. And these things know no price.’

A real comedian he was—this was as much a vaudeville performance as a robbery.”

Szpirglas’s speech about the value of things as held against the value of emotional connection is ironic, given that he is, in this passage, robbing the passengers of the Aurora. Matt’s recognition of the irony, delivered via his sarcastic description of Szpirglas as “a real comedian,” foreshadows his ability to remain clearheaded about Szpirglas’s villainy, even after meeting the pirate’s son, Theodore, and feeling an emotional connection to him.

“Everyone in the lounge was rigid, listening, and Szpirglas addressed us all, as if we were an audience and he were on stage. ‘You must understand, all I have in the world is my good name. People know me. They know that I might come aboard their ships and take their goodies. They know that I am a pirate. To be an effective pirate, one must be respected and feared. So what would become of me if people started to think they could put one over on old Szpirglas? Try to trick me, try to catch me. No, that wouldn’t do at all. I must protect my good name at all costs.’

He drew his pistol and shot Featherstone pointblank in the head.”

Szpirglas’s oscillation between politesse and intense violence acts as a destabilizing force that reminds readers that in an adventure novel, anything can happen—and often does. This notion that things are not always what they appear heightens the tension in the novel, leaving readers anticipatory even between moments of high action.

“After hanging weightless for so long, my body felt heavy as a stone gargoyle.”

Matt’s connection to life in the air is represented through his discomfort when he is aground, a condition he often describes as being “landlocked.” This provides an inversion to what might normally be considered safety—being secure on the ground rather than floating in a dirigible—and serves both to differentiate Matt from his colleagues and suggest the normalcy of air travel to Matt.

“We were close enough to hear the ocean’s impatient sigh, see the thuggish slouch of her surface, calm enough, but there was no hiding the immense strength of her mile-deep muscle.”

This passage personifies the ocean, underscoring Matt’s fear of it—the place where his father died after falling from the Aurora. His characterization shows the “immense strength” of the ocean to be a formidable force, while the framing of a “thuggish slouch” connotes active malevolence rather than natural danger.

“We may not have a mooring mast, gentlemen, but I want this vessel tied down as tightly as Gulliver!”

Walken’s comment alludes to Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift’s 1726 satirical adventure novel. Gulliver, in the text, is tied down on a beach by a minuscule people known as the Lilliputians. This allusion connects Airborn to a long history of adventure literature, suggests that the divergent alt-history timeline of the novel occurs post-1726, and connotes the power of the small over the large, which will prove again relevant when Kate and Matt face the pirates.

“She knew I would stay on with her and be her navigator. And she was right. I felt disgusted with my own powerlessness.”

Though Matt is not entirely correct about his own powerlessness—he does technically choose to stay with Kate—his feeling that he must stay with her (and her own manipulation to get him to do so) shows how class dynamics persist even in the wilds of the island. Kate treats Matt’s choice to stay with her as something entirely dependent on his free will, disregarding the consequences that he will face if he loses his position on the Aurora.

“It almost made me angry. We were breaking our backs carrying out crates of useless rubber hosing. How much rubber hosing did the world need?”

The appearance of the rubber hosing follows the “Chekov’s gun” trope: though it seems useless now, it will later be extremely important when the Aurora crew needs to build a makeshift hydrium pipeline. Matt’s disgruntlement at being forced to haul the heavy crates in the blazing heat, however, demonstrates how the wealth of the rich is built upon the labor of the poor.

“‘And let’s not forget my valiant acts!’ Baz added. ‘I served cool beverages in the blazing tropical heat; I helped shade the rich and privileged.’

‘You’re a proper hero,’ I assured him.”

Matt’s friendship with his bunkmate Baz serves as a form of comedic relief, both in the novel and for Matt himself. Only with Baz, another working man, can Matt find any true commiseration in the class differences that make his life difficult. Joking about the rich passengers lets the friends find some catharsis.

“‘I’ve never had any desire to go to university.’

‘No? Well, what do you wish for, then?’

‘I want to fly airships.’

‘I suppose you’re already well on your way.’

‘Not really,’ I said.”

Both Kate’s responses in this dialogue show her ignorance of how life works for those beyond her wealthy sphere. The flippant “No?” in response to Matt’s lack of interest in university suggests that Kate has not considered any path to a sustainable career besides the one she wishes to follow. Her assertion that he is “well on [his] way” to flying airships indicates that she does not understand that there are politics in the working world.

“‘You must get a scholarship,’ said Kate, solving all my problems for me.”

Matt’s thought that Kate’s offhanded comment solves his problems sarcastically indicates the condescension of her “solution.” His subsequent thought that the cost of schooling is not only present in tuition but in lost wages for the time spent in school shows the barriers to class mobility that are often invisible to those who need not overcome them.

“We have no way of knowing whether it’s a he or a she. But of course we just call it him. Just another big important male of the species.”

Kate’s observation about presumptive maleness parallels the dismissive attitudes she persistently faces when advocating for her interest in the sciences. Though the novel does not support Kate’s claim that sexism is equivalent to classism, it does nevertheless indicate that Kate’s concerns are real and material.

“The two females in my life seemed strict taskmasters, the Aurora and Kate de Vries, and there was no pleasing them both. I felt angry with Kate.”

Matt here personifies the Aurora, designating the ship as a “female” per a nautical tradition. Though the start of his sentence parallels the ship with Kate, the assertion that he is angry with Kate for her demands on his time (but not the Aurora) suggests he knows the limits to this personification. The Aurora is not capable of taking his feelings into account, but Kate’s failure to do so angers him.

“It’s easy to give advice to others, until you try to imagine yourself in their skin. Going against your father, feeling alone and helpless in the world: these were not easy things to bear.”

Matt does not understand why Bruce does not pursue the career of his dreams, but he nonetheless identifies with Bruce. Though Matt goes against his mother, instead of his father, in pursuing his dream of a career on an airship, his recognition of this burden suggests that he, too, feels “alone and helpless in the world.”

“She was like a strange cat. Her eyes were flecked green. I wanted to look at her forever.”

This description of the cloud cat as both “strange” and yet captivating suggests the marvels of nature, even when nature seems incomprehensible. This invokes the literary tradition of the sublime, in which something is so marvelous that it defies linguistic representation.

“It made me angry that a man like him should have a son.”

Matt’s anger that Szpirglas has a son who loves him draws both on the protagonist’s acute sense of right and wrong and his own grief over the loss of his father. The implication is not only that he is angry that Szpirglas has a son, but that, as a father, the man gets to continue a relationship with his son when Matt’s father did not.

“I kissed her mouth.

I wanted to do it, so I did it.”

For Matt, a persistently responsible character, choosing to do something simply because he wishes to constitutes a significant moment. He kisses Kate in a moment of peril, though he knows it is inadvisable timing. That he does so anyway suggests the intense power of romantic attraction.

“It crouched there, fur matted against its body by the wind, looking all around. It hadn’t been in the sky since the day of its birth.”

Matt projects a sense of awe onto the cloud cat, a feeling he could not know the animal possesses or may even be capable of possessing, given it is not a person. This parallels his own feelings about being aloft, especially after fearing he will die on the ground, and provides a moment of happiness and relief in the stress of the novel’s climax.