Breaking Sky
By:
Cori McCarthy
Published by: Sourcebooks Fire
Release: March 10th 2015
In this high-flying, adrenaline-fueled debut thriller, America's best hope is the elite teen fighter pilots of the United Star AcademyChase Harcourt, call sign "Nyx," is one of only two pilots chosen to fly the experimental "Streaker" jets at the junior Air Force Academy in the year 2048. She's tough and impulsive with lightning-fast reactions, but few know the pain and loneliness of her past or the dark secret about her father. All anyone cares about is that Chase aces the upcoming Streaker trials, proving the prototype jet can knock the enemy out of the sky.But as the world tilts toward war, Chase cracks open a military secret. There's a third Streaker jet, whose young hotshot pilot, Tristan, can match her on the ground and in the clouds. Chase doesn't play well with others, but to save her country she may just have to put her life in the hands of the competition.
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“Strong
characterizations, action, adventure, and emotion combine to produce
a sci-fi novel that is more than just the sum of its parts.”
—School Library JournalSTARRED Review
“Smart, exciting,
confident—and quite possibly the next Big Thing.” —Kirkus
Reviews
“McCarthy deploys
breath-stopping depictions of high-stakes piloting with enviable
ease, and the in-your-face personal confrontations are nearly as
taut.” —Publishers Weekly
What
inspired you to write Breaking Sky?
The
idea for Breaking Sky is an amalgamation of several ideas. My first
novel was very bleak and serious—human trafficking serious. Writing
it was like having heartburn for the whole year while. When I sat
down to come up with a new story, I wanted to do something different
and fun. Around that time, I gave birth to a son who I named
Maverick, unwittingly inviting Top Gun comments from friends and
relatives.
I
decided to rewatch the cult classic after many years and was
particularly interested in the way the story blends military with
civilian, goofiness with action, and heartbreaking loss with
ridiculous volleyball scenes. My screenwriting background kicked in,
and I began to wonder what a YA version of Top Gun might look like.
(My earliest idea might have involved a make out scene in a fighter
jet cockpit. :-)
At
the same time, I have always enjoyed books like Ender’s
Game and Code
Name Verity
because they make young people feel important on a global scale. With
that in mind, I began to imagine a near-futuristic premise involving
militarized youth and a cadet academy. I didn’t want to write a
sci-fi story (although I love sci-fi). I wanted to write something
that was menacing in its familiarity. I started with the United
States as a setting and then added thirty-some years.
With
the help of my Cold War historian husband and my brother, who works
for the State Department, I extrapolated current relations with
China, the ticking time bomb that is Taiwanese independence, and the
anxiety of a snowballing American depression to craft a worst-case
scenario for Breaking
Sky’s backstory.
I even fictionalized a very real, powerful anti-democratic faction
(who shall remain nameless because they’re a dragon I’d rather
not poke) into the story’s bad guys.
With
all that under my belt, I set about legitimizing my portrayal of the
military and jet fighters. I watched a TON of documentaries, and read
fighter pilot accounts from World War I to modern day. I didn’t
have to go too far to learn more about the Air Force. My father and
grandfather served in the Air Force, and my (other) brother is
currently serving as a Master Sergeant (E-7).
While
I did my best to accurately utilize diction, ranks, and known fighter
jet capabilities, I didn’t want this book to feel overly military.
Breaking Sky’s
academy and the streaker jets have the bonus of being entirely my own
creation, so I was able to fictionalize the rules, setting, and mach
capabilities (within known limitations—mach speed is technically a
dimensionless quantity, making it ripe for fictional vagueness. Ha!).
The
last piece of the puzzle came through Chase’s character. With all
the excitement around crafting a second cold war/second great
depression with teen fighter pilots in a recognizable near-futuristic
setting, I didn’t want the emotional story to get overlooked. For
that, I dove into my personal high school experience.
There
are so many good YA novels about discovering love for the first time,
but we don’t often get to see the aftermath—someone already
burned. So I wrote a story about a girl who experiences harsh
disappointment early in life, and who then finds it incredibly hard
to open herself up to the vulnerability of strong feelings. Of
course, love and trust are as inevitable as gravity, or so I would
like for my readers to come to believe.
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