9 High-Altitude, High-Stakes Stories About Flying Sailors

Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel
Oppel’s 2004 steampunk novel is set in a world filled with only the coolest method of airborne transportation: hydrium-powered airships, orinthopters, and aether elevators. Cabin boy Matt Cruise is thrilled to work on the transoceanic luxury passenger airship Aurora alongside would-be zoologist Kate de Vries. Until notorious sky pirate Vikram Szpirglas cripples their ship and leaves them to die, of course. Oppel deftly balances swashbuckling and world-building, which includes floating islands and undiscovered flying animals that live entire lives far above the surface. If you like this one, check out the equally inventive sequels Skybreaker and Starclimber, which take our heroes on expeditions to the “Skyberian” Antarctic and to outer space, respectively. 

Warlord of the Air, by Michael Moorcock
Parallel universes are a popular explanation for airships, as Moorcock proves with Warlord‘s twisted timeline: the main character is thrown forwards from 1902 to an alternate 1973 in which World War I never happened and British airships rule the skies. Our hero is shocked at his future, never realizing that it’s not the “true” present day. Of course, since Warlord was published in the 1970s, the modern reader’s present day is forty years removed as well as one universe over. As a bonus, Moorcock has a lot of fun with his alternate reality; witness the cameo from junior army officer Mick Jagger.

Girl Genius, by Phil & Kaja Foglio
The Hugo-winning Girl Genius webcomic follows the power struggles of the Sparks, a term for genetically charismatic, insane, genius megalomaniacs. Naturally, the most powerful baron rules most of Europa from his massive airship Castle Wulfenbach. The world extends far beyond the airship, and most of the fun comes from all the wacky and inevitably bloodthirsty characters that hero Agatha Heterodyne meets. The fast-paced ongoing storyline has won the Foglios enough Hugo awards that they have removed themselves from the running—not bad for a series that started due to Phil’s deep love for “drawing fiddley Victorian-style gizmos”—and expanded into a series of prose adaptations.

The Wind Whales of Ishmael, by Philip José Farmer
Captain Ahab and the Pequod have sunk. Sole survivor Ishmael is heading home on the Rachel. Then a wormhole inexplicably opens, flinging the whaler into a future Earth lit by a blood-red sun. Sea levels have dropped drastically, so whales have evolved wings and whalers now hunt them from the skies…and there’s something way worse than Moby Dick out there. Farmer’s bizarre Moby Dick sequel never attempts to reconcile Melville’s slow prose with its pulpy futuristic adventure, but the result is ripe for a big-screen adaptation. This is the perfect antidote for any school kids bored with yet another chapter on the use of whale oil at coronations (seriously, Melville? Get back to the whale hunting).

Crimson Skies
Even video games recognize the genius of combining sailors and skies. In the Crimson Skies games, an alternate 1930s features airplanes and airships as the primary means of transportation, and centers on the adventures of sky pirate Nathan Zachary, leader of the Fortune Hunters gang. Though the game is fight-centric, the mechanics are intentionally unrealistic in order to capture the blockbuster experience—a wise choice, given that their audience is “anyone who plays a game about vengeful sky pirates.” And when you’re not barnstorming in a pulp novel come to life, you can just read the pulp novels: authors have expanded on the Crimson Sky universe to include such necessities as a top-secret aircraft prototype and a Cajun con man.

 Laputa: Castle in the Sky, by Hayao Miyazaki
A discussion of sky sailors would be incomplete without a mention of this animated masterpiece. Crystals power a legendary flying city filled with robots in this timeless combination of fantasy, sci-fi, and Miyazaki’s imagination. The detailed animation culls designs from gothic, medieval, and Victorian eras. Bottom line: It’s awesome, and you should see it.

The Aeronaut’s Windlass, by Jim Butcher
Due to a large ensemble, aeronaut privateer Captain Grimm is the closet thing to a protagonist you’ll find in The Aeronaut’s Windlass. His sky-trawling windlass Predator serves to ferry the rest of the cast on the spy mission that carries the fast-paced plot in Butcher’s first installment of the Cinder Spires series. And despite the talking cats, half-human warrior races, mentally unbalanced sorcerers, and near-constant sarcasm, the book makes the wise decision to feature a climactic airborne battle between sky sailors. Clearly, Butcher knows his cool sci-fi tropes.

The Winds of Khalakovo, by Bradley P. Beaulieu
Before he was exploring the sand dunes of Sharakhai, Bradley P. Beaulieu engineered The Lays of Anuskaya, an epic fantasy trilogy that takes to the skies in grand style. Windships use multi-directional sails to catch the currents over the sky-scraping aeries of Khalakovo, a mountain-studded chain of islands with a culture drawn from Russian folklore and traditions. This series is a glorious example of the author’s talent for building complex, lived-in worlds packed with compelling not-quite-heroes-or-villains, but it doesn’t skimp on the adventure and intrigue, either, from political machinations between the ruling class and a group of zealots, to a hunt for a powerful missing artifact.

The Books of the Raksura, by Martha Wells
Martha Wells doesn’t stop at populating her fantasy world with shape-shifting flying creatures (quick, name another fantasy series with almost no human characters); she also creates a race of skyfaring sailors who get around via gorgeous flying boats, kept aloft by magical stones removed from the many floating islands that dot the skies of the Three Worlds. The best part is, flying boats are hardly the coolest bit of world-building to be found in this series, which has expanded from an initial trilogy (The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, The Siren Depths) to include two volumes of short fiction and the forthcoming The Edge of Worlds, which begins yet another trilogy. You’re going to love spending time in Wells’ world.
Who are your favorite flying sailors?