did you know Skyward was originally going to be in the cosmere? the Nowhere makes a
lot more sense now huh? what Shard...? hey internet I'm Steve and this is rafo
if you've been around my channel for any length of time you may have figured out that I really
like the cosmere literally my username however I'm not just here for the stories Hoid randomly
shows up in but I've got theories about that. different video. I want to read everything that
Brandon has written. I'm Coming For You Memory of Light! eventually. and with this month's year of
Sanderson Swag Box theme it's time to talk about his latest Venture into sci-fi and young adult
fiction: the Skyward series. now you may think "young adult? I don't read kid books!" chill
out grimdark. these novels take place in the far future, in a galaxy far far away, where Humanity
has been hunted to near Extinction. one of, if not the last holdout of humankind are the descendants
of the crew of the defiant which crash-landed on the planet of Detritus 75 years ago this. planet
is surrounded by a series of autonomous orbital platforms, which have enabled the inhabitants
to withstand the alien force attempting to eradicate them. life goes on in protected caverns
underground, and the Defiant Defense Force, using technology and schematics from their original
fleet, as well as what's found on world, are able to manufacture starfighters in order to fight
against the Krell. no not those. not those either. nothing like those. goodness why are there so many
aliens named Krell? the main character on this desolate world is a teenage girl named Spensa,
daughter of a disgraced pilot, who dreams of nothing more than to Pilot a Starfighter. that
and laughing over the smoldering remains of her enemies as their charred and broken corpses slowly
moulder away into oblivion. she's kind of weird. Brandon described it as How to Train Your Dragon,
but instead it's a girl who finds a spaceship and goes to Top Gun school. this series is incredible.
it's got everything you'd expect from a Sanderson novel: compelling characters, laugh out loud
dialogue, spectacular World building, solid narrative twists, specialized in-universe swear
words, only this time it's 400 pages is instead of a thousand. and it's in space! seriously though,
there are moments in these books that I firmly believe if everyone on Earth read and understood
them, the world would change. War, Prejudice, discrimination, Gone. starsight chapter 28,
man. if that's not trying too hard to sell you on these, I don't know what is! you can fit so much
social commentary in this bad boy. there are between four and seven books in this series,
depending on how you count. sometimes math is hard. the three main novels so far: Skyward,
Starsight, and Cytonic, with the fourth and final novel - Defiant - coming this November.
between Starsight and Cytonic, Brandon teamed up with author Jancy Patterson, author of... a
lot actually, to write three novellas focusing on other members of Spensa's flight group. Sunreach,
redawn, and evershore were then published together in the Skyward flight hardcover in 2022. and this
whole universe was originally kicked off in 2009 when Brandon published the short
story Defending Elysium on his website, which is basically a prequel, but like a hundreds of years
pre prequel. if you want to get into it - which you do - I recommend approaching them this way:
start with Skyward. you get to know Spensa, you get to know mbot and you get a basic introduction
to the magic system. yeah it's sci-fi, but it's also Sanderson; of course there's a magic system
of some kind. the next book is Starsight: a much larger view of the universe, with significantly
more info on the other beings that are out there. Starsight ends on quite the cliffhanger,
but I suggest going to Sunreach first. so now it gets weird. the Skyward flight novellas,
starting with sunreach, happen at the same time as cytonic. in fact the interludes of cytonic connect
us directly with what's going on with the rest of the flight, to the point that they're basically
just one big novel to me anyway. once you finish Sunreach, start cytonic going back to literally
the moment after starsight ended. you're going to leapfrog with time a bit here jumping well
ahead of Cytonic, then letting Cytonic get well ahead of the novellas. read Cytonic until you
finish part one including the first interlude. boom you're caught up to each other. now move on
to ReDawn. finish redawn and go back to cytonic with part two. part of me was really tempted to
split up evershore chapter by chapter, but neither of us really wants me to do that. don't threaten
me with a good time! read Cytonic, part 3, part 4, part 5, but do not read the epilogue! before
I'll allow that, pick up evershore and go through it. once that's done, finally go back to cytonic
and read the Final Chapter. but are we done? no we are not! it's time to travel back either 15 years
or centuries - time gets weird when cytonics are involved - and read the prequel. defending
Elysium, linked in the description, details Humanity's first encounters with aliens and the
wider universe. now that you've seen more of what they can do, this will make a lot more sense. plus
you might recognize a few things from the book you just finished! it is Sanderson after all. thank
you for watching! as always huge thank you to my patrons, without whom I wouldn't be recording on
this fancy new microphone! my unboxing of Tress, opening the Cytoverse box, and my next cosmere
connections video - all coming this month - get to be seen early by them, and you too if you sign
up! depending on what tier you choose, your impact can significantly Matt-er. that was bad, and I'm
not asari. thanks Matt and Doug! if you haven't read the Skyward series yet, get on it! there's
more on the way, with this last book Defiant coming this Dragonsteel Con, and a sequel Trilogy
headed by Janci Patterson called Skyward Legacy coming after that. seriously, Read And Find Out!