Reviews

Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley

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rjackson25's review

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

mdpenguin's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I picked this up and then almost immediately my mood shifted into something that would have been better served by an adventure novel, so it took me a bit to get into this even though it's not very long. Overall, it was good and well written. The characters were believable as was the world it was set in, including the sociopolitical context. From everything that I'd read about it, I had expected it to be weirder, but it really wasn't that outlandish to me. It was kind of like Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy mixed with the Stoic's eternal recurrence mixed with Spinoza's ontology seen through the lens of Buber's I-Thou dialogue, but with some family drama mixed in.

brapfel's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

livroses's review

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

frinsreads's review against another edition

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3.0

This is a quiet, strange, interesting book full of melancholy people. And also there are aliens, and it has kind of a post-apocalyptic Devon setting which I dug

Jem owns the Skyward Inn, a safe space within the Western Protectorate, which she runs with Isley, who happens to be an alien. Fosse, Jem's son, lives apart from Jem with his uncle. Both of them are trying to find parts of themselves in this tumultuous world of aliens, space travel, war and farming

This book focusses a lot on identity, community and acceptance, which are themes I really enjoyed exploring through these characters. We learn slowly, through flashbacks and internal monologue, the history and connections between the people in this story, focussing on the strained parental relationship between Jem and Fosse

In addition to all of those human elements we also have aliens. I found the integration of them into society (as well as the very real prejudice against them) super interesting. Earth has semi-regressed in this book (in terms of day to day technology and infrastructure), but space exploration is a very real thing. But most of the humans left are living quiet, simple lives fueled by regret and Jarrowbrew, the sought after alcohol that allows the drinker to vividly relive memories

I really enjoyed the first half of this book but it lost me a little towards the end, in part five. I thought I'd grasped what was happening up until then, and I was enjoying learning about all the different people and planets and history, but it got just a little too weird for me after that. I'd recommend this to people who like more literary sci fi and who enjoyed Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

~This book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

aliquotpart's review against another edition

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3.75

Interesting concept, decent writing, the seeing into the future part bothered me, I had trouble suspending disbelief.

thlwright's review

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4.0

There are so many original elements to this novel it’s hard to know where to start. The sci-fi trope it starts with is the ‘friendly invasion’. Earth discovers intelligent life on Qita, and its inhabitants in turn surrender completely to the human invasion of their world. However, Whiteley sets the vast majority of her novel in Devon. After a tour of duty to Qita Jem, owner owner of the Skyward Inn is in Devon with her son Fosse, and Qitan Islay who provides the pub with its ‘brew’ - a Qitan drink with seriously hallucinogenic properties. Their part of the West country is in the Protectorate - a society that eschews high technology and contact with the rest of humanity. Outsiders - a second Qitan, and a family seeking to move into a vacant property, set in motion a chain of events that shakes the Protectorate and forces Fosse to flee.

Whiteley takes her time to create the Protectorate society and her principal characters, and the first half of the novel proceeds at a leisurely pace. Jem in particular is an exceptionally well-drawn character, both rooted in her community as the publican, and an outsider due to her connection to Qita. Her son Fosse, chafing at the restricted life of the Protectorate, is a more conventional but still completely credible young man seeking answers and a purpose.

This might be enough for an enjoyable enough read, but Whiteley has a socking last act to unveil. Once Fosse makes his way to Qita its true nature, and whose ‘friendly invasion’ has in fact succeeded is revisited. Jeff Vandermeer and Ursula K Le Guin have been mentioned in other reviews and in her lyricism, focus on character, social and ecological themes rather than technology. This is true, and indicative of the quality of writing in this book. There’s another unlikely but clear influence at the end of this work: a body horror schlock movie made in the eighties. I won’t say which one, as that would give away the twist, but let’s just say that Whiteley’s characters come to realise the power of shunting.