Series: Skyward by Brandon Sanderson ("Skyward")

[Francisca]

Hey, I thought I'd get us started as people start getting their holds in! What did you all think of the prologue?

[Rachel]

Damn. I may have to sneak a few pages from the spouses nightstand so I can join in.....

[Oleksandr]

I finished it last month. I'll wait till more catch up to discuss it

[Trike]

Is this more Reckoners junk? I did not like Reckoners, at all. Sanderson is not funny, and he needs to stop trying to be.

[Rachel]

I dunno trike - I thought the Alcatraz middle grade books were amusing

[Oleksandr]

Trike wrote: "Is this more Reckoners junk? I did not like Reckoners, at all. Sanderson is not funny, and he needs to stop trying to be."

No, it is another SF universe w/o superpowers so far. I cannot say it is great, but if you are looking for an easy read here it is

[Joon]

Sanderson only really puts humor in his YA/kids' books so I'm not sure why you're all bent out of shape. Of course they aren't going to be the cleverest of jokes.

But Skyward is YA, and even based on the first handful of pages I've read, it has that same snarky narrative voice, so maybe you'll want to give this one a miss.

[Leonie]

I preferred Skyward to Reckoners by a long way. Much, much better in my opinion.

[Joon]

Started, read prologue and 1st chapter and so far it's pretty standard fare. Kind of a hard time picturing what the sky looks like.

And of course, the most frustrating thing about reading Sanderson is that everything sounds like misdirection.

As for the Reckoners, I liked it well enough, though the final twist (the nature of the Calamity) landed with a thud. Wasn't all that surprising.

EDIT: Finished with Part One (10%). Like many YA books it seems, this one has been tough to read, because of the patently and irrationally unfair treatment of the main character by those in authority. I realize this is meant to appeal to kids, who think everyone's out to get them, but still, just once you want to see it handled with a bit more subtlety and reason.

[Joon]

Up to about 21%. (I really have embraced this whole percentage vs. page number thing since going digital, lol.)

I really just want Spin (main character) to hurry up and turn into the chosen one and start kicking everyone's ass already.

The thing is, Sanderson is too good a storyteller for this irrational cruelty not to mean something significant. So on some level, I'm already predicting certain things about certain characters, in particular (view spoiler)[the Admiral (hide spoiler)]

If nothing else, I need for things to start looking up soon. You can only take so much of Harry locked in the closet under the stairs.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I'm starting tonight!! Hope to catch up fast :)

[Soo]

Setting is pretty basic for the story. You don't get a whole lot for that.

Wait till ya'll meet ______ & ______! =D

[Ryan]

I'll start reading this in a few days, probably.

[Joon]

Soo wrote: "Setting is pretty basic for the story. You don't get a whole lot for that.

Wait till ya'll meet ______ & ______! =D"

Lol I believe I have just met one of them. Name begins with "M"? Loves mushrooms?

Also, this book is already funnier than any part of the Reckoners was.

[Rachel]

I got the prologue read - but spouse hS prior claim at night - might sneak some more sometime tomorrow heehee

[Soo]

Joon, you got it. Always asking for mushrooms.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I read the first chapter.

(view spoiler)[ It's so cute! I love that Sanderson manages to make all of his characters feel authentic. I could tell he'd watched his kids and then written what they did for young Spin. I could feel his wife's presence when we met Spensa's mom. Not, you know, like a Mary Sue type character, but that he'd taken the time to really think out how these characters would act based on what he saw in real life. I love that.

I think the world is cool, as usual, and I see the tropes aligning right now. A few guesses: Spensa's dad was not a coward, his flight partner did something bad, and Spensa's gonna save the day.

Added bonus, I loved Gran Gran. I think I'll grow up to be her but on Earth. (hide spoiler)]

[Joon]

41%. Things are happening. Time for some predictions! (I'll hide em behind spoiler tags, but note these are definitely not things that have happened thus far, they're just things I either want to happen or am suspecting). I definitely don't want to be told if I'm right or wrong, close or way off. I just want to go back and laugh when I'm done and see how far off I was lol.

