The characters are mostly well-drawn and convincing and the fight scenes are excellent. She is so used to being pushed away that it takes her a while to settle into being part of a team. While at times she was foolish, it was in the believable way that people can be foolish – especially young people who don’t yet know as much as they think they do. She is determined to become a pilot and to find a way to clear her father’s name. She never believes it, though – she knew her father and she never doubts him.

Spensa is outcast, the daughter of a coward. Or, at least, that’s the story that the DDF are telling.

In a massive fight, he turned tail and ran, abandoning his duty and his fellow pilots. He was a hero, one of the best pilots they had. Spensa’s father was a fighter-pilot, tasked with keeping the humans on Detritus safe from the Krell. But now they have ships and they’re fighting back. Whenever they try to gather in number, they are attacked by Krell, the aliens who caused them to crash in the first place. The last of the human race are trapped on a planet called Detritus, on which they crashed a couple of generations ago. It is well paced and engaging, full of fun and adventure. Skyward is a YA space opera, so a bit outside of my usual fare. The other thing was that he read from Skyward, the book he was working on at the time. I already loved his work – now I also like and respect the man. He made her year and secured himself in my list of favourite authors. My then-11-year-old daughter was there (the only child present, even though Sanderson writes MG and YA stuff as well as his adult fiction) and he made a point of taking her question and speaking to her and encouraging her. Two important things happened that night.

In December 2017, I saw Brandon Sanderson speak in Glasgow as part of his Oathbringer tour.

Brandon sanderson book skyward series