Book Review – Skyward

“Sometimes, the answers we need don’t match the questions we’re asking. And sometimes, the coward makes fools of wiser men.”

Skyward is the first volume in a science fiction series following Spensa, a teenage girl who wants desperately to be a fighter pilot, but whose advancement is threatened by the reputation of her late father, a fighter pilot hero who turned coward and fled battle. Sanderson has written a story with much that makes such tales so enduring, not least a plucky band of warriors fighting against a faceless enemy (the Krell), and an outcast struggling to define herself and gain acceptance.

The main strength of Skyward lies in the main character Spensa, and the story Sanderson tells through her, a story about a girl who struggles to redeem her family’s honour, who fights the powers that be for a fair shake, who is always quick to anger and slow to reason since she is used to unfair treatment. Set against all these flaws and challenges is Spensa’s self-awareness, her raw talent, her genuine hurt. Never do her flaws drag her down, but nor do her redeeming qualities negate her flaws, resulting in a believable character whom I challenge anyone not to instinctively root for.

Skyward also imparts important lessons about the nature of courage and of being grown up. Spensa learns that much of what she believed about herself and who she’s meant to be is wrong, and learns to accept this new vision of herself. To witness this change is the eternal appeal of coming of age stories, and when set in the context of a sci-fi battle, it makes for pretty epic reading. The novel also explores themes very sophisticatedly. Skyward asks why we are afraid of people who are different, and how far we should go to just be ourselves. Often, novelists answer these questions in a very one-sided way – of course we should just be ourselves, and fuck the rest of humanity – but Sanderson takes a more nuanced approach without dodging the question, showing a depth of moral reasoning and understanding that is rare in most authors, so many of whom spoon-feed us morality from their otherwise thrilling tales.

Not that Skyward is perfect. The book is intended for a YA audience, and Sanderson makes the mistake of talking down to his audience a little. I’m willing to accept genre constraints in fiction for younger readers, such as avoiding sex and swearing as The Hunger Games, Harry Potter or His Dark Materials do (to name some of the best fiction for younger readers that appeal also to adults), but it’s important not to overdo this. Replacing “fuck” with “scud” is just a bit lame, and Spensa narrates as if scared the reader won’t understand her, always spelling out her feelings exactly, or telling us exactly how she realized she was wrong. Sanderson’s prose in Skyward is also quite plain; a bit more effort could have been put into generating a sense of awe or pain or beauty in the writing.

But that’s my only gripe. Skyward is a triumph. It’s tightly-written, with a sympathetic protagonist, and masterful in ramping the scale and emotion up and up and up, and then delivering an ending that does not disappoint. From page one, there isn’t a moment you don’t root for Spensa, nor a moment you aren’t keen to learn more about the world Sanderson has built, nor a moment you don’t want to find out what happens next. The payoff is incredible. Sanderson doesn’t shy away from killing characters in war to communicate its cost and up the emotional impact, and he masterfully handles the key reveal of who the Krell are and why they are fighting humanity.

This was my first foray into Sanderson, and it most certainly won’t be my last. Already, my fingers are itching greedily for the second book …