Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2018
464 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
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.
"Although the story is overlong, it gathers momentum in its last third, bringing this novel home with a hopeful conclusion. It's an auspicious debut with enough inventiveness for two novels." - Publishers Weekly
"The action is slow to start, and far too much time is given to spoiled-brat Duncan. Swanny, however, is the genuine star of the show. Loud, vibrant, and witty, she crackles with energy and life. Let's hope she returns, sans Duncan the Dud." - Booklist
"Chandler Klang Smith comes roaring out the gate with a raucous, inventive gem of a debut. Science fiction, coming of age, and adventure novel, The Sky Is Yours blends its genres brilliantly. To top it all off the book is funny as hell." - Victor LaValle, author of The Ballad of Black Tom and The Changeling
"Brilliant, darkly hilarious and almost impossible to describe. Imagine if Terry Gilliam adapted a coming-of-age adventure set in William Gibson's dystopian sprawl and threw in a dash of Jane Austen. I loved it." – Scott Hawkins, author of The Library at Mount Char
"Chandler Klang Smith's The Sky Is Yours is a visionary, funny, infuriating dystopic romp, and it's full of carefully observed character details and revelations that simultaneously broke my heart and made it soar like a dragon." – Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and Disappearance at Devil's Rock
This information about The Sky Is Yours was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Chandler Klang Smith is a fiction writer from Springfield, Illinois. She graduated from Bennington College and has an MFA from Columbia University. She currently lives in New York City.
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