Skyward

About the Skyward series

Spensa Nightshade dreams of flying starfighters despite living on Detritus, a scrap-metal planet where humanity's remnant has spent decades hiding from an alien species called the Krell, who bomb any ship that flies too high. Her ambition is complicated by her father's legacy: he was branded a coward for fleeing battle years earlier, a stain that follows Spensa everywhere she goes. When she discovers a broken, sentient ancient starship buried in a cave, her path to the pilot's seat -- and to the truth about her father, the Krell, and Detritus's real place in the galaxy -- accelerates fast.

Brandon Sanderson's YA science fiction series trades the Cosmere's dense magic systems for zero-gravity dogfights, a scrappy found-family flight squadron, and a sarcastic AI ship named M-Bot who steals nearly every scene he's in. It still carries Sanderson's signature: tightly-plotted mysteries that pay off across the whole series, and character arcs -- particularly Spensa's -- that take real emotional risks. The four novels widen steadily from one girl's dogfights to genuine space opera, revealing that the war against the Krell is a symptom of something much larger and older.

Three interstitial novellas (collected as Skyward Flight: The Collection), co-written with Janci Patterson, follow supporting cast members during the gap between Cytonic and Defiant, deepening the wider cast without being required reading for the main arc.

How to read this series

Read the four novels in publication order: Skyward, Starsight, Cytonic, Defiant. Slot Skyward Flight: The Collection -- the three novellas Sunreach, ReDawn and Evershore, co-written with Janci Patterson -- in after Cytonic and before Defiant, which is where they're chronologically set and where Sanderson recommends reading them.

The novellas follow FM, Alanik and Jorgen rather than Spensa, and while they add worldbuilding and emotional context that pays off in Defiant, the main four novels remain fully followable without them. No other Sanderson reading is required -- Skyward is not part of the Cosmere -- though eagle-eyed Cosmere readers will spot a few very quiet connections late in the series.