Skyward by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A stellar sci-fi romp by one of my favorite authors. Sanderson delivers a new, brilliantly realized world where the last of humanity fights for survival on a hostile, alien world. The descendants of the humans who crashed on this planet three generations ago use scavenged technology to fight back against the Krell--an alien race about which little is known except that they attack and bomb human settlements. Foremost among the humans' defenses are starfighters, giving the pilots who fly them for humanity's sake a special honor and social status. And the best human pilot was call-sign Chaser... until the day he supposedly fled a battle and was branded a coward.

Chaser's daughter, Spensa, grew up under the burden of being a dead coward's daughter. Little wonder then that she developed an urge to fight at the drop of a hat. She wants to clear her father's name, but more than that, she needs to prove to herself that she is not a coward. So she follows in her father's footsteps and, against impossible odds, becomes a pilot. But along the way, she comes to know the truth about what happened to her father, leaving her with only one question. When push comes to shove, will she be a hero or a coward?

This book does a great job of setting up the world, but it's the characters that really shine as we join Spensa, call-sign Spin, her classmates, and an ancient AI with a warped sense of humor as they train together and take to the skies as the next generation of starfighter pilots.

Spin is young, angry, rash, and prone to melodramatic speeches about bathing in the blood of her enemies, but she grows up a lot over the course of the book, and it's delightful to watch her find her place in the world, but this story only marks the beginning for her and her friends. I can't wait to read more.

View all my reviews