Book Review: Skyward by Brandon Sanderson

I'm a big fan of Sanderson's work, so when there's a new book of his I'll generally pick it up even if I don't know too much about it. Skyward is one such example. The only thing I knew was that it was a take on the "boy with his dragon" story except that it's a girl with her spaceship. Still, knowing Sanderson I knew it would be a wild ride with great characters and an awesome world. I was not disappointed.

Read on for my full review.

Overall Impression
This was a very enjoyable read. I approached it as a standalone novella, yet was surprised to see it's a full length novel (~500 pages) and the first in a series. This means there's more cool things to see in this world. It's among the few Sanderson sci-fi works I've read so it's good to see he can also excel here as he does in fantasy. The characters were cool (especially the ship!) and the plot, though at times predictable, is paced perfectly. This will be a series to look out for.

Plot
The plot, in contrast to some other Sanderson works, is very straightforward and can at times feel like it's running on some formula. A young girl wants to get to flight school but those in charge are against it, but she's really good and gets lucky and fights for her chance to fly. Several key points are predictable, though the exact way they happen turns out either a bit different than what I expected or were just timed so perfectly that they were awesome regardless. The final chapters of this book are just plain fun. All the buildup is there and gets released in just the right ways to make you cheer out loud with the characters.

Characters
Spensa is the main character of the story and all but a few sections of the story are told through her eyes. Her father was a great pilot, until he turned coward and now everyone hates him and, by association, her. She acts all tough and mean, but as the book progresses you see her change and discover how her bravado looks like to everyone else. The book encapsulates well her growth as she slowly acknowledges and faces her insecurities. In addition to Spensa we have other prominent characters like her lifelong friend Rig, her flightleader Jorgen, her instructor Cobb, and admiral Ironsides. Of course, there's also the spaceship, which ends up being a bit of a comic relief character. It is hilarious! You can't quite tell if it's serious, joking, or just malfunctioning most of the time.

Setting / World Building
As usual, Sanderson creates fascinating worlds with intricate magic in them. Now this is a science fiction setting, so we mainly replace the magic with technology such as the acclivity rings the ships use to fly. The world of Detritus is aptly named, as a cloud of debris surrounds it and slowly rains down unto its surface. In addition to the debris falls, you also have the mysterious alien Krell who frequently come down to attack them. Humans have been forced to live underground, with only one heavily defended base on the surface to stop the Krell. It makes for a bleak setting.

Like most good story telling, we don't actually know all of the details of the world immediately. Instead we discover them piece by piece as the story progresses, particularly when Spensa and the others start unraveling some of the mysteries and secrets that the DDF, the Defiant Defense Force, are hiding. It's always fun to be discovering things at the same time as your characters are. There is a bit of a lore bomb near the end, but it serves to answer more questions than we knew we had and sets the stage for future books.

Final Thoughts
This was an excellent read. It felt short because the pacing is so good. The setting is intriguing and the characters are pretty good, though I would have liked to see more than just Spensa's point of view.  There's some similarities with other books and franchises; the most prominent for me was Ender's Game for the (superficial) similarity with the academy. This doesn't detract from the story, though, so I'll be looking forward to future installments in this series.