(view spoiler)[1. I think the Krell are man-made/artificial. I think it's significant that a body has never been recovered. M-Bot's existence presupposes others like him. Maybe the Krell are newer models/evolutions.
2. I think something unexpected is outside the debris field (possibly including the debris field itself, which may be more than just a debris field). I don't think it's just space out there. I think it may be the big reveal of the whole book.
3. I think whatever this "defect" Spin's father had (and that Spin herself is suspected, and therefore likely, to have) is not a defect at all, but something beneficial that they haven't been able to use right. (Assuming it is real and not just something the Admiral made up.) (hide spoiler)]

Of course, my main concern is that, with this apparently the first of a series, maybe few answers are given, maybe these predictions are still another book or two off, which would be disappointing to say the least. This book really feels like a stand-alone.

[Soo]

Love the predictions/thoughts!

[Joon]

Now the thing is, I'm 41% in and I can't figure out who the other one was in your "wait til you meet..." post.

Surely no new characters will be introduced at this point so I'm wondering who didn't make an impression on me.

Unless you were talking about (view spoiler)[Doomslug? (hide spoiler)]

[Soo]

Joon, (view spoiler)[how can you not like Doomslug?! It's the cute weirdo pet to contrast with M-bot the Mushroom fanatic pacifist. (hide spoiler)] lol

[Joon]

Soo wrote: "Joon, [spoilers removed] lol"

Ooh ok....it's just that (view spoiler)[Doomslug hasn't really done anything yet so he doesn't really even feel like a "character" yet lol. (hide spoiler)]

[Joon]

52%. I love how I make predictions about things that I think are going to happen/be explained at the end of the book, and not 50 pages later Sanderson's like "nah, I'ma address that now."

It's like he's saying "I know right about now you're thinking these things, so in one scene I will address ALL of them and let you to know I know what you're thinking, and I know you're making predictions, and I'm gonna screw with them and make you start doubting yourself."

So at this point in the story, my first prediction, (view spoiler)[while not confirmed, is at least the prevailing theory among the characters in the book who know anything (the artificial part, not the man-made part, though that's definitely still on the table for me). Which with Sanderson means it's probably NOT the case. (hide spoiler)]

My second prediction lost a TON of impact, (view spoiler)[even though part of it was flat out confirmed, there's still some mystery there. Now it's just less about the "what" and more the "why." And it's pretty clearly not going to be the subject of the "big reveal". (hide spoiler)]

My third was only touched upon. I still feel okay about this one. (view spoiler)[It seems more likely than ever that the voice Spin heard while flying, and no doubt the one the caused her father to flee the battle, is something that, if not beneficial, can and will be exploited to turn the tide. (hide spoiler)]

I also like how the character of Jerkface is turning out.

[Soo]

I really like that he ended up having the call sign Jerkface. LOL

[Joon]

One thing that's really bothering me about this book so far is (view spoiler)[how quickly they're not just learning to fly, but getting really good. I mean at this point in the story I think it's still only been a few weeks, tops. And I was rolling my eyes when they were flying on their very first day. (hide spoiler)]

It's suspicious, is all. Seriously, reading Sanderson is exhausting. Red herrings EVERYWHERE. On some level I know I'm giving him way too much credit, especially for a YA book.

[Soo]

I probably did a lot of thinking on a whole slew of tangents while reading the book. (view spoiler)[I actually thought that it was fairly sparse in many ways and the training is totally not believable. There are a lot of aspects that break the suspension for me but it was still a solid YA story. (hide spoiler)]

[Oleksandr]

Joon wrote: "One thing that's really bothering me about this book so far is [spoilers removed]."

much more basic and real life problem was that (view spoiler)[e.g. Spin's rat-only diet would mean vitamin deficiency and things like scurvy - do you see her as toothless? And all tribes that were heavy meat eaters drank [liquids] a lot, because otherwise you get kidney trouble due to nitrate poisoning. And I don't ever start on question what rats were eating it alien caves to be that populous (hide spoiler)]

[Soo]

lol - Logic. =)

[Joon]

Lol I don't know if I can click on those spoiler tags yet XD

[Joon]

81%.

