Officially Announcing: Skyward (2024)

Hey! I’m back from tour, and let me say, it was quite the experience. I knew you all were excited for Oathbringer—but I didn’t understand just how excited you were. Oathbringer, as of this writing, is still the #1 most read book on Amazon’s “what are people reading” chart. (I guess the length might have something to do with that…)

My signings were two to three times the size of previous ones, and you all kept my hand very busy with your books! Thank you to everyone who came out to see me, and I apologize again for long waits to get what amounted to a very brief interaction. We outgrew our venues and sold out of books at almost every stop—to the point that I’ve said that all future signings are going to have to be off-site in a theater or something, so at the least people have chairs to sit in while they wait. I’ll also be trimming and shortening the signing protocol to get people through faster. (Look for a post about that later this week.)

These are awesome problems to be having, I must say. It wasn’t that long ago when I’d do a signing or reading where the only people to show up were those who knew me.

On tour, I did a reading from what up until now was listed as “Mystery Project” on my website. If you missed the newsletter explanation, I’ve pulled the book I was going to release next year (The Apocalypse Guard) because it needs more work. Instead, I’ve turned my attention to something else—and after a furious bout of writing, I’m confident in where it’s going. So it’s time to announce Skyward.

Like Steelheart and its sequels, this is a kind of borderline YA/Adult project. In the US, it will be published by Delacorte Press (publisher of Steelheart) in the Young Adult section of bookstores, while in the UK it will be published by Gollancz (publisher of almost all my books) in my main line, shelved in the science fiction/fantasy section of bookstores.

I’ve mentioned Skyward before in summaries of stories I’m working on, but haven’t said much about it. I started noodling with the ideas in 2012, I believe. (The year that the Write About Dragons recordings of my lectures happened, where I mentioned it briefly—but not by name.) The first outline thoughts are dated summer 2013. It’s a book I’ve been wanting to write for a long time, and it finally came together this year.

It has its roots in some of the very first books I ever read as a young man getting into fantasy. Like many young readers, I was captured by books about dragons, specifically books about boys who find dragons and learn to fly them. These have been staples of the fantasy genre for some fifty years. For me, it was The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey and Dragon’s Blood by Jane Yolen. For others, the “boy and his dragon” story that captured them was Eragon, or How to Train Your Dragon.

I’ve always loved this story archetype, but I’ve never written anything using it. This is in part because…well, it’s a familiar story. Too familiar. I wasn’t certain I could add anything new to it. So I left it alone, letting ideas simmer, until in 2012 something struck me. Could I mash this together with a flight school story like Top Gun or Ender’s Game, and do something that wasn’t “a boy and his dragon,” but was instead “a girl and her starfighter”?

Skyward was born, much like Mistborn, with me taking two ideas and mashing them together to see where they went. And they went someplace incredible—I grew increasingly excited about the project, as I saw in it a chance to both play in a space I loved, and do some very interesting things with story and theme. It wasn’t until this year that I got the personalities of the characters right, but I really got excited when I found a place for this in the lore of stories I’d been creating.

The official pitch is this: Defeated, crushed, and driven almost to extinction, the remnants of the human race are trapped on a planet that is constantly attacked by mysterious alien starfighters. Spensa, a teenage girl living among them, longs to be a pilot. When she discovers the wreckage of an ancient ship, she realizes this dream might be possible—assuming she can repair the ship, navigate flight school, and (perhaps most importantly) persuade the strange machine to help her. Because this ship, uniquely, appears to have a soul.

As I’ve played with Skyward over the years, I tried to pull it into the Cosmere, then found it didn’t work there. However, it is in the continuity of something I’ve written before. Something that isn’t the Cosmere, and isn’t the Reckoners. And no, I won’t say anything more for now. However, you can listen to me read the prologue as part of my presentation for this year while on tour. (The reading is in part two.)

Part One:

Officially Announcing: Skyward (2024)

FAQs

When was Skyward published? ›

Skyward is a 2018 young adult science fiction novel written by American author Brandon Sanderson. It is the first in a series of four books. It was published by Delacorte Press on November 6, 2018.

Is Skyward part of the Cosmere? ›

1. Is Skyward going to be a part of the Cosmere? It is unrelated to the Cosmere, since Earth is part of its history and because certain elements of space travel are done differently.

Who reads skyward? ›

SKYWARD by Brandon Sanderson Read by Suzy Jackson | Audiobook Review | AudioFile Magazine.

Will there be a 4th book in the Skyward series? ›

Defiant is a satisfying concluding volume to the Skyward series that reflected the root of the first book: friendship.

Does Spensa get MBot back? ›

M-Bot tried flying as they escaped, but didn't do very well. Spensa returned to the Broadsiders after terms were made, and Spensa was allowed to upload M-Bot to the Broadsiders' best ship.

Is Hoid in the Skyward series? ›

All of these works, save Skyward, take place in the same universe called the Cosmere. The connections are quite ephemeral in these pieces, but watch for a character named Hoid (a.k.a. Wit). He is relevant to each of them in some way or another.

How old to read Skyward? ›

Product Information
Publisher‎Delacorte Press (1 January 1900)
Reading age12 - 17 years
Dimensions‎16.51 x 3.66 x 23.83 cm
Best Sellers Rank116,098 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) 248 in Alien Sci-Fi Books for Young Adults 318 in Science Fiction Adventures for Young Adults 363 in Survival Stories for Young Adults
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Was Chaser a coward? ›

LegacyEdit. Chaser's actions led to him being branded a coward. This was specifically engineered by Ironsides as she believed it better he be branded a coward than a traitor.

In what order should you read Skyward? ›

Stephen I read these in the recommended order: Skyward, Starsight, Sunreach, ReDawn, Cytonic then Evershore.

What universe is Skyward in? ›

Skyward is a young adult science fiction novel by Brandon Sanderson. It is the first book in the four volume Skyward series and the second work set in the Cytoverse, with the plot taking place centuries after the short story Defending Elysium.

Who is Chet in Skyward? ›

Chet Starfinder: A delver who was reformed after coming into contact with Spensa. He disguises himself as an explorer who has lost his memory due to spending 170 years in the nowhere. Doomslug: Spensa's pet alien slug who was revealed to be a source of faster-than-light travel and a fellow cytonic.

When did Zelda Skyward come out? ›

Is the Skyward series finished? ›

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson comes the final book in an epic series about a girl who will travel beyond the stars to save the world she loves from destruction.

What age is Skyward Brandon Sanderson appropriate for? ›

Sanderson's books in general are extremely digestible, and he is one of my favorite authors, I just think it's better to start reading his adult fantasy series and standalone when one is around 13 - 16, again depending on how mature one is for their age.

When was Starsight published? ›

Starsight is a 2019 young adult science fiction novel written by American author Brandon Sanderson. It is the sequel to Skyward and second in a planned series of four books. It was published by Delacorte Press on November 26, 2019.

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