Review: “Skyward” by Brandon Sanderson

*Spoiler Alert*

Brandon Sanderson’s newest novel, Skyward, takes a step out of the epic fantasy worlds Sanderson is used to creating and instead focuses the story on the “final” human city on an abandoned planet, and their desperate fight to survive against an alien menace.

It was certainly an intriguing change, but I have to admit that the book was overall too young adult for me. While books like Warbreaker and Oathbringer had me glued to the page, it took me a bit closer to a month to fully crunch down Skyward. I was reading Elantris alongside it, and that took more of my attention and interest. Skyward, while still a very entertaining novel, just wasn’t of the Sanderson caliber that I’m used to.

The Story

The story wasn’t what I was expecting (I hardly looked up anything about the book before purchasing). It’s a post-apocalyptic world but in a futuristic, high-tech universe. There are space ships, there are guns, there are chains made of light energy, there are virtual reality simulators and A.I…

But at the same time, the humans all live in caves and tunnels, there’s only one way to create ships and it’s not something they can truly control, and they’re constantly being hunted by an enigmatic alien race known as the “Krell.”

The humans arrived on the planet while attempting to escape the Krell, and were stuck there after a crash landing. They found a factory that could build more ships, but it was the only one and they couldn’t recreate it. Their entire defense is built off this mechanism and finding ‘acclivity rings’ which are basically what power the ship and allow it to fly.

A high tech society, obviously fallen from their former glory, struggling to survive in caves on an abandoned planet. The mystery of the Krell and the “defect” Spensa has keeps you reading, looking for answers. The constant threat of alien attacks gives the characters actions weight as well, which gives the reader a sense that we need to figure out these mysterious now, or face the consequences.

Overall, the plot has me fascinated for book two.

The Characters

The characters were fun, but really that was really all I could say about them. Spensa, our heroine, was determined to prove her courage and skill in the face of her father’s “cowardice.” This ended up manifesting often as an immature lust for violence and winning at any costs. Thus we have our ‘flawed’ protagonist.

The other students were a mixed bag. Some of the students like Kimmalyn and Jorgen were funny and captivating, but some of the others were just… boring. I miss characters like Wit, Wayne and Lopen, side characters who you wish had their own book because of just how

Cobb, our grizzled mentor, was enigmatic to no real end throughout most of the story. He held secrets about Spensa’s father that he ended up sharing with Spensa anyway, with no real excuse for the secrecy beyond “PTSD” and “the boss told me no.” The issue with that second excuse is Cobb tended to disagree and debate the “boss” multiple times over other topics. If he wanted to tell Spensa the truth, he could have. Perhaps it was to spare her feelings?

As for the boss… Judy “Ironsides,” the seemingly unfair leader of the DDF, was the worst for me development-wise. She held a grudge against Spensa for the entire novel, and even after Spensa proved herself time and time again, fought 10+ enemies at once with no shield and saved the entire city,  “Ironsides” was still pissy towards our protagonist. Stronger character development, please.

M-Bot is where the book shines, and you can tell that M-Bot is like Wayne from the Mistborn second era. M-Bot is the name of the AI of a crashed ship Spensa finds early in the story. His AI lets him simulate emotions, but he will tell you at every turn they are simulated. He will make ‘jokes’ and he will explain he did so to lighten the mood. And he has a strange obsession with mushrooms… He is our books comic relief, and never failed to make me chuckle. For an artificial intelligence, he is shown to have personality and agency, and by the end of the book is a true character who can make his own decisions. I got more character growth from this space ship than I did Ironsides.

The Science

The science involved in the book was neat. The ships, in my mind, often resembled the X-Wing from Star Wars. Long, pencil-like nose to the ship, two wings with boosters, cockpit sits on the top like a fighter plane, etc. The unique part of the ships were the Acclivity Rings. These are what made the ships be able to turn harder and fly smoother. Imagine a big ring on the bottom of the ship, held by mechanical arms, and is always angled towards the ground. When they want to fly straight, the ring is parallel to the ship. If they want to fly straight up, the ring is perpendicular to the ship. Following still?

The ships also come equipped with light lances, a way to create a rope of energy from your ship to an object, tethering the two together. They could use these light lances to take incredibly sharp turns, grapple enemy ships, and much more (don’t want to spoil the ending). They also have hand versions of the light lance, but after the initial ten or so chapters it seems to disappear from existence.

The Magic

I can’t complain too much here, because it’s very obvious that the magic system in this world will play a big part in novels to come. That said, I didn’t even know the magic existed until the final third-quarter of the book. For the entire first part of the book I was under the assumption that the light lance technology was the ‘magic.’ Turns out, the magic is something much more mysterious than I could have guessed, and I wish I got to know a bit more. I don’t have much to say on this one, besides the fact it seems to be hereditary and let’s people travel through space.

Overall Impression

There’s only so much negative you can really say about Sanderson. Everything he touches turns to gold, and with Skyward I don’t see a book that fell flat, but a book that’s mid-transformation into gold. It’s a set up book. The real story will begin, I assume, in the next installment. Sanderson has the privilege of an established author where he can publish ‘set up’ books without having to fear if he can publish the sequel. I believe it was in a blog post by Sanderson himself that said never say something will be important in the next book, because if the first book isn’t interesting enough, there won’t be a next book.

I love Sci-Fi, and I really enjoyed this books when it comes down to brass tacks. I love the technology involved here and all of the possibilities moving forward. I love M-Bot, and I love Spensa (now), and I want to see if we get more development from Ironsides. I want to see what humans do now that they have more answers. I want to see what they do with more information on the ‘defect.’ I want to see them back in space and what will happen there. There’s a lot I’m looking forward to in Book 2, now that the set up is out of the way.

I would strongly suggest picking up this book if you like Sci-Fi or Sanderson. It was a good book, just not up to the epic caliber of The Stormlight Archives or Warbreaker.

4/5 Stars.