What. The. (view spoiler)[**** (hide spoiler)]

[Soo]

You need to use your words. Asterisks doesn't mean much and needs definition. LOL

[Joon]

I'm at the point in the book where I need it done now. I'll probably finish tomorrow, but it's still too much left for me to finish tonight.

But okay, to expand a bit.

1. (view spoiler)[What are the EYES (hide spoiler)]
2. (view spoiler)[The eyes. WHAT ARE THEY. (hide spoiler)]
3. (view spoiler)[WHAT THE **** ARE THE EYES (hide spoiler)]

[Joon]

I'm all out of predictions, but I'll throw some general thoughts down before the home stretch.

(view spoiler)[1. It has crossed my mind more than once that we may be dealing with some sort of simulation thing. My very first thought when the eyes appeared was that Spin was in some sort of darkened tank/chamber, she "woke up" briefly, and the "eyes" were lights or something that were turning on in response. I dismiss this theory because I ****ing hate it, and Sanderson should be above it.
2. What a waste of a character Rig has been so far. Like yeah, he rebuilt M-Bot, but for someone so seemingly crucial to the story, he's basically entirely off-screen. I would think someone that important to both Spin and the story at large would warrant more screentime and an actual personality.
3. Interesting how Ironsides basically = Snape
4. I still want the debris field to be more than an ancient decaying planetary defense system.
5. Maybe the thing that's got its hooks in me the most right now are M-Bot's final commands from his previous owner: "Lie Low. Take Stock. Don't get into any fights". As this is Brandon Sanderson, I expect the true meaning of those words to possibly end up being the big reveal in the story. But I can't find any deeper meaning in them. Like, they aren't phrases you could really read a number of different ways.
6. I am also waiting for that moment when Doomslug turns out somehow to be the key to everything.
7. I don't know what happened to Spin's dad, but it better turn out to be something more than "his mind was hijacked by the Krell". I will throw this book at the wall if that's all the damn defect is. Not literally, the book is my Kindle. (hide spoiler)]

[Soo]

Hahah - I can't wait for you to finish and see? Doomslug is awesome!

[Joon]

Ok done. Still organizing my thoughts. Overall very happy with how it ended. My predictions were about half and half. One (#1) was way wrong, one (#3) was almost exactly right (though in retrospect, not all that impressive a prediction lol), and the other one was middling. Will post more complete thoughts tomorrow.

Now a blurb at the end of the book said the sequel was coming in Fall 2019. His website says it's done, just needing revisions:

Status: Book Two ready to go in 2019. Book Three likely in 2021, Book Four likely in 2022.

So fortunately not too long a wait for book Two, but a nightmarish wait for the rest.

I don't think it's a spoiler to say this: based on how this book ended, this series is going to be BANANAS.

And my mantra is going to be (view spoiler)[WHAT THE **** ARE THE EYES (hide spoiler)]

EDIT: I will say that my belief about (view spoiler)[M-Bot's "Lie Low" command being significant couldn't have been more laughably wrong. That ended up meaning nothing. At least so far. Possibly in future books I expect we'll learn more about "his time". And even though what happened to Spin's father did basically just amount to "his mind was hijacked", I ended up being okay with how it was explained, so I didn't throw anything. (hide spoiler)]

[Soo]

LOL!!

Joon, you definitely got more caught up in the story than I did. I listened to the audio vs reading it.

Spin's (view spoiler)[Dad - I think what happened to him is more important than a lot of other stuff that has occurred in this story. 1st book was a nice setup for more for sure. I expect to get more on the navigation aspect but I don't know how all of that is going to come about when they're not building their own ships well. It seems like the whole place is a scavenger colony.

