Skyward Inn

“Earth was far from perfect, and Qita was far from perfect. Nobody was perfect, not from the beginning There wasn’t a place in the universe that was unchangeably perfect.”

The premise of Skyward Inn is that Earth invaded and conquered another planet, Qita, in the recent past. Jem and Isley decide to open a pub together, Skyward Inn, to attempt to create an oasis away from the havoc the interplanetary war has wreaked. As the story unfolds, the character and the reader begin to question the way the war really unfolded.

Previously, I have read Aliyah Whiteley's The Beauty and was what you might call "weirded out" by it. "Thoroughly disturbed" is another phrase that comes to mind. Whiteley's newest, Skyward Inn, is another probing insight into what makes us human. The first half of Skyward Inn was not all I hoped it would be. I had a hard time following and did not really enjoy it. The second half, however, blew me away.

I especially enjoy Whiteley's focus on language, something with which she has previously played in her novella Peace, Pipe. The Qitan use a music-based language. A Qitan character and a human character trade thoughts on language, and the exchange is both funny and esoteric. As their conversation continues, they essentially meditate on what makes humans human. What we all think makes us human might not be the whole story.

“Where do babies come from?... Somebody told me that was the most difficult question you can ask a human. Is that true? I heard you squeeze them out of yourselves and cut them free...I think that’s the worst thing I ever heard about humans.”

This title is published on 16 March 2021. I originally was going to give it three stars out of five because of how much I did not enjoy the beginning, but I have thought about it non-stop since I finished it, so I am upgrading it to four stars. The second half – the final quarter, in particular – was so well-written and so thought-provoking that I had to amend my rating.