Hardcover, 513 pages
English language
Published Nov. 6, 2018 by Delacorte Press.
SPENSA'S WORLD HAS BEEN UNDER ATTACK FOR DECADES.
Now pilots are the heroes of what's left of the human race, and becoming one has always been Spensa's dream. Since she was a little girl, she has imagined soaring skyward and proving her bravery. But her fate is intertwined with her father's--a pilot himself who was killed years ago when he abruptly deserted his team, leaving Spensa the daughter of a coward, her chances of attending Flight School slim to none.
No one will let Spensa forget what her father did, yet fate works in mysterious ways. Flight school might be a long shot, but she is determined to fly. And an accidental discovery in a long-forgotten cavern might just provide her with a way to claim the stars.
This description comes from the publisher.
Fast paced easy read. Seemed simpler than mistborn or the storm light archive - but still with some Sanderson plot twists.
2.5 rounded down to a 2. It’s just not quite thought out enough for me. There’s a lot of fun action, there’s some decent thematic discussions, but it feels underdeveloped. I probably won’t continue with the series.
2022 Re-read: I remember reading this on a flight and finishing the book and wanting to capture that high you feel after a good book. A few years later Skyward was a refreshing read and found most of the content new to me. I know the scope of the series expands significantly in the next book so I tried to appreciate the time spent at Detritus.
Finished the book while on a flight and took some notes with my thoughts on the book. These won’t be well formed but at least I was able to capture my immediate post-read thoughts.
You fix it, and you fly. You find a way, and you defy them. For those of us who don’t have the courage.
Where is my little girl, who wanted to swing a sword and conquer the world?
She’s very confused. A bit lost.
Classic non-Cosmere Sanderson!
This book …
2022 Re-read: I remember reading this on a flight and finishing the book and wanting to capture that high you feel after a good book. A few years later Skyward was a refreshing read and found most of the content new to me. I know the scope of the series expands significantly in the next book so I tried to appreciate the time spent at Detritus.
Finished the book while on a flight and took some notes with my thoughts on the book. These won’t be well formed but at least I was able to capture my immediate post-read thoughts.
You fix it, and you fly. You find a way, and you defy them. For those of us who don’t have the courage.
Where is my little girl, who wanted to swing a sword and conquer the world?
She’s very confused. A bit lost.
Classic non-Cosmere Sanderson!
This book challenges what it means to be a coward and if doing the brave and stupid action is any worse
Breaking expectations of families and traits
Expected a Sanderson twist and there was nothing absurd or far fetched I was pleasantly surprised and entertained.
Story has loss and grief, no one is given a free pass and liked that all characters weren’t given a free ride to the end
Class structures and questions who is really free
A fun read and looking forward to the next instalment!
Naruto meets Catch 22, in space. At the start of the book it felt a little too YA, but but I think some of the cringiest moments are there to contrast against the latter third, which is non stop action and very hard to put down. I got strong anime vibes from the whole thing, and the story plays out as you'd expect it you've seen any tournament series. It has some interesting things to say about war, courage and militaristic cultures and makes a good counterpoint to the likes of Ender's Game. I think it can also be read as a parable about neurodiversity, but to say more would involve spoilers. I'd definitely recommend this to any YA nerds, and judging by the other reviews plenty have found it already
Brandon Sanderson doesn't disappoint. Truly awesome
непогана підліткова (12-15 років) фантастика, читається легко, на однім вдиху, і не страждає надміру на "синдром барбі-літератури". схвалюю.
I really liked this book. If you've read other Sanderson books, and enjoyed the, I expect you will like this as well.
It's great. No hard feelings for writing this instead of the next Stormlight Archive book!
It's a pretty safe endeavour of course. Harry Potter but with space fighter pilots instead of wizards. I can see absolutely no way this could have been a disappointment. Perhaps it could have been too macho? But this is Brandon Sanderson. He is a master of his craft and appears to have picked this setting exactly to have a discussion about machismo. We have a female protagonist, a female villain, and the central topic is bravery and cowardice.
The detailed list of ingredients:
- A lot of dogfighting against alien spaceships. The ships have some interesting quirks that keep these action sequences fresh. But, wow, there is a lot of dogfighting!
