Ace Book Review: The Skybound Saga by Alex London ("Black Wings Beating", "Red Skies Falling", "Gold Wings Rising")

 "I learned that I get to tell the world about myself, not the other way around."

Today’s book review post is actually a unique one among all the review posts I’ve done thus far. I’ve done plenty of reviews for single books; I’ve done reviews for books by the same author or sequels to books I’ve read previously or even, in the case of Firebreak, a book that ties into other books by the same author, despite not having the same main character or being set in the same time period. But I’ve never before reviewed multiple books at once. In fact, my original intention was actually to review the books I’m going to be discussing today as separate reviews, spread out over the next several months.

However, as I finished the first book in a fantasy trilogy known as the “Skybound Saga,” I knew two things – the first being that the aspec vibes for which I had come were clearly going to be spread out across the trilogy and thus I really needed to read the other books before I discussed it, and the second being that I was dying to know what happened next, so tearing through the other books was not something I was willing to wait to do. And so I decided that, rather than review the individual books in the saga separately – Black Wings Beating, Red Skies Falling, and Gold Wings Rising – that I might as well just do the entire trilogy in one fell swoop (pun not intended).

Disclaimer: Although they’re considered young adult novels, these stories have a lot of violence, some of it quite graphic, against both humans and animals. I know many YA novels I’ve covered have been quite violent too – and when we have YA novels like The Hunger Games trilogy, this is perhaps not surprising. However, I want to point out that a lot of this violence is quite visceral and can be intense at times. The books have a high body count and most of the deaths are grisly. Additionally, the main characters often discuss, think about, and even have vivid flashbacks to severe parental abuse. There are scenes of post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, triggers, and panic attacks that might be especially distressing. There are also some intense war injuries and plenty of major character death. The story does a great job of making you care about these characters, so their peril and their deaths often left me breathless. These stories aren’t for the faint of heart, so please read with caution. I’m including the link to a site called Book Trigger Warnings for the first book, which hopefully can be used as a helpful guide and template to give you an idea if these books match your own individual comfort level.

Trigger warnings for Black Wings Beating

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The “Skybound Saga” takes place in the fictional nation of Uztar, a place where birds – and especially birds of prey – are worshipped, but also tamed and trained. For some, this training is done through hard work and practice; but for others, the ability to speak the language of the birds, known as the Hollow Tongue, is the secret to taming birds and turning them to your own purpose, whether for good or for ill. Our two main characters are twin brother and sister pair Brysen and Kylee, who have survived a tumultuous and often brutal childhood full of abuse, pain, and regret. Kylee wants nothing more than to get out from underneath the debts of their abusive now-deceased father and be free; but Kylee has a gift for the Hollow Tongue that she casts aside. Meanwhile, Brysen wishes for nothing more than the Hollow Tongue to prove that he has worth and value, but doesn’t have the words.

The first book in the trilogy, Black Wings Beating, begins in this place, with both twins wanting the opposite thing and struggling to get it. Things change dramatically when Brysen’s trainer Dymian – with whom he is in a romantic relationship – is ensnared in a dangerously foolish bet with the powerful and brutal son of one of the local gang families. Dymian has bet that he can capture a ghost eagle, massive terrifying birds with the power to carry off and kill even human beings as their prey, and the same bird that killed Kylee and Brysen’s father years earlier. Fearing what will happen if Dymian fails to capture this bird or if he even tries at all, Brysen volunteers instead, and sets off on the quest to do so. Unwilling to see her brother take the quest alone, Kylee joins him, and together the two are pulled into a larger brewing conflict between warring nations – and between the sky and the land.

Red Skies Falling picks up as this conflict brews. Things do not go as expected during the quest in the first novel, and now Kylee and Brysen find themselves on very different paths. This was actually my favorite book in the saga, as it so brilliantly showcased the individual hardships of the two twins, as well as how these things overlapped, even during the times when they weren’t together. The story also developed the various relationships they had come to find themselves in following the events of the first book – friendships in the case of Kylee, romantic and familial ones in the case of Brysen – in a way that was extremely compelling. The series makes use of a revolving point of view, with some sections being narrated third person by Kylee and others being narrated third person by Brysen, which was immensely effective in this book and kept me hungry to keep reading.

In the final book, Gold Wings Rising, the twins and their friends begin to discover secrets their society has kept buried for years. These secrets are not long-dead relics of the past, but have bearing on the crisis they find themselves in now – not just Uztar, but even the societies and groups with whom Uztar had previously been at war. Now the wrath of the sky creates new bonds, breaks old ones, strengthens others, and a great deal of what the characters think they know is tested as the past and the present collide and they fight for the future of their society.

