Skyward
Ratings593
Average rating4.4
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.
Genuinely kept me on the edge of my seat throughout and was hard to put down at times. This was a bit of a side excursion for me while I'm in the middle of Stormlight but I ended up putting a pause on my read of Oathbringer due to how good Skyward is getting. Spensa is a real treat to follow as a main character and the supporting cast were all enjoyable in their different ways.
I really enjoyed this one. There is little character development but it's done well. The plot doesn't evolve a lot though the book. But the characters, environment, and the events are so vivid, the fights feel so real, that the rest doesn't matter. There's not much reflection but the book is highly entertaining and I feel good to read a book like this after a long time.
Ha sido mi primer contacto con Brandon Sanderson y mi primera saga de ciencia ficción. Me ha gustado bastante, es verdad que al principio me ha costado un poco engancharme por el hecho de que no estoy muy acostumbrada a leer sci-fi pero luego me he viciado bastante.
Brando Sando can do no wrong. This is just a fun read. Yeah technically it should not be 5 stars but I enjoyed it like a 5 star book.
Thoroughly enjoyed this book. Nothing I can think of that bothered me or that I'd change.
Brandon Sanderson has, yet again, created an intricate and beautiful world. Even if her slang is a little hard to read, Spensa is an engaging and exciting protagonist. The backstory and ultimate resolution of the book were both satisfying.
Age range: 12-16
Definitely on the lighter end of Sanderson's books, yet still may not be entirely appropriate for younger readers. Adult readers might be turned off by the immaturity of the protagonist.
3.5 stars. This book was an interesting one for me since I don't read much in the Young Adult Genre. I overall liked the book and will continue with the series.
WRITING STYLE
This is my first Brandon Sanderson so I don't know how this compares with his other works. However, I found this book was easy to read with no special prose. I thought that nothing really stood out for me. Scud, I forgot, this book has a very distinct feature in that swear words have been replaced with “Scud” or “Stars”. This didn't annoy me but it was a tiny bit jarring to read all the time.
PLOT
The story begins with our main character “Spensa”, a teenage girl who lives on a planet (Detritus) where humans have crash-landed before her time, attacked by aliens termed the “Krell”. Spensa is aspiring to become a pilot which is a very honorable profession in the society she lives in. She is very talented as far as flying is concerned but she has one big problem that constantly sets her back in her life: Her father who was a pilot deserted his group, fled, and was thus marked a coward. (If I had 1$ for every time Sanderson mentioned coward in this novel I would be a billionaire. No, seriously, please somebody count the appearances of this word.) A coward in this world has a seriously bad reputation. As bad as it can get probably. Everybody apart from her (best friend?) “Rig” hates her and wants to see her fail. This of course makes her life hard, and unfair. But she gets to go to a pilot school anyway where she meets other people sharing her dream of becoming a full fletched pilot. The story then mostly takes place during her studies as a cadet to be a full pilot.
The plot was quite enjoyable for me. This might be because this is my first novel in the science fiction genre so I have no idea if the story is original or not. There were, however, several moments I particularly disliked. This book was full of rather strange coincidences that happened throughout the story. For example, Spensa, the aspiring pilot, discovers one day before her exam coincidentally an unused spaceship while wandering a cave. Later on, she wants to use said spaceship and asks her friend Rig to repair it. Rig, the same age as her, coincidentally knows how to repair the ship (a highly advanced ship btw...). He also, coincidentally, has the time and (most of) the parts for repair at the moment, due to him applying to some engineering internship (I forgot what exactly). At this point, Rig just became a plot device to continue the story which I did not like. Much later on, the ship flies with her but does not want to be used for fights. Thus, it turned itself off forever. However(!!!), in the end, the ship turns into a Deus Ex Machina and saves the day because it has rewritten some of its code allowing Spensa to be his master and because she wants it to be a war device, he now fights. I don't know about that...
The ending was definitely thrilling and interesting. We find out that the Krell are prison guards for human so that they do not conquer the galaxy. However, here I don't really understand why the Krell don't just kill off humans. I mean, why give them the slightest chance to flee when you could just kill them off? We know that it would be possible, they have enough spaceships for this. But maybe I just didn't get this part.
