There is a trope in fantasy called ‘the boy and his
dragon,’ essentially describing a coming of age fantasy where a young farmboy
comes into the possession of a dragon whom he has to raise and grow, it gaining
sentience as their partnership grows.
Anne McCaffrey is perhaps one of the originators of the trope, with
Christopher Paolini’s The Inheritance Cycle being perhaps the most
popular example. Skyward is
Brandon Sanderson’s execution of the trope at the heart of the story, but
instead of a boy and his dragon, it’s a girl and her starship. Yes, this is the first installment of
Sanderson’s Cytoverse (outside of a small short story available on his website)
and it's based around the idea of a young girl dreaming of flying through the
stars. This is a book which clearly
follows the coming of age narrative, with main character Spensa having several
trials and tribulations to overcome before achieving her dream of becoming a pilot
in her planet’s military. The audience
is clearly skewed towards a young adult and Sanderson has adjusted his writing
style accordingly, making his already easy prose somehow simpler without
sacrificing the characterization. Spensa
takes primary point of view for the novel, and this goes a long way to assist
Sanderson in crafting his usually intricate world but through the view of a
child. This is not his first foray into
young adult fiction, Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians was already a very
successful series, but Skyward’s prose is genuinely what makes the book
work.
Spensa as a character is your classic fantasy
protagonist in a world that has turned its back on her: her father was shot
down as a coward, leading to her and her family being societal outcasts, the
military in control of their colony already has it rigged so she cannot enter
pilot school, and while one of her father’s flight squad pulls strings to get her
into pilot training she is forced to live in a cave and publish washroom
instead of having her own bunk.
Sanderson clearly cannot write a protagonist who doesn’t overcome some
sort of adversity, and much of Skyward feels as if it wishes to
dismantle the systems of the military in societies. The planet has a system of military
dictatorship and in classic military dictatorship fashion, those who are
important to the colony are allowed special privileges while the underclasses
are generally sent to be slaughtered against their enemies. Sanderson attempts to show this through the
dwindling numbers of Spensa’s Flight Group along with an examination of the
stress of people dropping both out of their cadet position and in battle, but
it doesn’t ever quite work to the extent as the system itself doesn’t really
have a representative in the plot outside of the leading admiral who gets
secondary point of view chapters, mainly in the interludes of the novel. Ironsides is almost too human of a character
to represent the type of bureaucracy that would lead to this outcome. She is still a fascinating character in her
own right, understanding the need for ruthless efficiency and conducting
intelligence experiments to determine why Spensa’s father would betray them.
Perhaps what brings Skyward down is that there
is the classic Brandon Sanderson worldbuilding just peeking through the
corners. The last third of the novel
includes the most from M-Bot, the stealth fighter Spensa finds crashed in the
cave she’s staying in, fulfilling the trope of a girl and her starship, but
outside of a vibrant personality there is this kind of sad sense that much of Skyward
is setup in that regard. There is
clearly an interesting world out there, the Krell have a very interesting
culture and backstory, M-Bot’s snark is an utter delight whenever they are on
the page, and Doomslug is just adorable, but these are all secondary. This makes Skyward feel more like two
shorter novellas grafted together and interlaced at points and something that
may have been better served if Sanderson was able to expand the universe,
something it is clear the sequels are going to do. 7/10.
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