This was an interesting, dreamy book that wasn't quite for me. My favorite things about it were the strong underlying themes of family, colonialism, and connections that transcends life experience, particularly in the context of the stark differences between The Protectorate and Qita. I usually enjoy books that play with time, but found myself somewhat confused by the non-linear narrative that resolves itself in later chapters. The pacing was also a slightly too idle for what I wanted from this, though the choice is clearly deliberate and allows to author to muse rather than expatiate.

I really tried. But this book was not for me. I have been attempting to get through this book for over a week (a very long time in my world). And it just will not happen. I've made it 28%, and that is where I will end. I'm not sure how to describe how the book went wrong. I had a hard time following what was going on at the inn. I felt no connection to the characters. I didn't know what they were doing, and I didn't care about them at all. I got no sense of a complete novel, merely scattered fragments loosely held together.
I am grateful for the opportunity to recieve an ARC from netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an open and honest review.

With thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

This short science fiction novel is quite surreal. Humans have travelled to the planet Qita, bent on battle and conquest, only to be met with a peaceful surrender and a welcome by the Qitans. They are invited to mine the local mineral-rich liquid, and humans man stations, map the planet’s geography and study Qitans and their way of life. Of particular interest back on earth is Qitan brew, which creates a mellow receptiveness to memories and a tendency to tell nostalgic stories.

Not everyone on Earth is happy with this progress, and an area roughly corresponding to Devon and Cornwall designates itself the Western Protectorate, erects high walls, and returns to a simpler way of life based largely on farming (and smuggling). By and large Qitans have not come to Earth, but the local pub, Skyward Inn, is run by a Qitan and Jem, a human woman - he is an excellent cook and his brew is in great demand, while she manages front of house.

When a second Qitan lands on earth seeking help for a damaged space suit, things turn distinctly strange in the Western Protectorate, while disturbing stories from the outside world tell of a mystery disease coming ever nearer to the walls.

I will stop here, as anything further would constitute a spoiler. Suffice it to say that it becomes more and more doubtful whether the Qitans ever surrendered, or how well-intentioned they are towards humans, or whether humans have any understanding of Qitan nature whatsoever.

A riveting read, where the sparseness of the language perfectly complements the increasing sense of unease and surrealism as time and bodies and comprehension become more fluid.

hmmm. How to describe this book...

Skyward Inn is set on Earth in the near/semi-distant future in a time after a big war and after we've made contact with an alien race via a gateway. Earth established a base on Qita in order to help collect natural resources from that planet. Many Earth troops were sent to "the raid" which ended up being kind of less than expected since the Qita seemed open and welcoming.

Back on Earth, veteran Jem lives in The Protectorate, a corner of England where a group of people have closed themselves off from the rest of the world in an effort to live in the "old way" with reduced/no technology. Jem operates the Skyward Inn, where she serves up brew with her partner Isley, a native of Qita. Then an old friend of Isley's shows up asking for help.

So, this was definitely a slow burn and a more literary approach to sci-fi. It starts much more about life on Earth in The Protectorate and how Jem, her son, and other residents are getting along with life.
There is some prejudice against Isley since he is from Qita and Jem tries to push back on that. The premise held promise for me but didn't quite gel for me in the end . (view spoiler) I will poke around and see what else this author has available because I see a spark of something I like there. :)

What to listen to while reading...
Alien Days by MGMT
A Lot's Gonna Change by Weyes Blood
Call it Fate, Call it Karma by The Strokes
Space Song by Beach House
Love and Truth by Mother Mother
Summer Breeze by The Isley Brothers
Across the Universe by The Beatles

**Potential Spoilers**

This felt to me like a book of two halves. There was the present then the 'future journey of Fosse' with the ending undoing (on purpose) what had been resolved between Jem and Fosse with the hand, leaving the reader wanting more.

I felt there were some unresolved threads where areas could have been developed further, however, this didn't take away from the final edit. It was a little hard to follow in places and needs the reader to think about what's come before and what could come rather than just of what is on that page alone.

The story explores loneliness, the desire to belong and what it is to be a community, and more importantly to be just outside of a community, the differences one would feel in either situation.

Thank you to Rebellion Solaris and Netgalley for a copy of the ARC in return for my honest review.

Not what I was expecting at all. Told in dream-like prose, it slowly draws you away from the here and now world that the characters inhabit and slowly pulls back the focus to see something larger happening.

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book*

This was a weird sci-fi which didn't go in the directions I thought it would go. First contact has been made, exchange with the aliens has started but a part of the UK lives as if this hasn't happened. A woman and an alien run a pub while a weird sickness is on the run. There was also a war but nobody knows what's up...

Interesting book, but also over weird in parts. Not sure I understood the ending but it has its moments. It was entertaining and I love this idea of people running a pub.

