A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!From Brandon Sanderson, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Reckoners series, Words of Radiance, and the internationally bestselling Mistborn series, comes the first book in an epic new series about a girl who dreams of becoming a pilot in a dangerous world at war for humanity’s future.Spensa’s world has been under attack for decades. Now pilots are the … future.
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’s chances of attending flight school at 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.
Praise for Skyward:
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
”Startling revelations and stakes-raising implications…Sanderson plainly had a ball with this nonstop, highflying opener, and readers will too.”–Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
“With this action-packed trilogy opener, Sanderson offers up a resourceful, fearless heroine and a memorable cast…[and] as the pulse-pounding story intensifies and reveals its secrets, a cliffhanger ending sets things up for the next installment.”–Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“It is impossible to turn the pages fast enough.”–Booklist
”Sanderson delivers a cinematic adventure that explores the defining aspects of the individual versus the society…[and] fans of [his] will not be disappointed.”–SLJ
Praise for Brandon Sanderson’s Reckoners series:
#1 New York Times Bestselling Series
”Another win for Sanderson . . . he’s simply a brilliant writer. Period.”–Patrick Rothfuss, author of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller The Name of the Wind
“Action-packed.”—EW
”Compelling. . . . Sanderson uses plot twists that he teases enough for readers to pick up on to distract from the more dramatic reveals he has in store.”–AV Club
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This is such an excellent story! I was blindsided (in the best possible way) by the surprising end to this novel, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the sequel. If you love a realistic heroine who has to fight for respect, a Top-Gun-like world with fighter space ships, a totally unique world filled with characters you’ll love, you should definitely check out this gem.
This may be my favorite Sanderson book yet. Can’t wait for the sequel!
Thrilled that Sanderson has a science fiction series. I’ve loved his epic fantasy and thoroughly enjoyed this story with Spensa. M-Bot is hilarious and adds the perfect tension-relieving humor. Then there’s Doomslug … I might or might not have a Doomslug sticker on my MacBook.
Skyward is another entertaining and page-turning novel written by non-other than one of my favorite authors, Brandon Sanderson. In this novel you meet Spenca a feisty, short, and inspirational character, along with some of her friends, new & old. Spenca perseveres, and despite being the daughter of a so-called coward, is able to do what she has always wanted, become a pilot. Not only does she become a pilot, her dream & goal for years, but she finds something more – really happened the day her father died – and the things she is capable of.
One of the greatest books I have read! So action packed, so many unpredictable twists and so many AMAZING charcters. This book had me sitting on the edge of my seat every page I turned. It made me laugh and cry. Definitely suggest reading this book!
Skyward absolutely blew me away. I already liked Sanderson, but MAN is this book good. It handles a large cast of characters (which I love) quite deftly, it’s action packed without being overwhelming, and the concepts are just–whew. Great read.
As an author who loves to read and who has listened to other authors raving about Brandon Sanderson, I actually had never taken the time to read any of this incredible author’s writings.
So, I picked up Skyward and boy was I blown away. The writing was pristine. The action was perfect. And the story sucked you in. I can’t recommend this book enough.
In a nutshell I would describe Skyward as Starship Troopers meets the new Battlestar – two things that I absolutely love!
Character wise it’s a strong set up, although I again find myself a little frustrated at the “class by numbers” approach that seems to have not changed since the era of Breakfast Club – we have the Jock, the ditz, the know it all, and the outsider in the mix – although thankfully the intense nature of learning leaves little time for them to fall fully into established tropes. M-Bot is outstanding though and again, whilst there is little unique about a snarky, sassy and pedantic onboard computer, it’s a characterisation that I adore, I laughed so much reading M-Bot and Spensa’s interactions and the mutual snark of their to and fro’s.
