 I just finished reading Skyward, which is a young adult science fiction book by Brandon Sanderson, which means he's breaking out of his wheelhouse a little bit there. And I don't have a lot to say about it. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. So I just want to start off by saying I didn't dislike Skyward. I thought it was fine. You know, I didn't feel like I wasted my time after listening to it. But at the same time, it's just so, so, so, so immensely formulaic. Like there's not a single part of the story that I didn't see coming. There's not a single character relationship that I couldn't figure out where it would go from the instance it was introduced. There's not a single character who broke out of a mold in any way. I really mean that. So yeah, overall it's just... It's fine. I guess. But I don't have anything else to say about it. It's just fine. So the story here is that many decades ago humans had some sort of big galactic empire and they were being hunted down by this alien species called the Krell. And they fell onto this planet called detritus or crashed onto it, depending on how you put it, which has a whole bunch of just debris orbiting it. So it kind of prevents them from seeing out, but it also prevents the Krell from seeing in and they can't really get in or out very easily. And so the Krell just send in ships all the time, just attacking the human settlements, attacking the little proto-cities they've set up. And so they constantly need more and more pilots. And there's this girl named Spensa, who her father was a pilot who was killed, but he was also a deserter or a coward if you will, so she's looked down upon for that. And she wants to join up, she has difficulty doing it, but eventually she does and then she just trains a whole bunch and goes through some battles and that's basically the whole story. Like I said, this whole thing is extremely formulaic, but I gotta say the story is easily the worst part because it is just boring is the main thing. There's very little that happens other than training and occasionally, oh shit the Krell are going and it's dangerous so we need the cadets who are still in training to go up and fight too, which is fine the first time it happens, but it happens a bunch more. And until you're like two thirds of the way through the story, nothing else happens. Like at the two thirds mark, you start seeing some more stuff, there's a couple of plot twists I guess, and I'm not going to give them away, but they're very easy to see coming. And then there is a climax which is again fine, it's just kind of, I mean even, like you expect Sanderson to have really good climax because that's just something he's really good at because he outlines so tightly, but once he gets to this one it was just like oh look there's an excuse for a really big battle and oh the stakes are super high and then there's one big reveal twist thing and it's just, well I don't want to say it's disappointing but I was expecting more. Now like I said every character stays firmly in the mold that they had when they're first introduced, however I will say that Spencer is still likable enough and then there's another character who shows up later called Mbot who I also liked, but like I said they both stay in their mold, they stay in their character mold and never get out of it and the other characters also stay in their character mold and never get out of it and like I hardly even remember most of their names and I only finished reading this two days ago I think so yeah it's just it's a massive failure on every front, like they do their job sure but that's it. Even the setting while it sounds kind of cool at first when it's described doesn't have that much detail to it it's kind of just yeah humans have these settlements they're mostly undergrounds that they can be protected from bombs and the richer people live deeper undergrounds that they're more protected and then the military has kind of taken over the government by this point which most people are okay with because it's necessary for survival or they see it as necessary for survival and that's kind of cool but they don't really do much with any of that it's just yeah the aliens are attacking let's fight them and that's the whole story. I really wish I could go on for another couple of minutes about this but I really just don't have anything else to say everything is very very standard in this slay it's a story of a person who wants to become trading to become this super special badass warrior and they have to prove themselves because people don't think they can do it like you've seen that exact story a bunch of different times not just in books but in video games and movies and TV shows like it's been all over the place it's been done before and it's not that that can't be made interesting but in terms of trying to make an interesting Sanderson really really failed here and I'm making it sound a little worse than it is because like I said it's fine there's a couple of points that I liked there's a couple of characters that I liked and it you know mostly Spencer who is the main character it's all from her POV so it's important that we like her but yeah that's all I don't have anything else to say thank you to everyone who watched this far in my ranting about obscure weird topics and thanks especially to all my patrons whose names are here and my $10 and up guys are Appo Savalainen Andrew Dixon Ashley Watson Ava Tumor brother Santotis Christopher Quinten Emily Miller Joel Johnny St. Clair Madison Lewis Bennett Taylor Briggs Tobacco Crow Toefer Wheeler and Vaivictus as well as all the other names here you guys are you guys are awesome if you want to get your name up here or access to other goodies then go to my Patreon page check that out and if you can't do that then just you know sharing this video and commenting on it and all that that helps me too anyways see you next time bye