CHARACTERS
I found the characters rather one-dimensional (the religious one, the one that wanted to learn about weapons, the one that does not speak English, the nerd who can repair stuff etc.). Apart from our protagonist Spensa, and one other character not much development or growth happens. This, sadly, did not let me feel much for the characters and some deaths. I know that this is mostly based on the lack of interactions between Spensa and the other cadets due to the admiral prohibiting it. This is leading to the reader missing out on the experienced character growth of the other cadets.
I also had other problems, especially with the main character: First, she constantly makes stupid decisions, constantly does not listen to her flight leader or commander, or just behaves like an asshole to them. She hires her “best friend” Rig to repair the advanced spaceship for her but then just leaves him for days and does not care about him at all. Not once does she give him something as a thank you or whatever. I am glad that I don't have friends like her.
SOME THEMES DISCUSSED
Some themes that have been discussed or at least brought up are the concepts of freedom and cowardice.
It makes sense that freedom has a high value in a society that is highly shaped by its military force and the constant fight against the Krell. This fight is a fight against repression as the Krell do not allow the humans to leave the planet and force them to live in caves on Detritus.
However, freedom is not only discussed as the physical movement to another place when you want. Also, the freedom of choosing whoever you want to be is discussed throughout the book. For example, Jorgen complains about being rich and his life constantly planned out for him by his parents. Spensa even argues once that she might be more “free” than he is.
Cowardice is another topic that is very much discussed in this book. Almost on every other page, the characters name someone a coward. Of course, a coward is the worst thing (apart from a traitor), that can happen in a military society. I mean look at our history where they commonly executed deserters to force the remaining soldiers to fight. From an early age kids on Detritus are indoctrinated that cowards are the worst people out there. This leads also to some deaths in the story as pilots much rather die as heroes (martyrs) than eject when their ship is in danger.
CONCLUSION
I liked this book with all its strong and weak points and I will continue with the series as I am quite intrigued and want to know how it continues. But before I buy the sequel, I need to reduce my TBR pile further...
Like every Sanderson books, i felt in love with Skyward. SciFy is not my favorite genre, butr he manages to make me love it ! At the start, i didn't really like Spensa, the main antagonist. Okay, she had a tough childhood but she's still mean sometime and didn't like people with no reason... I was glad she evolved through the book, and her flighmates too ! We had everything in this book : characters evolution, action, team-building and humor ! I actually am at one click to buy the sequel ahhaa PS : M-Bot, my favorite
I haven't read this author before and man oh man I want more! I am always hesitant to start another series because sometimes stories can be similar BUT not Skyward. Blown away with how amazing this was.
Thank goodness, yet again, for buddy reads and friends who love to read the same things as I do. We already have plans to read the next book in September. No waiting months before diving back into this series
Same as BLC post; 4~4.5 for me! I loved the storyline/plot and the world building! After the first death, it hit me hard because it reminded me too much of Gundam (personally Gundam 00 for me), and that feeling is all too familiar T__T I loved the random comic relief here and there, mostly from M-Bot, gotta love an AI who's spewing out "unpleasant adjectives!" (p. 489) LOL I've sped through mostly with the goal to see where M-Bot's origins are but I'm left with unanswered questions ;-; Kind of interesting that Krells are really prison watchers, and they're actually afraid now. I wonder where this will all go now, now that Spensa has some control over her power/'defect'. Also Cobb. "Cobb is flying M-Bot" will happily forever be engrained in my mind. I hope Cobb will get over the fears of flying one day and maybe chat with M-Bot about mushrooms or something. That sounds like an awesome duo that I'd love 1000%!
Skyward feels like an introductory to a much more complex story. That's not an indictment against the book, but the plot was on the simple side (thats not to say it wasn't interesting though) to me for most of the book. This being in spite of the pacing being rather quick and action packed.
There are some YA tropes in the book that I don't care much for as well, but thankfully not that many. Unfortunately some of these tropes do make parts of the book more predictable then they arguably should be. I really enjoyed the story though because it makes up for the issue's I have with compelling characters whether it be the protagonist, minor characters, or the antagonist. The character development in particular of our protagonist, I thought was extremely well done. And it has a sassy character full of sardonic wit, which is hands down one of my favourite character archetypes.