The world building is a little sparse but actually the story doesn’t suffer much from it – which for those who know my reviews will find puzzling as I’m a world building kinda gal. The map is helpful, but I think because of the condensed area in which the majority of the book takes place, less is more works well. The ships themselves are helpfully realised in little artistic flourishes throughout the book and that, combined with the cadet status of Skyward Flight, means that I was never just thrown into something and left struggling to understand, by learning the ships in tandem with the characters it made for a much more satisfying read, as when the battles start the quick fire technical prose make compete sense.
I loved the interludes as well and they presented a great way of changing POV in book dominated by the first person view of Spensa – it also brought a way of leaving helpful nuggets of information that the reader would otherwise have not been able to glean. They give a small breather as the space battles are nothing short of epic. it’s a real skill to get a reader to actual feel what is going on but I was able to visualise every aspect with such clarity – the time and effort taken to guide the reader through the finer points in an engaging way paid off in abundance. and by the closing stages of the book I found I had grown so attached the the characters and the situation that I got quite emotional as things built to a crescendo.
Skyward is a fantastic read and in all honesty I think all fans of sci-fi would love this book, yes it’s YA but but for the most part it doesn’t feel like it and if you loved the new Battlestar you will find a ton to love in this, especially with the mythology of the closing stages. 500 pages went in a flash for me, it was that good!
Unsurprisingly Skyward gets 5*
I gave this book four and a half stars!
This is my first time reading Sanderson, and this guy has a lot of good word of mouth. That made me really nervous jumping into this book, but it really paid off.
In this scifi novel we follow Spensa aka Spin on a bizarre world. Ever since her dad died in the famed battle for Alta, all she’s wanted to do is redeem her family’s label of coward and make him proud by becoming a fighter pilot. But that journey’s easier said than done. With an extremely low graduation rate and internal forces working against her, can Spensa rise to the occasion or will she crash and burn under the pressure?
I really enjoyed this book! Spensa was a fun character to follow around. She’s punky and scrappy, and I love those kind of personalities in books. It was easy to relate to her given her past and how others treat her, and she had some guts, so it wasn’t hard to root for her along her journey.
An easy favorite of mine was M-Bot. All the great humor and interaction with Spensa made this book really shine.
There was plenty of character progression going on, not just with Spensa and M-Bot, but with her fellow flightmates as well. Each of them had a distinct personality that made them feel extremely three dimensional.
The plot was intriguing from the start. Spensa and her civilization live on this strange planet where a large outer crust of buildings and ships orbits the planet. Her people are essentially stuck on the planet and have to unite to survive. Things really hang on a thread to begin with, so the stakes only get higher with each plot twist.
We follow Spensa’s journey into getting into flight school and her struggles to persevere and survive from not just Krell attacks from space, but against the admiral, who carries an awful, judgmental grudge against her because of her father’s disgrace.
If I had to pick at anything, I would say that the first half of the book could lag here and there with certain chapters, but in the second half things really took off and kept me hanging on the edge of my seat.
I can’t wait to continue reading this series and explore Sanderson’s other works!
Girls in Fighter Jets; Hot!
I kept meaning to write this so here goes. I absolutely loved Branden Sanderson’s Skyward. I’m a sucker for air battles, military, scifi and this had all of that with very REAL characters that had depth and evolved. I initially listened to it on Audible and found myself working in time to listen to the story at every moment. I’m usually MUCH more controlled with my audio ingestion and don’t forgo things like news reports to listen to more. When it was finished I was quite looking forward to what was to come next and in the afterward learned there were pictures, including maps. Man I LOVE maps in my books so off I went and bought the paperback as well. Fantastic read Mr. Sanderson. If you like coming of age, plane battles and alien invasions check out Skyward.
Wow, what an ending!!
I thought the story started out a bit slow, and even uninspired, seeming to be a mash-up of “Top Gun” and “Ender’s Game” with a teenage female protagonist. Spinna (spelling unknown since I listened rather than read) is the ultimate tomboy who idolizes her pilot father in a world where humans have colonized a planet called Detritus. They are engaged in an epic, ongoing battle with the Krell, who seem bent on human extinction–though no one even knows what a Krell looks like, let alone their motives. Spinna aspires to be a pilot like her father, until one day her father supposedly turns coward and runs from the fight, causing him to be shot down by his wingmate. Spinna subsequently grows up branded the daughter of a coward, and it becomes almost her caricature “core issue,” as she’s obsessed with proving everyone wrong.