Trippy

3 Stars

This is such an exciting book that kept me reading as I tried to figure out what was happening and how this beautiful story was going to unfold. The Skyward Inn is a place full of complex characters that are the main reason I enjoyed this book. The world building that Whiteley is able to create with her words is totally captivating and I wanted to read on to learn more about these magical, otherworldly places that are more complex that meets the eye. I loved the writing — the lyrical nature of the world building captivated me and I loved getting to know Jem and her son Fosse. Jem is particularly a strong character as she is rooted in her community and I think audiences will relate to her and care about her story deeply. I loved the layers that the author is able to add into this world, and while the first half of the book was a little slow yet beautiful in its descriptions, the last half has lots of twists and plots coming together that really made this a fun read. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to think about our own world in a new way. People who enjoy sci-fi and beautifully written characters are going to love The Skyward Inn!

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.

thanks to netgalley and the publisher for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

so this book was...not for me. it’s just a weird mix of literary fiction and sci-fi, and it wasn’t well-executed in my opinion. it was confusing and dragged a bit, to nothing of a worthy or satisfying conclusion in the end. just left me confused and unsure how to feel. really had more expectations for this one.

Skyward Inn is proper mind-bending science fiction. I read a lot of SF which, while thrilling and fun, is basically... domesticated. People in space ships doing things. Apocalypses. Complex tactical books involving politics conspiracies and manoeuvring. Often, all of these at the same time. And they can be really great. But sometimes I miss a sense of deep weirdness, of unknowableness - a sense that Skyward Inn delivers in spades. The book won't be for everyone, but really did it for me.

In a near future, suffering (in a background way) from climate change, a gateway (the 'kissing gate') has opened in space, allowing travel to an alien world, Qita - an opportunity eagerly taken up by 'the coalition', a suppurate or alliance of states (it's never clear which - though in this future English has become a little regarded, minority language) with dream of conquest. Part of England, the 'Western Protectorate'; has seceded, either in principled opposition to this or possibly just to preserve a self-sufficient, bucolic way of life. Again, it's never clear.

Within the Protectorate, Jem and Isley run the Skyward Inn, serving Qitan 'brew' to the locals. Both are veterans of the war: Jem, a local woman who ran away to space and Isley, a Quitan. Jem is estranged from her son Fosse, who lives nearby with Jem's brother, Dom, a leader in the community.

It's a very simple setup, on the surface, but Whitely uses it to explore so much - ideas about family, about the structure of society, what it means to be human and our responsibilities to each other and to the world. I need to be careful what I say here because the book is one of those which achieves its effect slowly and incrementally. Things seem a bit odd from the start, when Fosse, slipping away to an abandoned farm to do what teenage boys do in private, encounters strangers who Arte, well, strange, but do him the great service of paying him attention, something he's not used to.

At the same time, another stranger, a visitor from Qita, appears at the Inn, needing help. There are suggestions here of prejudice and even violence: their existence must be kept secret. The arrival does, though, trigger Jem's memories of her time in Qita. They're strange, almost hallucinogenic, episodes involving her travels ostensibly involving nothing more than posting bland propaganda leaflets wherever she goes. We're primed for a significant encounter, or a misstep, perhaps the breaking of some cultural taboo, but what Jem was doing eventually turns out to be both more and less significant the that. Less, because there are no incidents, no misunderstandings, no politics or warfare. More, because, as becomes clear to another, later traveller to Qita, what Jem did was, actually, all-important.

In this book, intentions and unintended consequences bounce off one another. As the citizens of the Protectorate struggle to maintain their principled, isolated lifestyle, they're threatened from various directions: shortages of food, materials and medicines, an ominously spreading, mysterious disease which causes some areas to be quarantined, and those strangers that Fosse runs into. At the personal level things are tense between Fosse, Dom and Jem. A lot of family history is being buried as people hold to positions and talk past one another. And that stranger, Won, at the Inn also creates tensions and misunderstandings.

Just how strange all this gets, I can't say. I will say that's it's a growing, creeping weirdness. The alienness of the Qitans in this book is both less than we have been primed to accept by the run of SF - they don't excite horror by their appearance - and more, as we are eventually shown. In exploring both aspects Whiteley creates a truly compelling story, one where I simply didn't know what was going to happen (or, indeed, exactly what had happened!)

There is some gorgeous writing here, whether capturing the turbulence of adolescence ('He never thought he'd miss going to school, but being kept at home for a few days made Fosse aware that school offered a quiet, resilient shape to his day...'), the frustration of a woman torn between standing by her past decisions or attempting to remake her future or the gentleness and thoroughness of Dom checking a dog for injuries (yes, this book contains dogs!)

In short, reading Skyward Inn was a truly unsettling experience, but an immersive, wonder-filled one. It is a remarkable book.