Each book in the trilogy has twists and turns aplenty, and the plot is extremely well told. As such, I found myself wondering how the rich story would conclude. I’ve noticed a trend in YA novels – especially ones that deal with young protagonists taking on broken systems – where the heroes are able to almost single-handedly defeat not only the designated bad guys, but bad things in society at large. Certainly that is often a very important thing for these novels, whether because they want to portray this as a bit of vital wish fulfillment or because their themes are about encouraging people to fight back against things like prejudice and injustice; I’m certainly not saying it’s automatically a bad thing or that it should stop.

However, in my own experience, I really appreciate stories where the change the main characters enact is less cut and dry. I love a good open-ended ending, and for a trilogy that showed so much depth and development, I found myself hoping it wouldn’t take the easy route. I won’t spoil the ending, but I found it to be a satisfying middle ground between these two options. The wounds of this society are deep and not so easily healed, even in the midst of great hardship and calamity. Although there is a hope that things can get better, it’s less about the end result and more about the healing that happens along the way.

This theme was very present for our two main characters too, and the way the twins grew, developed, and took steps towards healing was wonderfully portrayed. I think you really feel for both characters in unique and distinct ways, and the journeys of both characters feel authentic. There is a depth to these characters, both together and separately, that allows them to feel extremely fleshed out and the processes they go through, the emotions they feel, and the obstacles they overcome all feel viscerally real. And of course, if I’m reading and reviewing this book, I’m obviously here because of an aspec character or aspec vibes, and [Spoiler alert!] indeed we find these in one the twins, Kylee.

I believe Kylee’s aspec identity is well portrayed when those moments appear, but they are admittedly a rather small part of the series. There is so much going on that the stories don’t really take a lot of time to develop her identity, but nevertheless make it clear it’s a part of her and influences how she sees the world, and I like that her experiences are often shown in contrast to her twin’s. The first book establishes this contrast fairly early, painting Brysen as something of a hopeless (sometimes almost reckless) romantic, whereas Kylee has no interest in romance at all.

The sequels elaborate on this even more, continuing to sketch out Kylee’s disinterest in things that are typically considered romantic, and the way her head is not turned by romantic overtures – whether of her friend Nyall, who harbors a not-so-secret crush, or the seductive machinations of an untrustworthy nobleman. In a novel/series unconcerned with aspec representation, I could see either of these things being pushed at Kylee with the expectation that she’ll eventually develop to a place where either or both of these relationships are considered. Therefore, it's even more special that she’s not interested and we as the audience know she’s not going to be, regardless of circumstances or how much time passes.

Based on these things and how she is described in the novel, it seems to me like Kylee is probably an aromantic asexual. It also seems like it’s portrayed both as something she knows and accepts about herself rather than something she has to find, which is great. There are a few instances where I think her brother is a little dismissive of her because of it, or where she may struggle with how she relates to the world, and I wish these things were explored a bit more in order to be even more clearly defined. Because of the flow of the story, they seem more like little kernels that could lead to something bigger but never do, which is understandable, but also a little bit of a shame.

I love the subtly of Kylee’s identity in the story, but some of those elements cause me to worry a little bit based on my past experiences. In a recent post, I included a screenshot of some YouTube comments related to a character who I thought was pretty clearly defined as AroAce in the media she appears in, despite those words never being uttered. However, many people in that comments section were surprisingly adamant that she wasn’t an aspec character because it was never said. This was an unfortunate find for me, since I’ve often discussed – especially in other book reviews – that representation where a character is clearly supposed to be aspec even in a world where they don’t have that terminology is deeply important.

In some ways, this book is also an example of another thing I’ve discussed previously, which is the topic of vague representation and if/when it goes too vague. However, I think it manages to sidestep most of those problems, and I would hope that most people reading it would be able to pick up on Kylee being AroAce even if it’s not specifically spelled out. Again, I think this type of subtly is important in works of fiction, because I think it’s just as important in the real world. Not everyone will be comfortable sharing their aspec identity or answering questions, but they may try to leave hints and hope that those hints are respected, even if someone doesn’t guess the full extent of their identity.

I think where the trilogy excels at helping those messages be understood in this subtle way comes about because themes of belonging, individuality, and being your own self are laced throughout the story and aren’t just limited to Kylee. For instance, the quote I used at the beginning of this post is actually spoken by one of the side characters and refers to elements of his identity that include sexuality, but aren’t limited to it. The prevalence of these themes alone isn’t necessarily enough to ensure that people will see these vibes, but I think it’s a valuable step. The only way to achieve true acceptance and even understanding of many of these topics, after all, is to continue to demonstrate them in various unique ways through many different types of characters.