Despite that caricature, though, I thought the characterization overall was good enough that I kept going, which is unusual for a sci fi story for me. As it progressed, I felt like the characters evolved and deepened. Spinna has to fight tooth and nail to be able to even go to flight school, and then (much like “Ender’s Game”) the majority of the book is her exploits at school, learning to fly and impressing people in spite of themselves. Her call sign is Spin, because of her name and also because that’s what her father called her. She starts off hating her flight leader (Jorgan, whom she calls “Jerkface,”) but of course that’s a setup for an enemies-to-lovers plot, which I can already see germinating for future books in the series. (Proverbial, but I nearly always enjoy that trope anyway).
It’s the ending, though, the last probably 10 chapters or so, that made me give it 5 stars. It’s rare for a book to pull off redemption THAT well. Sanderson managed to set up a believable, highest-stakes-possible scenario with everything against her. Even the setup had me almost tearful with anticipation of how awesome the payoff was going to be–reminiscent of “Harry Potter” in that way, or of “The Last Battle” in the Chronicles of Narnia. I immediately bought the next book in the series before I’d even finished it. It was that good.
My rating: *****
Language: none that I can recall
Sexual content: none
Violence: none (it was there but not explicit)
Political content: none
I loved this book. It started off a little slow while Spensa learned how to fly and other side stories developed. But it took off (pun intended) around 35%, and I was totally along for the ride (also intended). I couldn’t put it down.
Love Brandon Sanderson books! This book as a lot of humor in it then I thought it would. I’ve very interested to see where this story goes in the next book.
I really enjoyed this book. Loved the main characters snarky voice, and the robot / onboard spaceship personality. Great start to a series.
I’ve never read anything by Brandon Sanderson that I didn’t like–and this is no exception. It’s a great YA sci-fi read, and I freaking love Mbot.
Loved this story. The action, the development, the characters. Loved how it all worked together.
I’ve read or tried to read three different Brandon Sanderson books and they’ve always fallen short for me. There wasn’t enough action, wasn’t enough depth. All three have read more like history books when I wasn’t anticipating reading 500 pages of pure history. So, upon seeing this book, I was sketched. And then I saw that it was classified as YA so I was like… okay. Let’s try it.
And holy fuck am I glad that I did. I bought this book on sale, on a whim, ‘fuck it’ mentality. And I’ve finished this book with a ‘HOLY SHIT AM I GLAD THAT I BOUGHT THIS SHIT!”
This book is action packed, fast paced but still filled with enough depth, emotion, and description that I fell in love with not only the story but the characters as well.
There’s just so much in this book that I could go on for pages. But, the only thing that I want to say is that when I pick out a book, I don’t necessarily look for action packed or fast paced. I love me some slow-burn books and while this was fast paced throughout the entire thing, this also had a small slow-burn aspect that I wont go into much detail because I don’t want to spoil anything.
This is a space themed-fighting pilots, mystery, fast-paced… Just…. Purely amazing. Because how good this book is, I’m going to try to re-read the other books that Brandon Sanderson has written because if I’m capable of loving this book as much as I do, then there’s no way that I wont love his other ones just as much.
But seriously. This has fastly became one of my favorite books of all time and I’ve read so many books that I have extremely high expectations so saying that this is one of my favorites books means a lot. Seriously.
If you want space, intergalactic warfare, coming-of-age, suspense, drama, action, earth-shattering, book, then this is it.
Brandon Sanderson does it again. I was thoroughly captivated by this book. Characters I was invested in as well as amazing storytelling. I want them all now.
Brandon Sanderson does it again. fantastic book!
There is so much in this book in this book to like. The characters were well-drawn and each had their own personality. The story was gripping and realistic. My only complaint is that I have to wait until November to read the next in the series.