Dragons flying in the sky, an arranged marriage between two upper class youths, a broken city… one might be forgiven for thinking The Sky is Yours is a high fantasy novel given those genre tropes. With the broken, decadent city (Empire Island) littered with old technology of a past that could be our future, one of the youths the former star of a “Toob” program, and the dragons potentially manufactured machines, a more complex perspective of Chandler Klang Smith’s novel comes to light shifting this into Science Fiction or perhaps a melding of the genres.
A sprawling, genre-defying epic set in a dystopian metropolis plagued by dragons, this debut about what it’s like to be young in a very old world is pure storytelling pleasure
In the burned-out, futuristic city of Empire Island, three young people navigate a crumbling metropolis constantly under threat from a pair of dragons that circle the skies. When violence strikes, reality star Duncan Humphrey Ripple V, the spoiled scion of the metropolis’ last dynasty; Baroness Swan Lenore Dahlberg, his tempestuous, death-obsessed betrothed; and Abby, a feral beauty he discovered tossed out with the trash; are forced to flee everything they’ve ever known. As they wander toward the scalded heart of the city, they face fire, conspiracy, mayhem, unholy drugs, dragon-worshippers, and the monsters lurking inside themselves. In this bombshell of a novel, Chandler Klang Smith has imagined an unimaginable world: scathingly clever and gorgeously strange, The Sky Is Yours is at once faraway and disturbingly familiar, its singular chaos grounded in the universal realities of love, family, and the deeply human desire to survive at all costs.
The Sky Is Yours is incredibly cinematic, bawdy, rollicking, hilarious, and utterly unforgettable, a debut that readers who loved Cloud Atlas, Super Sad True Love Story, and Blade Runner will adore.
Duncan Humphrey Ripple IV is one of the protagonists of the novel, his father arranges a marriage between Duncan and the Baroness Swan “Swanny” Lenore Dahlberg. On the day before their marriage, Duncan’s personal flyer crashes into a junk heap nearly killing him, but allowing Duncan to save a strange waif named Abby, who Duncan immediately “seduces.” Or rather, Duncan takes advantage of her and makes her little more than a sex object. Thus, we have our three main characters and a love triangle.
To say that Swan and Duncan don’t like each other is an understatement, and Duncan’s “girlfriend” Abby is just the tip of the iceberg of that shared disdain. Neither character is excited about the marriage proposition and even less so after they first meet. Unfortunately, the three characters are forced out of the Ripple home shortly after Duncan and Swanny’s marriage contract is signed and the three characters must survive on their own in the less than savory landscape of Empire Island. There’s a sense of decadence about everything, that society has peaked and is on a decline, with much of Empire City blaming the Dragons appearance a few decades prior to the novel for the downswing in culture and society.
Smith has constructed an interesting world here on the surface, but as the world and plot begin to intertwine and reveal themselves, many of those elements begin to show as familiar genre tropes/elements. Unfortunately, the more the genre elements came out, the only thing that seemed to hold the novel together was a sneer of disdain. That is, I felt like the entire novel was contemptuously sneering at SFF rather than of embracing the joys of the genre. Which leads to the next point.
The most frustrating aspect of the novel; however, were the characters. I found the two main characters, Swan and Duncan, annoying and unlikeable on nearly every level and filled with an extremely high level of undeserved and unearned, expected privilege. Duncan talks and acts like a spoiled, misogynistic twit and Swan comes across like a brat who deserves whatever she wants because she wants it.
Unlikeable characters are important to many novels and not every character necessarily needs to be likeable, but when the two main characters have very little redeeming value, it is difficult to enjoy the novel which features them. At times, though, Smith did a good job of building up sympathy for Swan’s plight and some of her interactions with Duncan. Some unpleasant things happened to her, that no matter how annoying of a character she was, were undeserved. Despite that sympathy, I still found her largely an unlikeable character. I
There were also quite a few structural shifts, from “typewritten instructions” replacing the narrative flow, to part of the narrative being taken over by a script, to a multi-page Visio flowchart. One of these “clever” devices may have been interesting, but the multiple tricks only added to my growing frustration with the novel and made it more of a self-indulgent exercise that wanted to prove how clever it was rather than tell a good story with a balanced cast of characters. I’m not sure what the novel is trying to say other than ‘everything is shit.’
On the plus side, there’s a great deal of chaotic energy in the novel and a strong narrative drive that kept pulling me forward despite my strong dislike for the characters. I also found the secondary character of Sharkey the most interesting character in the book. He’s an old, mobster-drug maker who becomes quite prominent about halfway through the book. He’s quite unpleasant himself, but there is more depth to who he is and there’s just more weight to the character than Swan, Duncan, or Abby. I found Abby more interesting towards the latter third of the novel as the narrative seemed to pay more attention to her, but by that point, I just wanted the novel to end.
As I reached the halfway point of the novel, I began to wonder if it was just me who was having these issues with The Sky is Yours. Apparently, I am in the minority because there are quite a few 4- and 5-star reviews on goodreads and some prominent genre names have favorably blurbed the book. In those blurbs/reviews, I saw quite a few positive comments about the humor of the book, which just proves that humor is subjective because I didn’t find anything at all funny.
Bottom line, for me, The Sky is Yours is a novel that points at the genres of Science Fiction and Fantasy with disdain and holds its characters in contempt rather than embracing the fun elements of SFF and the potential of SFF.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a book I can recommend on any level.
Published by Hogarth (An imprint of Crown, part of Penguin Random House)
Hardcover January 2018
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
Do people who like this book secretly hate SF/F? Because that’s where you lost me. The “contemptuously sneering” remark really needs good support to not just comes across as its own icky sneer of disdain. And I’m not talking about basic stuff any reader would notice, like that the book unconventionally mixes plot, character, and format conventions, or that it’s satirical (though the review seems to have missed this). I thought maybe something about the author bugged Rob B, but in an interview over at Electric Lit she counts herself part of the SF community and talks about embracing the joys of genre.
Hi Ethan, thanks for the comment. I don’t know how the majority of people who like this book feel about SF/F, I only know how I feel about SF/F and this book. As I point out at the end of the review, I’ve seen largely positive response to the book and I’m admittedly in a minority (although not the only reader to feel this way).
As for the sneering, for me because the characters are so unlikable, especially the character (Duncan) who has the most SFF-ish leaning tendencies, I feel that there’s a lot of sneering going on in the book. In general, the SF-nal ideas don’t seem to be on display from a place of appreciation.
Hmm, I love SF/F, and found this book interesting. I interpreted it as more of not-exactly subtle satire of current American society, and capitalism, with some SF/F elements. Duncan and Swanny were certainly unlikable, though at least managed some character growth, and reminded me a lot of plenty of real life teens I knew, as well as various celebrities. There was some pretty good prose, and I’m partial to odd, somewhat experimental books. I do agree Sharkey was the most interesting character though. And also Abby in the last 3rd or so of book. Not exactly a feel good book, but I enjoyed it for it’s dark humor and satire.
Been trying to find something as good as “The Library At Mount Char” which also had mostly unlikable characters, but was excellent in it’s own way. This is not nearly as good, IMO, but was an interesting read, and overall I enjoyed it.