Skyward (2018) is a young adult science fiction novel by Brandon Sanderson and is the first of four books in the Skyward series. In the world of the novel, a human population is trapped on a planet called Detritus and has organized a space force to battle aliens—Krell—in order to survive. The novel follows Spensa Nightshade, a young woman who also goes by the name of Spin and dreams of becoming a pilot in the space force. However, she struggles against the weight of her father’s infamous reputation as a coward and must also come to terms with the losses of war while trying to help her people survive

This guide refers to the 2018 Delacorte Press edition.

Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide include descriptions of wartime violence and death.

Plot Summary

Skyward opens years before the primary setting of the novel, when the protagonist, Spensa “Spin” Nightingale, a member of the Defiant culture, first goes to explore the surface of the planet Detritus with her father, Zeen “Chaser” Nightingale, who teaches her to reach for the stars. Zeen shows her an opening in the debris belt orbiting Detritus. Suddenly, the human space force, known as the Defiant Defense Force (DDF), calls for all pilots to report to base and take to their ships against a large incoming force of Krell, the aliens that regularly attack humans. Later, Spensa finds the official report of this battle, the Battle of Alta, and learns that her father fled and was shot down by the DDF for cowardice. Spensa is condemned as the daughter of a coward and must endure the rest of her childhood under the shadow of Zeen’s ruined reputation.

Spensa dreams of becoming a pilot in the DDF and fighting off the Krell. Although she skips many school lessons to hunt rats and mushrooms in order to help support her family, she attends all classes related to piloting skills. On the day before the test for entry into the flight academy, she discovers that Admiral Ironsides of the DDF intends to ensure that Spensa does not pass. Nonetheless, Spensa is determined to be defiant in accordance with her culture’s values, and she takes the test.

Her test differs from those of the other candidates and is specially designed to make her fail. However, Captain Cobb, her father’s old wingmate, finds her and gives her a spot in his own classroom at the flight academy, claiming that the admiral has no authority to stop him from doing so. On the first day of flight school, after minimal time in their mockpits (flight simulators), the admiral calls the new cadets to act as support against incoming Krell.

At the end of their first day, Cobb informs Spensa that the admiral has forbidden her from sharing quarters with her comrades on base, and she is also barred from consuming the base’s food. Rather than quitting, Spensa forms a makeshift home in a cavern where she previously discovered an abandoned, broken-down ship. She decides to sleep in the cockpit of the ship and survive on mushrooms and rats rather than making the long commute between her family’s home and the base.

Classes continue, and Spensa bonds with some of the students. When an upper-class cadet named Jorgen, who is also the cadets’ flightleader, reveals Spensa’s parentage in retaliation for her insubordination, some students treat her differently, but others continue to accept her. After some weeks of training, their “flight”—an organized group of pilots who always work together—is called into action again to provide a show of force and to serve as backup if necessary. Two of the cadets, Morningtide and Bim, die in that battle, and Spensa struggles with the grief over their loss.

Spensa spends her evenings trying to fix the ship that she found. After she finally restores power to the ship, she is surprised when it talks to her; it is equipped with AI technology and calls itself M-Bot. Its pilot died over 100 years ago, long before humans crash-landed on Detritus. M-Bot has lost much of his data, so he cannot provide many answers about himself or about human history. Spensa enlists her friend Rodge’s help to repair M-Bot because she is afraid that the admiral will not let her fly as a full pilot.

Spensa continues training and learns that the admiral’s medical team is studying data from sensors in Spensa’s helmet. They are trying to discover physical evidence of something called “the defect,” which the admiral believes is responsible for Zeen’s cowardice in his last moments.

As training continues, Spensa struggles with her growing fears and worries that her fears mark her as a coward, especially as she struggles to cope with her grief over her lost friends. Her class continues to lose students, either to withdraw from the academy or to death in battle. During their next battle, Spensa’s wingmate, Hurl, is killed. While on leave, Spensa decides to discover the truth of what happened to her father. With Cobb’s help, she obtains the recording of the Battle of Alta and discovers that her father was not a coward but a traitor. He flew into space to see if he could learn anything about their enemy, but when he came back, he turned on the DDF and killed several of his fellow pilots. Spensa feels that this discovery is slowly destroying her, and she realizes that she is showing signs of the same “defect” that her father had. Later, when her decision to eject from a crashing ship is interpreted as evidence of cowardice, the admiral summarily dismisses her from the force.

On the day of graduation, Admiral Ironsides has scheduled a massive operation to recover hundreds of acclivity rings—the devices that give ships their lift—from falling debris to allow the DDF to build more ships in defense of humanity. While listening to the pilots’ radio bands during the battle, Spensa and other cadets who left the DDF recognize that the humans are losing the fight. Because every pilot has already been called to battle, the cadets decide to steal the private ships owned by one cadet’s family and fly them into battle to help the DDF.

Spensa tells her friends that she cannot join them, since her “defect” might put them in danger, but the DDF soon discovers that the Krell have laid a trap. A bomb is now heading toward Alta base and the Igneous cavern and will destroy everyone in both locations if it hits. Spensa takes a damaged ship from base and flies toward the bomb. After an intense struggle, she has no other recourse but to use her damaged ship to fly straight for the bomb, intending to detonate the bomb before it reaches its target even though doing so will kill her. However, Spensa’s ship dies before she can accomplish this goal. Instead of ejecting, she tries to regain control but is forced to crash-land. M-Bot appears, flown by Cobb, and Spensa replaces him in the cockpit. Her friends also arrive in their stolen ships. Everyone distracts the Krell enough for one cadet to sever the bomb from the ship carrying it.

Those in Alta base expect to die, but Igneous is saved. Spensa, however, grabs the bomb with M-Bot’s ship and flies it far away, even knowing that she will not be able to escape in time to avoid the blast. But just before the blast, she finds herself instinctively using her “defect”—which allows her to interface directly with technology, among other things—to reach into M-Bot’s components mentally and activate the technology that enables near-teleportation speeds. Instead of returning to base, Spensa decides to do what her father did and seek answers about the Krell in space. She approaches the Krell, and before M-Bot’s shields snap into place to protect her, she feels her mind momentarily invaded by false images from the Krell’s mind-control technology. She realizes that her father was sent mental images of a false reality; when he shot at his fellow pilots, he thought that he was shooting at Krell who had already killed his friends and destroyed humanity. M-Bot also taps into the Krell’s technology and learns that they are jailers dedicated to preventing humans from rejoining intergalactic politics. Spensa’s gift and this recovered information offer humanity a new sense of hope.