She wants to show everyone that she is brave, strong and dependable. It’s a story of a young teenager (Spensa) ostracised from those around her because of her father, once one of the elite space pilots but labelled as a coward in a key battle that led to his death, shot down by his friend.įorced to eke out a meagre existence selling rat-meat with her worn-down mother and blind grandmother, Spensa is determined to right what she sees as wrongs – clear the name of her father and obtain the status given to the elite pilots of the Defiant Defense Force (DDF), whose dangerous job is to defend the Humans against attacks from the alien Krell (named like the aliens in Forbidden Planet, but not the same) on her home planet of Detritus. So: just to set the record straight: this is a science fiction novel written by Brandon. but their desperation to survive might just take her skyward. They’ve doubled their fleet, making Spensa’s world twice as dangerous. And the Krell just made that a possibility. No one will let Spensa forget what her father did, but she is still determined to fly. But her fate is intertwined with her father’s – a pilot who was killed years ago when he abruptly deserted his team, placing Spensa’s chances of attending flight school somewhere between slim and none. Spensa has always dreamed of being one of them of soaring above Earth and proving her bravery. Pilots have become the heroes of what’s left of the human race. Humanity’s only defense is to take to their ships and fight the enemy in the skies. An alien race called the Krell leads onslaught after onslaught from the sky in a never-ending campaign to destroy humankind. But did I like it?įrom the publisher: “Spensa’s world has been under attack for hundreds of years. The arrival of a new Brandon Sanderson novel will be heralded with great joy by his many fans, so much so that the author’s name will be enough to grab this one.