We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,544,757.20 | Books Available: 800,425 | Members Online: 157

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Conquerors of the Sky

Conquerors of the Sky
Author: Thomas Fleming

A novel that crowns Thomas Fleming's forty-year career, Conquerors of the Sky takes readers on a gripping insider's journey into the lives and loves, the hopes and heartbreaks of the men and women who make America's planes. — When Adrian Van Ness, the enigmatic chairman of Buchanan Aircraft, dies of a heart attack, a struggle for control of the a... more »erospace giant erupts between burly Dick Stone, the tough-talking money man from New York, and Californian Cliff Morris, CEO and supersalesman. Sarah Morris, Cliff's estranged English-born wife, knows all the company's secrets. With her at the controls, Conquerors of the Sky becomes a time trip to the early years of the twentieth century, when flight was seen as spiritual ascent and idealistic Frank Buchanan began designing planes.

New York aristocrat Adrian Van Ness is equally fascinated by these new machines--as a financial bonanza. In 1930, Adrian's amoral business genius and Frank's visions of ever swifter sleeker planes form a precarious alliance.

Soon Buchanan Aircraft is competing with Lockheed and Boeing and Northrop for contracts to build airliners and bombers and fighters. As corrupt connections between generals and congressmen and presidents multiply, Frank sees some of his greatest planes scuttled by dirty political deals. He watches Adrian grow rich and powerful preaching the gospel of air power in the century's wars.

When Dick Stone joins Buchanan he sees Adrian as his American father. But he soon shifts his spiritual allegiance to Frank Buchanan. Cliff Morris's flamboyant style conceals a ruinous moral collapse in the deadly skies over World War II Germany. His fear of discovery is worsened by the sardonic shadow of his stepbrother, Billy McCall, the supreme pilot Cliff will never become.

Sarah loves all three men and ultimately has to choose between them, knowing that in the macho world of Buchanan Aircraft, women are objects to be enjoyed -- or used to sell the latest bomber or airliner. For women like Amanda Van Ness, Adrian's wife (and Frank Buchanan's lover), this leads to madness. For Sarah it leads to power -- at a terrible price.

Spanning the history of flight from the clumsy fabric planes of 1911 to the whizzing stealth fighters of today, Conquerors of the Sky is a page-turning drama of the struggle to mesh aerodynamic visions with the harsh realities of cashflow and profits -- and with the desires and dreams of the men and women who inhabit this unique world.

Told by a master of the historical imagination, it is a must-read book that will launch America into the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of flight.

ISBN-13: 9780765342171
ISBN-10: 0765342170
Publication Date: 6/14/2004
Pages: 768
Edition: Reprint
Rating:

Currently 2.8/5 Stars.

2.8 stars, based on 2 ratings

Publisher: Forge Books
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Read All 1 Book Reviews of "Conquerors of the Sky"

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

Janet K. (jlk007) reviewed Conquerors of the Sky on 6/15/2006 + 38 more book reviews

The poignant history of the battle to control the skies. Spanning the one hundred years of flight, from the Wright Flyer to WWI Fokkers to WWII B-17 Bombers and through to the high-powered jets we know today. Flemming takes us into the lives of the innovators. pilots, and moneymen that have, indeed conquered the sky.

Share/Like this Review?

Read All Book Reviews of "Conquerors of the Sky"

Genres:

Literature & Fiction >> General >> Contemporary
Literature & Fiction >> Genre Fiction >> Historical
Science Fiction & Fantasy >> Fantasy >> General

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Conquerors of the Sky

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

Loading...