about the book
ALL ABOARD! See this alternate nineteenth-century North America from the longest train ever, along with automatons, a circus, and sasquatches!
Meet reserved Will Everett, an aspiring young artist and would-be adventurist whose father, James, is just a poor drudge laying track for the Canadian Pacific Railway somewhere in the Rockies. when an avalanche occurs, James saves the railroad’s owner, Baron Cornelius Van Horne.
Three years later the Baron passes away, and James, now a top railroad executive, is tasked with carrying out the Baron’s last wishes. Will and his father board a first class coach on The Boundless on its maiden intercontinental trip. The Boundless is a seven-mile long train with 987 cars. It is literally the world’s longest and richest rolling city.
After Will and his father argue over Will’s wish to go to art school, Will wanders off by himself when the train stops, investigating the unusual and amazing cars on the train.
Will witnesses a murder and uncovers a plot to break into the Baron’s treasure-laden funeral car. Will snags the only key and, chased by the murderous thieves, takes off running through the hundreds of railway carriages, hoping to make it to his dad before he is caught. Will’s thirst for adventure gets a real workout as he evades the bad guys by doing all sorts of things he never imagined he could do…both in and on top of the rolling train!
As The Boundless thunders across the wilderness towards its destination, dangers sinister, natural, and mystical abound.
Luckily, Will finds some help. In one of the Zircus Dante cars, he encounters Mr. Dorian, the mysterious Métis ringmaster, and The Miraculous Maren, an escape artist. Can he trust them? Can he trust anyone?
about the author
Kenneth Oppel didn’t always want to be a writer. First he wanted to be a scientist. Then an architect.
From the age of twelve, he wanted to write. He wrote his first children’s novel during summer vacation at age fourteen. It started as a short story and just kept getting longer until it was a 25,000 word novel about video games.
He passed the manuscript to a family friend who knew Roald Dahl, who liked the story well enough to pass it along to his agent. Four years later, Kenneth Oppel’s first book, Colin’s Fantastic Video Adventure, was published, before he was even out of high school. He says of the experience “I can’t imagine anything more exciting than the letter I got from the agent saying, ‘Roald Dahl passed us your manuscript, and we would like to take it on.’”
Despite this success, he knew that the next step for him was college. Ken continued to write children’s books while attending the University of Toronto, and he worked as a film critic for the student newspaper. He always kept his eyes open for ideas for books. He had the idea for The Live-Forever Machine while walking on a path behind the Royal Ontario Museum, where he peeked into the windows of the museum workshops and started imagining who would work in the back rooms of a museum.
Ken now lives in Toronto with his wife and children.
Source:
Author website
Also by Kenneth Oppel:
Such Wicked Intent (The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein, Book 2). Simon & Schuster. 2012.
This Dark Endeavor (The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein, Book 1). Simon & Schuster. 2011.
Half Brother. Scholastic. 2010.
Starclimber (Airborn, Book 3). Eos. 2009.
Skybreaker (Airborn, Book 2). Eos. 2006.
Airborn (Book 1). Eos. 2004.
The Silverwing Trilogy. Simon & Schuster. 1997-2007.
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