Skyward (2018)
Skyward is a 2018 fiction book written by Brandon Sanderson.
Spensa Nightshade wants to fly. Her people, the last free humans, live in caverns beneath the debris-choked planet Detritus, surviving alien Krell raids by scrambling starfighters to defend the surface. Her father died branded a coward, a shadow that trails her into flight school, where instructors and classmates expect her to wash out. Then she finds a wrecked ship buried in the caves, an AI with a personality and no memory of how to fight. Brandon Sanderson writes fast dogfights, hard-won friendships, and a heroine who refuses the label everyone keeps handing her.
Quick answers
What is Skyward about?
Spensa Nightshade wants to fly. Her people, the last free humans, live in caverns beneath the debris-choked planet Detritus, surviving alien Krell raids by scrambling starfighters to defend the surface. Her father died branded a coward, a shadow that trails her into flight school, where instructors and classmates expect her to wash out. Then she finds a wrecked ship buried in the caves, an AI with a personality and no memory of how to fight. Brandon Sanderson writes fast dogfights, hard-won friendships, and a heroine who refuses the label everyone keeps handing her.
When was Skyward published?
Skyward was published in 2018.
Who made Skyward?
Skyward was written by Brandon Sanderson.
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Skyward in our writing
A few thoughts on Skyward
For the cockpit adrenaline and impossible odds, Top Gun: Maverick lands the same white-knuckle flying. Battlestar Galactica shares the premise of a scattered human remnant hunted toward extinction. And the combat sim Star Wars: Squadrons puts you in the pilot seat Spensa dreams about, dodging fire and pulling turns she would recognize.
Elite fighter pilots proving themselves against impossible odds
Spensa Nightshade has to out-fly instructors who assume she'll wash out, flying scrappy starfighters against a far larger enemy. Star Wars: Squadrons puts you in that same cockpit-level dogfighting, Battlestar Galactica follows pilots defending humanity's last remnant with worn-out ships, Top Gun: Maverick is built around proving a doubted pilot still belongs in the seat, and Iron Widow gives its heroine a mecha and a military expecting her to fail.
Kids trained to fight a war against an alien enemy they barely understand
The Krell have shaped Spensa's whole life, an alien enemy nobody fully understands after generations of war. Ender's Game trains child soldiers to fight an alien threat they rarely see face to face, The Invasion throws its kids into an alien war hiding in plain sight, The Host follows a resistance holding out against an occupying force, and The 5th Wave throws its own teens into a fight already underway.
Space wars told through wreckage, found AI and stranded crews
Spensa's discovery of M-Bot, a wrecked ship with an AI that has forgotten how to fight, becomes her way off the ground. Illuminae builds its space war around a ship's AI that starts making its own choices, Gemina keeps that same tension going, Aurora Rising throws together a crew flying salvaged, unreliable hardware, and Defy the Stars pairs a soldier with an android whose loyalties are undecided.