Skyward — Skyward Book 1 Review

Short read. Minor spoiler sections marked under subtitles.

This is turning out to be a strong year for sci-fi in my reading selection, as I follow Dune by Frank Herbert with Brandon Sanderson’s Skyward series.

For me, both of these texts leaned more heavily into the fantasy side of science fiction, as I have an academic expectation for ‘true science fiction’ to try to posit some kind of philosophical, technological, potential-futuristic quandary—like Darren Shan’s Father of the Future.

Skyward is a true YA book—by which I mean that you’re not going to find any of the raunchy scenes that I hear are a major selling point for Fourth Wing. Skyward is about a teenage girl finding herself and questioning her society in a space age dystopia. Relatable.

It’s got AI, spaceships, and aliens. The sci-if aesthetic is a whole lot of fun!

My Favourite Moments of Skyward

After reading Dune, I really enjoyed that Skyward was such a quick read. It’s a page turner—literally, the font is pretty big in the physical UK edition, so you are literally turning the page more frequently than with Dune or any of the Stormlight Books. In this sense, it’s ideal for younger readers (especially if the statistics that younger generations are reading less are to be believed).

Spensa is a really enjoyable protagonist. She’s forthright and energetic, and while her beliefs are sometimes harmful to the people around her, it’s a really lovely journey to see her discovering herself, faults and all. She’s a fabulous proponent of the plot and inspiring in how active she is. She really does her best to take her own fate into her hands and do as much as she can—which is an important lesson for young people to learn!

As a teenager, I certainly felt overwhelmed by how little I could control in my life. Spensa’s approach is a little extreme sometimes, but her message is clear—do what is right and do it with passion.

I also really loved Doomslug. I really hope she survives the series!

My Criticisms of Skyward

Minor spoilers for Skyward.

These aren’t especially important criticisms—I really did love this book, but I did have a few thoughts about the representation of family in YA novels, and also about the representation of AI and supercomputers in sci-fi.

Firstly, I love Spensa’s family but, like most YA novels, they aren’t central to the plot. Like Ash Ketchum, Spensa is quick to leave the clutches of her immediate family and all the responsibilities that come with that.

As a reader, this is freeing. It’s a sweet fantasy to be free from responsibility and expectation, but it’s also a trope. As a teenager, I too longed for freedom, but now as a young adult, I also wish that I had been able to read more YA books that didn’t feel the need to have their protagonist ‘escape’ their family. I wonder how it affects teenage minds to constantly have that viewpoint pushed on them by the materials they read—that their goal should be independence—especially when my generation are finding it so difficult to get the resources together to manage that. More Millennials are living with their families for longer, compared to the generations that write the escapist fiction we grew up reading.

To some extent, I feel like we were fed dreams that are too difficult for many of us to pursue in the economy we’re living in.

But that isn’t just the fault of Skyward. This is a much bigger trend in YA that, while possibly troubling, still sells plenty of books.

My other minor complaint is that AI and computer characters in fantasy so often fail to feel like actual computers. This is something I mentioned in my review for Darren Shan’s Father of the Future.

On one hand, perhaps I have a rather old view of what a computer character should act. With the rise of ChatGPT, it’s clear that perhaps computers can talk more humanely than sci-if once thought they ever would.

I also concede that an overly logical computer character might not be so interesting a character!

Nevertheless, it always crosses my mind when a computer has a habit of feeling a bit too ‘human’ in sci-fi.

Summary

I thoroughly enjoyed Skyward and I’m really looking forward to reading the next book, Starsight, but first I’m going to go back to the Dune series for some Dune Messiah…

Let’s keep the plentiful sci-fi book reviews in 2024 going for a while longer!