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.īecause this ship, uniquely, appears to have a soul. Spensa, a teenage girl living among them, longs to be a pilot. Banks Culture series some time) or indeed the quietly sentient house in Ninth House?Īnyway, with those memories, the synopsis of Skyward was a draw:ĭefeated, crushed, and driven almost to extinction, the remnants of the human race is trapped on a planet that is constantly attacked by mysterious alien starfighters. And who doesn’t love a sentient space ship (I really must read Iain M.

If anyone recognises the book from that eclectic mosaic of memories, I’d love to know!īut the point is, that there was a sentient space ship in that heady mix too. It included droids who boasted an infinite patience a convict on a prison planet who had been experimented on and given a tail, for some reason, but who turned out to be a shapeshifter, language that used the word “stylised” a lot (why did that stick in my memory, of all things) and the ability to manipulate genes so that, as a punishment, our heroes were turned into apes for some period, remembering their humanity but unable to avoid acting as an ape…. I can remember being a kid – it is an achievement: we are talking a long time ago now! – and reading a science fiction book that stuck oddly in my mind, whereas the name of the book escapes me.

Skyward books