That's probably where Rig will become a more important factor as he learns and gets to tinker with more tech. (hide spoiler)]

[Oleksandr]

I'm glad your Kindle survived, Joon! :)

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

25% in, End Ch 14

I'm enjoying it, but (view spoiler)[ it feels like a lot of build up and so far nothing particularly revelatory has happened. It's cute. It's a strong book for a younger audience, I think. Boy does Sanderson like things that attach to other things! Hoping it starts to feel distinct soon. (hide spoiler)]

[Joon]

Ok here are some of my thoughts after finishing.

1. First, no spoiler, I really did love this book. Certainly way more than any of the Reckoners books. Not as much as the first three Mistborn books, but close. And if the rest of the series goes like I hope, it may pass them. It has me back on a Sanderson high I haven't felt since the first Mistborn book, and it's making me seriously considering breaking my rule of not starting the Stormlight books until they're nearly done. ESPECIALLY since I read up a bit on them, and it sounds like he's breaking the series up into two major 5-book arcs, and that book 5 is going to read a lot like the final book of a series. This has me more comfortable starting now.

(view spoiler)[2. I'm pretty excited for this series to branch out into space and involve the other aliens. I mean we've only seen the Krell, and they're effectively nobodies. They aren't the ones in power. That development was pretty awesome.

I think it's clear the ultimate destination for the series is getting humanity back in the good graces of the other aliens, proving somehow that they're worthy of joining the alliance or whatever. Tall order, of course, no idea how they get there. But it means our characters are headed out to space to meet other aliens.

3. I complained about Rig's role in this book, but it's clear that his role becomes much more important in book two. Hell, most of the characters remaining from the class probably have bigger picture roles to play. Jerkface, of course, as a politician's son, will certainly be crucial. It's also clear he's being positioned as the male romantic lead in the future books. Poor Rig. And Sanderson made sure to keep the washouts in the story, so they'll have roles to play as well. I'm glad he didn't kill off more than he did. I didn't care about Bim or Hurl, I was annoyed about Morningtide because he had just started to develop her character before offing her.

4. I'm assuming the major arc of book two will be pushing back the Krell permanently. Defeating them outright seems to go counter to the theme of the story, so I expect some sort of peace agreement or understanding, so to speak. Just wiping out the Krell would kind of validate the humans' isolation as dangerous. So I expect we'll start meeting Krell characters, and there will be meetings. It won't (hopefully) just be a bunch of boring diplomatic meetings, but it has to be some sort of environment where they can talk and learn more about each other.

5. Obviously we have to learn more about where M-Bot came from, who was on the planet originally. That's a major mystery that went practically untouched in this book. Same with the "debris field", which BETTER BE EXPLORED in book two. Not book three, not book four. BOOK TWO. Seriously, one of my favorite types of sci-fi story is exploration of empty/alien ships/ruins/etc. (Rama, Pushing Ice, etc.) I could take a whole book of them just exploring the buildings on those platforms.

6. I'm worried we aren't going to get more about "the nothing" (i.e. THE EYES). Even if we do, it may not come until the last book. But it read like the kind of thing that a lot of authors would choose to leave a mystery. The truth is, I'm not certain that THE EYES aren't just stars in deep space or something. That whole part was fuzzy. But I really want it to be EYES.

7. I'm incredibly annoyed we were deprived of the scene where M-Bot called and Cobb answered. I demand a short story! (hide spoiler)]

I'll probably have more thoughts later. I definitely did get caught up in this one.

[Francisca]

Oleksandr wrote: "Joon wrote: "One thing that's really bothering me about this book so far is [spoilers removed]."

much more basic and real life problem was that [spoilers removed]"

Don't forget the mushrooms! They could be full of vitamins?

[Francisca]

I finished a couple days ago. It definitely reads for a much younger audience but didn't annoy me as much as the Alcatraz series, which I couldn't even finish. There are a lot of Star Wars resonances as well - or is that just me? I did like it, but nowhere as much as his adult books and I think a bit less even than Reckoners.

