Skyward, by Brandon Sanderson, is a science fiction novel designed to challenge the imaginations of teenage readers and build a future that allows readers to question and contrast aspects of society today. It revolves around a crumbling world ruled by the elite and a protagonist that only wants to protect her world from the constant alien invasions that are accelerating its decomposition, but is shunned by her community. It’s a fantastic story that is filled with action, satisfying characterization, and strangely distinct similarities to our own society that advance the involvement of the reader’s own thoughts. The story is fitting for a teenage or young adult audience because it involves great detail, advanced science fiction themes, and a higher incorporation of the reader’s knowledge surrounding the correlation between our society and the one in the story. The first thing I learned from this book is how to build a character through their dialogue. I felt that the dialogue in this book was interesting, informative, and helped build the character more. While my first book had short conversations of emotionless dialogue, kind of like text messages, the dialogue in Skyward seemed much more dynamic and realistic, like telling stories around a campfire. I loved how you got to know the character through their dialogue, and how the dialogue of each character was unique. As an example, it was interesting how the main character’s dialogue reflected her life under a stigma, her interest in the stars (and subtle setting development), and her need to prove herself. As I read, I found the dialogue really allowed me as a reader to grow to like individual characters and to get to know them better. While the actions of the characters helped me know them better, especially during the fight sequences, this book makes me think that dialogue is the best way to characterize someone, because it is just too great. Another example is the first character the protagonist meets, Kimmalyn. Kimmalyn is known as the quirky and clumsy girl who is always fixated on doing the right thing. As a reader, I dismissed her as a less talented, unimportant character. As the book progressed, I realized that she had her talents, and that she had emotions, too. Her dialogue was funny and hopeful, and she was kind; a foil character to the protagonist. I quickly began to love her because of the distinct personality built up by her dialogue. Although all of the characters have distinct personalities that I could find individual sections for, another character I want to touch on is Freyja, nicknamed FM. I thought she would be a great example because of her differences from the other characters. FM is an activist who believes their world won’t last at the current rate, and wants to do something about it. She was raised in wealth, but resents it because she believes the Elites aren’t contributing enough. What I especially loved about this character is that the book never said, “FM wanted to prove to her wealthy parents and the corrupt government that their efforts weren’t good enough.” Instead, FM herself says, “I refuse to be trapped by bonds of autocracy and nationalism,” which once again shows the multiple personalities in her society, which I think is a fitting comparison to our own society (263). Overall, I love how Sanderson builds up his characters through their dialogue, and allows distinct personalities to develop because of how people react with each other. Another strategy this book helped me with was setting development. As a story that takes place in a future where our world is destroyed and where everything takes place on a strange planet unfamiliar to readers, it needed to explain its setting well. Fortunately, Sanderson creates this setting consistently throughout. He uses great detail to describe it, and he also uses dialogue to show it. Like the first book, the readers have the question, “What is this place and what happened in the past to lead to this?” The first book describes this through narration and action, but this book reveals all through dialogue, like characters telling stories. While I didn’t mind the first book’s way of doing so, I think I prefer this method because it also adds characterization. Aside from understanding what this place is and how it happened, it is also helpful to describe what it looks like, to encourage the reader’s imagination. Sanderson plays with the idea of worldbuilding when creating this planet, taking inspiration from the moon, while making simple caverns seem interesting. I love using a lot of minute details in my stories to try to create a setting, but sometimes I worry my details are just flagrant wastes of time. For Sanderson, the details seem natural and they add to the story. Overall, Skyward is a great example of worldbuilding, and it effectively distinguishes itself from our own world and time period. The third thing I will try to learn from this book revolves around plot. There are a lot of stories about different planets and fighting aliens, but I like how Sanderson includes aspects of our own society to incorporate into a fictional society to reflect issues present in the world. I find it interesting that the main protagonist has been shunned from the community, and that she has to face the prejudice of others. I also like how the starship battles are described, and it adds a unique combat and strategy element that one might find in a video game. Every part of the book has a purpose, even if it’s just welcome characterization. Like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the story has an adequate backstory, and it’s nice to piece together the mystery, like with the first book. There were a few parts I was unsure about, like how it often seemed how some characters were only brought into the spotlight when they were about to leave/die. I mentioned that the dialogue seems natural and helps with characterization, but I noticed that the protagonist has more interaction with a character right before they left the story entirely, which made it seem predictable and not as satisfying or emotional. I also had a few issues with the ending and how it was too random, like it was trying too hard to leave questions to make the reader excited about the next book. My first book was the complete opposite; providing some repetitive clues that made the plot twists too easy to grasp, but this book provided clues and then jumped ahead for the conclusion. In a way, the ending of this book had parts that were predictable, but also parts that were impossible to predict, even if you were Sherlock Holmes. While there are more books after this one to hopefully explain more in depth and offer a more satisfying conclusion, I wish this book would have been wrapped up better. Overall, the plot of this story is very interesting, and it effectively takes themes from our own society, but I wish it would have presented a more reasonable explanation to the ending before the end of the book.
