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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book, though dark.
Review: First, I'd like to say that this isn't a book for early childhood readers... I really wouldn't recommend it for children under twelve or so. There's rampant character death in all manner of gruesome ways.That aside, I think this is my favorite book in one of my favorite series. The story is interesting, the characters are likeable and believeable (especially Twig!). The world that the author creates is so complex and elegantly detailed, I think that it's actually developed better than Rowling's wizarding world. Very very good book!
Rating:
Summary: Better than Harry Potter!
Review: I'm not in the target audience, being 58 years old, but I and my granddaughters (9&6) LOVED this book!
This series gets better & better!
Twig is charged with the task of collecting Stormphrax - a magical ingredient at the heart of the great Storm. To do this he becomes master of a sky-ship and he enlists the help of several characters, each with differing personalities - my favourite being the Stone Pilot.
Because this imaginary world operates under different physical laws to ours, we are presented with strange, unexpected happenings, worthy of the imagination of Lewis Carroll, complemented by delicious, imaginatively-detailed pen&ink drawings in the same vein as Aubrey Beardsley and Arthur Rackham.
I can't recommend this series too highly - completely different to Harry Potter, and, to my mind, much better!
Rating: 
Summary: Up, up and away
Review: Picking up from where "Beyond the Deepwoods" left off, Twig fortuitously rescues his friend Caterbird from Undertown, and manages to glean some very important information about the floating city of Sanctaphrax, his father, and the amazing power of stormphrax, which comes from a single lightning bolt during the Great Storm.
It seems that there's a by-product of stormphrax, named phraxdust that can instantly purify the foulest of water, and therefore is of vital commercial importance to all the inhabitants of The Edge.
Unfortunately, the conversion of stormphrax to phraxdust is a pursuit fraught with danger, and many poor souls have perished trying to discover the perplexing secret.
Back on the sky ship Stormchaser, Twig erases any Brownie points he has previously notched by losing a valuable cargo, forcing his cash-strapped father to go storm chasing, in a quest to bring back some precious stormphrax and pay off his debts.
His father refuses to take him along, but Twig allows himself to be talked into stowing away, and in doing so, unwittingly reveals one of his father's most precious secrets.
A terrific adventure follows, but unfortunately, not according to plan, and Twig finds himself leading a motley crew through the maddening Twilight Forest and the perilous mire.
Learning the secret of phraxdust, Twig uses it to manipulate the political powers to his advantage, and bargains his way back to the skies, after engineering a coup in the floating city, and distributing the balance of power in Undertown.
Dark, gruesome, disgusting and exciting, this installment has more adventure than the first, but adds politics, greed, deception and treachery to the mix.
Amanda Richards, January 17, 2005
Rating:
Summary: Better Than The Original
Review: Picking up more or less where the first book left off Twig is now aboard the Stormchaser with his father, and the adventure begins. Perhaps it's that I was now familiar with the characters, but I found this to exceed the original on all counts. The one down side to it was the death count. Alot of characters bit the dust, some that surprised me. But that being said it's still a fun ride that ends with a literal cliffhanger.
Rating:
Summary: Stormchaser was thrilling
Review: Stormchaser is the second book of the Edge series and it is a vast improvement over book one--Beyond the Deepwoods. The book picks up a few years after Twig's adventures in Deepwoods. He is now sailing aboard the skyship of his recently-discovered sky-pirate father and has exchanged the monster-horrors of the Deepwoods with the more human horrors of city-life, pollution, and corruption (though monsters still make the occasional appearance).
Whereas Beyond the Deepwoods suffered from being overly episodic, plunging Twig into one-unrelated confrontation after another, Stormchaser is much more focused and has a much better sense of narrative. The famed sky city Sanctaphrax is at risk of breaking its mooring and taking off forever unless it manages to replenish the rare substance that keeps it from sailing away. The same substance, in a mysterious alternative form, has also kept the waters that feed Undertown drinkable and the shortage is leading to an ecological and social disaster. For various reasons, Twig's father is the one sent out on a quest for this rare material and various adventures ensue.
While there is still an episodic sense to the story, it's mostly confined to the book's second half when Twig and others are forced to march through the Twilight Woods and the Mire. Even here though, the encounters are still related to the overall arc of the story, making each encounter more significant and more memorable in comparison to Twig's one-monster-after-another adventures in book one.
The plot is also improved by the move away from conflict based simply on threatened violence (usually in the form of being eaten) to one based on politics, corruption, and intrigue among all types of characters (though being eaten remains a threat now and then).
Characters are also delved into more deeply. We learn more about Twig's father--what forced him into becoming a pirate, why he refuses to acknowledge himself as Twig's father publicly, more about his motivations and personality traits. Twig is given more opportunities to grow, but these seem a bit contrived and, as in the first one, somewhat formulaic and unearned at times, though not as baldly as in Deepwoods. A few of the side characters have moments of depth, but overall remain shallow figures.
There is a lot of death in this one, some of it quite grisly, though it is never lingered on, having more the feel of an uncensored Brothers Grimm tale rather than a modern-day slasher flick.
Overall, while Stormchaser stiff suffers from a few of the first book's flaws, mainly some shallow characterization and some formulaic coming-of-age "growth" events, it is a major improvement on the first and bodes well for the rest of the series.
Rating:
Summary: Action and Adventure!
Review: This book is a thrilling read-a truly great book. The wierd and wonderful creatures coupled with Chris Riddel's imaginative illustrations are a real asset to a fabulous story-line. However, it is quite sad-a lot of deaths may upset happily-ever-after-lovers; but it is still one of favourite books. Since this is the second in the series I recommend that you read the first: but to sum it up Paul Stewart and Chris Riddel have created a gem!
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