(view spoiler)[ It did feel as if it promised more than it delivered in terms of the open questions at the end. I'm glad she figured out what happened to her dad, which I guess is the driving arc in this book, but I was left wanting something more. Especially both about what exactly the "defect" is (magical navigation capabilities?) and M-Bot's history. But I guess he has to fill three more books somehow!

Joon: I agree with a lot of your thoughts! I thought a lot of the secondary cast didn't get as much screen time, though I think that was intentional to make Spin more isolated, but I kept wanting to see more of them.
(hide spoiler)]

[Oleksandr]

Francisca wrote: "Don't forget the mushrooms! They could be full of vitamins? "

I guess this is sarcasm, because Earth ones aren't. Moreover, what these mushrooms eat to grow? It Earth deep caverns, where there is no light, there are usually no flora or fauna in quantities enough to feed a person

[Francisca]

Oleksandr wrote: "Francisca wrote: "Don't forget the mushrooms! They could be full of vitamins? "

I guess this is sarcasm, because Earth ones aren't. Moreover, what these mushrooms eat to grow? It Earth deep cavern..."

Sorry if it came out snarkier than I intended!

The book is a bit full of holes, but it's funny how different holes bother different people. I kept getting caught up on a timing issue: (view spoiler)[ if people survived the crash landing on Detritus, how is it that everyone somehow forgot about the massive intergalactic war they were avoiding? People act as if they've been there for a long time, but it sounds like at most 100 years, and that's a stretch? If Gran-Gran was on the ship as a kid it can't be much more than 80, allowing for normal human timespan. (hide spoiler)]

[Joon]

Francisca wrote: "Oleksandr wrote: "Francisca wrote: "Don't forget the mushrooms! They could be full of vitamins? "

I guess this is sarcasm, because Earth ones aren't. Moreover, what these mushrooms eat to grow? It..."

(view spoiler)[ The first thing I can think of is; it said they landed about 100 years ago, but I don't really recall it saying when they fled. For all we knew, they'd been traveling a long time. Certainly it wasn't a generation ship or anything, but still.

But other than that, 100 years is still kind of a long time, especially if all your records are destroyed very early on. We know what we know about the early 1900's because everything was written down, but how much would we know today about say WWI if all the records of that war, and all the ranking people who fought in it were all wiped out shortly afterwards?

And I'd say it's maybe even more extreme if you thought about 100 years from now. If our internet were suddenly ended, it would be a chaos we'd struggle to recover from. Everything is online now. Yes, we still have physical books (something the Detritans likely did not), but it would still be almost apocalyptic. Hard to imagine where we'd be in 100 years if we effectively lost the internet today.

And lastly, with all the higher-ups wiped out by the lifebuster, the people who remained were probably less in the know about everything that was going on, so most people now on Detritus are descended from people with only peripheral knowledge of what that war was all about.

It stretches belief some, but not enough that it took me out of the story or distracted me. (hide spoiler)]

[Oleksandr]

Francisca wrote: "The book is a bit full of holes, but it's funny how different holes bother different people"

True. While there is a lot of suspension of disbelief in the process, I actually liked the tonne and the story enough to go pass the holes [mostly]

[Soo]

Francisca wrote: "Don't forget the mushrooms! They could be full of vitamins?"

Bwahaha! M-bot

[Soo]

Nah. Story still has enough holes to sink a ship. I figure we're just willing to go with it because we hope Sanderson will weave the story to make more sense and have less holes at the end.

[Rachel]

Just finished Blackfish City so I'm going to squeeze this in before Medusa Uploaded - hope I'm not too late to the party

[Soo]

Join us!

[Rachel]

Well I managed to get through part one tonight (pretty quick since it’s all set up.)
I’m ready for the YA set-up to be over and to get into the Sanderson-ing (whatever that’ll mean here)