There’s great strength in the overlap of these themes among characters and identities, and it’s something I’d generally like to see more of. In fact, even beyond just Kylee’s identity, there are a few other elements and characters in the book that I wish were explored a bit more in depth. As I said, the plot of this book is packed, so I’m not surprised there wasn’t time for them, but these elements intrigued me or offered me things I don’t often get to see. For a start, there's the character of Grazim, a very complex character whose development I really enjoyed; additionally, I find myself wondering if she too was somewhere on the asexual and/or aromantic spectrums.

Grazim’s main motivations through the trilogy are to rise to a place and a position that her people never believed was possible, especially because she is a speaker of the Hollow Tongue but is also part of the Altari, a group who, quite opposite to the Uztari, believe taming and working with birds of prey is blasphemy. As such, her desire to prove herself is even more acute and her focus is entirely dedicated to that goal. In that way, she reminds me a lot of Kylee, and I find myself wondering if those parallels are drawn to also make us think Grazim might be aspec too. Either way, I think she offers a great opportunity to have an aspec headcanon, even if the author never really discusses this character’s identity concretely.

The other thing I would have loved to see played with more was the relationship between Kylee and her friend Nyall. This was a fascinating relationship and not anything like I’ve ever seen before for an aspec character. Nyall is in love with Kylee, she knows he's in love with her, and yet he also knows she in no way can or will reciprocate. There is even an interesting conversation between Nyall and Brysen in which Brysen asks Nyall why he continues to pine after Kylee when she’s obviously not interested. He likens his feelings for her to someone loving the moon (which I can relate to, because I do), and how that doesn’t require to be loved in return. Using this metaphor, he says he’d much rather live in a world where he gets to love Kylee alone than not at all, even if those feelings are never reciprocated.

Nyall does flirt with Kylee and does attempt to sway her more than once (albeit usually in a playful way), but it’s clear he knows the score. He is loyal to her and wants to stay by her side to protect her, but he doesn’t seem to be overbearing about it, and everything he does is pretty much always defined by his respect for her and for her preferences. Meanwhile, Kylee always views him as a friend, even though she knows about his feelings, and it never seems like this makes things awkward. For plot reasons, the true depth of their bond is only explored in passing, but it was such a unique type of relationship for an aspec character to be involved in that I desperately wished I could see more of it.

In general, that’s a huge theme of this trilogy for me – introducing new concepts, unique worldbuilding, and wholly fresh takes on things from the fantasy genre. As I said earlier, it absolutely kept me emotionally hooked and invested in a way I wasn’t entirely expecting. As such, it definitely ranks high for me among all the books I’ve read and reviewed for the blog, despite those aforementioned gorier elements. If I had to ding the trilogy on anything – and it’s not really a ding, just my own personal observation – it’s that it contains a lot more innuendo and/or vaguely sexual stuff than I’d expect from a series with aspec representation.

As I said, that’s more a me thing than anything else, considering there are plenty of aspec people out there who don’t mind innuendo, dirty jokes, or even actual sexual content, so your mileage will definitely vary with that. Furthermore, when it comes to the more sexual elements, none of the things are too terribly graphic – even a scene in which two characters do have sex is described vaguely and with great respect to the subject matter, so it never feels explicit, and that respect really shines through, making it an important moment that feels special as a result rather than just casually included.

Another thing that’s probably just me but is nevertheless something to consider – the trilogy did occasionally contain scenes or descriptions that were rather immature when compared to things like the violence and intense subject matter of the other scenes. I suspect this was done almost like comic relief, a way to reset after all of those more intense elements; however, some of the toilet humor or similar moments of immature language seem out of step with the rest of the book. But are these things abundant enough or pronounced enough to take away from how great the rest of the plot was? I don’t think so.

Overall, I was massively impressed with the "Skybound Saga" and its amazing characters, stories, and worldbuilding. High fantasy with this type of dedication and gorgeous storytelling is always exciting to me, and my excitement only doubles when I know there’s aspec representation to be found within these worlds. The "Skybound Saga" and Kylee give me hope that aspec people do have a place within these types of stories and makes me hopeful that more characters like her may appear in richly developed series in the future. This saga is a story of healing for our protagonists, and I think it can be both a story of healing and hope for readers from all walks of life too. There are so many opportunities to find someone to identify with within its pages, and that is always noteworthy. So, if you can handle its subject matter, I highly recommend this amazing trilogy.