- A lot of personal relationships and their evolution. I easily get impatient with relationships when I feel like they are keeping me from …
It's great. No hard feelings for writing this instead of the next Stormlight Archive book!
It's a pretty safe endeavour of course. Harry Potter but with space fighter pilots instead of wizards. I can see absolutely no way this could have been a disappointment. Perhaps it could have been too macho? But this is Brandon Sanderson. He is a master of his craft and appears to have picked this setting exactly to have a discussion about machismo. We have a female protagonist, a female villain, and the central topic is bravery and cowardice.
The detailed list of ingredients:
- A lot of dogfighting against alien spaceships. The ships have some interesting quirks that keep these action sequences fresh. But, wow, there is a lot of dogfighting!
- A lot of personal relationships and their evolution. I easily get impatient with relationships when I feel like they are keeping me from learning more of the plot. But here it felt fine. Great characters all around and you get to like everyone in the end.
- A solid plot. A few pages in, there is a shocking twist. Spensa's father was shot down for deserting. Ten years later we still have no answers. What happened? Why? This mystery works very well because it ties so strongly to the bravery/cowardice theme.
- Worldbuilding. It is comparable to Stormlight Archive in that in general shape and form it resembles a generic sci-fi (or fantasy) world, but then every detail is a fresh original idea.
- Humor. While there is a fair amount of tragedy, there is also some quality goofing around. Let me add some quotes:
I’d like to point out that the true coward’s weapon is a comfortable couch and a stack of mildly amusing novels.
“That’s probably some irrational human confirmation bias speaking,” he noted. “But my subroutine that can simulate appreciation . . . is appreciative.”
I nodded.
“That’s kind of what it does,” he added. “Appreciate things.”
“I would never have figured.”
“I’m afraid of death now,” M-Bot said softly as we flew.
“What?” I asked, my voice hoarse.
“I wrote a subroutine,” he said. “To simulate the feeling of fearing death. I wanted to know.”
“That was stupid.”
“I know. But I can’t turn if off, because I’m more afraid of that. If I don’t fear death, isn’t that worse?”
Holy. Crap. I enjoyed EVERY second of this book! I loved M-bot, and all of Skyward flight, and Cobb and even Ironsides. So many wonderful characters and a world and story with incredibly high stakes.
I started reading this, even though I do not have a good track record with Sanderson's YA stuff. And Skyward did nothing to change that for the better. The AI was extremely annoying and I don't know whether I felt that way just because I am a grumpy old man. Sensa was an OK character, although her traits were laid on a bit thick. I did like the general story, Sanderson is just really good with those. And that is the only thing which makes me come back to his YA novels, because otherwise they are what gives YA a bad rep (in my grumpy old man's opinion).
One thing I really dislike about Sanderson, though, is this attempt to have clean swearing. That just feels dishonest to me. His characters swear a god-damn fuck-ton, or scudding scud-ton as someone from Skyward would put it. But he gets too feel …
I started reading this, even though I do not have a good track record with Sanderson's YA stuff. And Skyward did nothing to change that for the better. The AI was extremely annoying and I don't know whether I felt that way just because I am a grumpy old man. Sensa was an OK character, although her traits were laid on a bit thick. I did like the general story, Sanderson is just really good with those. And that is the only thing which makes me come back to his YA novels, because otherwise they are what gives YA a bad rep (in my grumpy old man's opinion).
One thing I really dislike about Sanderson, though, is this attempt to have clean swearing. That just feels dishonest to me. His characters swear a god-damn fuck-ton, or scudding scud-ton as someone from Skyward would put it. But he gets too feel good, because he didn't type fuck, shit or hell. Instead he makes his readers say those words in their heads. It's like the Smurfs attempt at swearing and I don't like it.
Overall I will probably come back to the series to skim it for the interesting, story-relevant nuggets hidden in the swamp of annoying YA crap.
YA is not usually my bag and this book had some YA moments that almost made me lose my nerve but I kept with it because I usually like the systems that get built by Sanderson and I wasn't dissapointed. I'm looking forward to the next one since this basically set the stage. The play must go on.
Abandoned at 20%.
I am sorry to say this, but the story did not catch my interest at all. I just found it very plain.