Interesting world building on display as well (though I wanted more) and when the plot does finally begin to get more complex, things get very interesting. I will definitely be reading the next book in this series with very high expectations.
4 to 4.5 stars. Sanderson does it again and reinforces my impression of him as one of the most consistently solid writers around. I started off this book a little nervous honestly and kinda wasn't completely feeling the book until about 25-30% in. I ended off very much satisfied and probably going to pick up the next one.
I guess relative to Sanderson's other works, Skyward might be considered a YA in that it has teenage protagonists and has a bit more action and less political maneuvering as in his adult fantasy novels. But as you might expect, there are none of the tired old YA tropes here. I spent a lot of the book trying to predict what was going to happen and I thought I had the book in several instances, but Sanderson somehow finds a way to subvert my expectations and give the plot a twist I didn't see coming. The only one development I guessed correctly was thinking that Spensa was going to eventually eject in some dire situation, have her plane wrecked, and then eventually fly in on M-Bot to save the day in some epic final battle, but there were at least ten more tropes that I had guessed but didn't happen.
Our main protagonist Spensa had a really good character arc. She was almost insufferable at the beginning with her blustering naivete, even though I suppose she had somewhat good reason. She did eventually develop as a character after her experiences in the book and grew pretty tolerable by the end. My favourite character is probably Cobb, but only after M-Bot and Doomslug. (I also wonder if M-Bot is a call to Martha Wells's Murderbot, or if it was just a huge coincidence?) I also liked that Ironsides was morally gray at best.
The world was pretty realistic overall. It is 100% believable that humankind would find a way to continually stratify their society into the more and less privileged (and geographically so in this one) no matter how much of a pickle they end up in, and that the more privileged ones would always find a way to make situations balance in their favour. What I found the most bizarre about this world is their obsession with cowardice. Even from the very beginning, I thought it odd that they labeled Spensa's father a “coward”. Sure, you could conceivably label a deserter as a coward, but it was just so odd that everyone was so hung up about that, and showed the same treatment to Spensa. I guess it might be because the society was such a militaristic one, but I just couldn't get past it. And to for some instructors/pilots to view the act of ejecting oneself from a plane when it's beyond salvaging as cowardice?! That's just wild to me.
Thoughts on the ending: Can we say deus ex M-Bot?! There were some tropey parts about the ending but it was written so satisfactorily that overall I'm not even mad. I kept imagining the ending of the movie Independence Day, where the small lone ship flies into the mothership to prevent it from destroying Earth. It kinda felt like that was going to happen when Spensa was about to dive into the lifebuster but I guess not. I liked the answers we got and while it still raised more questions so that the rest of the series can go on, I didn't feel like we were just left on one big cliffhanger, or like this was just one half of a full book. I'm glad it didn't happen that the Krell were the original inhabitants of Detritus and that the humans were the invaders. I've just recently read a book where that happened and I would not have been pleased if that had been repeated here. I'm glad also that we did find out what happened to Spensa's father, but also that we have more to explore re: Spensa's “defect”. I'm guessing it's some kind of weird telepathic connection but I doubt that it stops at the Krell, it's probably much bigger than that.
Very YA, but a fun and engaging story. I definitely want to read (well, listen to) the next one.
Pacing is panifully slow
Lots of convenience (discovery of mysterious and powerful ship, what a coincidence to have a mechanic nearby who can fix those unknown technologies without any problem. M-Bot goes to sleep and wakes only when it is most convenient. Etc)
Annoying MC. When she stops being cringe the AI takes it up.
Plot is nothing special
I was skeptical upon starting this. A little girl with a teddy bear she named Bloodletter? What kind of war-hungry attitudes is this book going to have?
But I have to say, this book was excellent! I don't know at what point I was hooked. It draws you in slowly and is well worth the read.
Loved this! It started out very similar to Ender's Game but it goes on to become its own story. the characters are easy to connect with the plot is exciting and there's even a dash of comedy.
Good book. Starts off a bit weird and tired but picks up pace and character in the latter half. I really wish the main character had a bit more of non linear development arc and bit less of “i'm a traumatised pariah” archetypal character.