The first thing I learned from this book is how to build a character through their dialogue. I felt that the dialogue in this book was interesting, informative, and helped build the character more. While my first book had short conversations of emotionless dialogue, kind of like text messages, the dialogue in Skyward seemed much more dynamic and realistic, like telling stories around a campfire. I loved how you got to know the character through their dialogue, and how the dialogue of each character was unique. As an example, it was interesting how the main character’s dialogue reflected her life under a stigma, her interest in the stars (and subtle setting development), and her need to prove herself. As I read, I found the dialogue really allowed me as a reader to grow to like individual characters and to get to know them better. While the actions of the characters helped me know them better, especially during the fight sequences, this book makes me think that dialogue is the best way to characterize someone, because it is just too great. Another example is the first character the protagonist meets, Kimmalyn. Kimmalyn is known as the quirky and clumsy girl who is always fixated on doing the right thing. As a reader, I dismissed her as a less talented, unimportant character. As the book progressed, I realized that she had her talents, and that she had emotions, too. Her dialogue was funny and hopeful, and she was kind; a foil character to the protagonist. I quickly began to love her because of the distinct personality built up by her dialogue. Although all of the characters have distinct personalities that I could find individual sections for, another character I want to touch on is Freyja, nicknamed FM. I thought she would be a great example because of her differences from the other characters. FM is an activist who believes their world won’t last at the current rate, and wants to do something about it. She was raised in wealth, but resents it because she believes the Elites aren’t contributing enough. What I especially loved about this character is that the book never said, “FM wanted to prove to her wealthy parents and the corrupt government that their efforts weren’t good enough.” Instead, FM herself says, “I refuse to be trapped by bonds of autocracy and nationalism,” which once again shows the multiple personalities in her society, which I think is a fitting comparison to our own society (263). Overall, I love how Sanderson builds up his characters through their dialogue, and allows distinct personalities to develop because of how people react with each other.
Another strategy this book helped me with was setting development. As a story that takes place in a future where our world is destroyed and where everything takes place on a strange planet unfamiliar to readers, it needed to explain its setting well. Fortunately, Sanderson creates this setting consistently throughout. He uses great detail to describe it, and he also uses dialogue to show it. Like the first book, the readers have the question, “What is this place and what happened in the past to lead to this?” The first book describes this through narration and action, but this book reveals all through dialogue, like characters telling stories. While I didn’t mind the first book’s way of doing so, I think I prefer this method because it also adds characterization. Aside from understanding what this place is and how it happened, it is also helpful to describe what it looks like, to encourage the reader’s imagination. Sanderson plays with the idea of worldbuilding when creating this planet, taking inspiration from the moon, while making simple caverns seem interesting. I love using a lot of minute details in my stories to try to create a setting, but sometimes I worry my details are just flagrant wastes of time. For Sanderson, the details seem natural and they add to the story. Overall, Skyward is a great example of worldbuilding, and it effectively distinguishes itself from our own world and time period.
The third thing I will try to learn from this book revolves around plot. There are a lot of stories about different planets and fighting aliens, but I like how Sanderson includes aspects of our own society to incorporate into a fictional society to reflect issues present in the world. I find it interesting that the main protagonist has been shunned from the community, and that she has to face the prejudice of others. I also like how the starship battles are described, and it adds a unique combat and strategy element that one might find in a video game. Every part of the book has a purpose, even if it’s just welcome characterization. Like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the story has an adequate backstory, and it’s nice to piece together the mystery, like with the first book. There were a few parts I was unsure about, like how it often seemed how some characters were only brought into the spotlight when they were about to leave/die. I mentioned that the dialogue seems natural and helps with characterization, but I noticed that the protagonist has more interaction with a character right before they left the story entirely, which made it seem predictable and not as satisfying or emotional. I also had a few issues with the ending and how it was too random, like it was trying too hard to leave questions to make the reader excited about the next book. My first book was the complete opposite; providing some repetitive clues that made the plot twists too easy to grasp, but this book provided clues and then jumped ahead for the conclusion. In a way, the ending of this book had parts that were predictable, but also parts that were impossible to predict, even if you were Sherlock Holmes. While there are more books after this one to hopefully explain more in depth and offer a more satisfying conclusion, I wish this book would have been wrapped up better. Overall, the plot of this story is very interesting, and it effectively takes themes from our own society, but I wish it would have presented a more reasonable explanation to the ending before the end of the book.