The two planets featured in this short science fiction novel are at least as important as the characters. On earth the main character Jem operates an inn in a part of Britain that has eschewed technology for a simpler life. By space travel, she has returned from Qita, a planet with rich resources where the inhabitants don't usually engage in conflict. Jem has brought her Quitan friend Isley home with her, and he has been granted unusual permission to stay on earth and help Jem run the inn. Conflicts arise between Jem and her son and her brother, and also among local folks and another Quitan arrival. The issues which give this book particular relevance include suspicion of those who are different, response to a mysterious plague, complicated family relationships, and loyalty among friends. The ultimate lesson of the Quitan culture brings the book to a thought-provoking conclusion,

The most rational part of my brain understands exactly what I've just experienced with this book, but every other part of me, the emotional, the lizard brain, the higher consciousness etc. is absolutely 100% going, "What the fuck did I just read?!" and not in a bad way either.

Inspired by Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn, Skyward Inn tells the tale of its owners: Jem, a local girl who ran away as a teenager to serve for a decade spreading propaganda for the Earth Coalition as it conquered the planet Qita, and Isley, the Qitan partner she met while she was away. Once her tour of duty was over, Jem persuaded Isley to come home with her to the Western Protectorate, a closed-off area of Earth with throwback values hearkening to a pastoral idyll, located roughly in Devon, England. At the Skyward Inn, Jem and Isley sell the intoxicating Jarrowbrew that allows Jem's tongue, so often weighted when there isn't a script to follow, to finally loosen when it's just her and Isley, and she can tell him stories of her travels on his home planet. Isley is the only alien of his kind around, but the locals have taken to him, despite murmurs of xenophobic violence from surrounding areas. But when another Qitan arrives needing help, the new arrival sets in motion a chain of events that seems small at first but could change everything Jem thinks she knows and loves.

Interwoven with Jem's first person narrative is the story told in third person of her son, Fosse, whom she left with her parents and brother in her youthful determination to escape the Protectorate. Fosse is an angry young man of sixteen, and he and Jem barely have any relationship, till the arrival of newcomers prompts him to question his own origins as well as his destiny.

This is a book about life and grief and connection and moving on, or perhaps forward, and it is definitely not for the faint of heart. Even as the most rational part of me is thinking, "That absolutely makes sense scientifically", the rest of me is flapping its metaphorical arms about, sputtering, "Do not want!" This is, perhaps, the most uplifting book involving body horror that you'll ever read.

But more importantly, it's also a book about what changes us, what exposure does to all parties involved and how, in the end, not even The Cheese can stand alone. With its deeper philosophical and sociological underpinnings, it well deserves the comparisons to Ursula K LeGuin's most thoughtful works. It's also very modern: there's a hilarious "what are those" reference in there for those who appreciate a good meme, as I do.

Skyward Inn is weird and wonderful, as only Aliya Whiteley can write. It's a work of terrifying genius, depicting an alien future that seems equal parts desirable and repulsive, founded entirely on very human observations and truths. If you enjoy speculative fiction and can handle a little horror with your sci-fi, then you absolutely must pick up this book.

Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley was published March 16 2021 by Solaris Books and is available from all good booksellers, including <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/15382/9781781088821">Bookshop!</a> Want it now? For the Kindle version, <a href="https://amzn.to/3lpdogD">click here</a>.

I found this book to be deeply weird literary sci fi, which was just not for me. Shifting points of view and part that were alternately confusing and dragging led to this being a bit of a slog for me.

This is a slim (157 pages) scifi book that really packs a punch. This is the first book by Aliya Whiteley that I've read and it's very different than scifi I've read before. I look forward to reading more of her books.

In summary:
Jem has returned from 10 years with the Coalition and time on Qita to run a pub renamed The Skyward Inn serving those in the Western Protectorate where she used to live and still has family. Her partner in the pub is named Isley who is a Qitan with special permission to reside there.

I really connected with the complicated love between Jem, the mother, and the son named Fosse. Their paths echo each other. The book makes you think about the ethics of approaching an alien civilization and planet appropriation. It contrasts the non tech environment of the Western Protectorate with the remainder of Earth which is advanced in technology and space exploration.

The book has a mysterious feel. You pick up the world building through the story that goes back and forth through time. A large part of the story centers on a special drink from Qita. It is also served in the inn and most likely around the planet Earth.

Favorite quote:
We burn history down, over and over, as an act of remembrance. When there are no answers, there is recollection, and repetition.

I feel like I need to just mention that there is an element of horror that is integral to the story. I'm not sure how to describe it without giving any plot away. I would say that it's mostly in the last third of the story.

Thank you so much to #NetGalley for providing a copy of this book for review. #SkywardInn

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of this book to read. It is not an easy book for me to review. I am not a science fiction book follower. I like things neat and laid out. This book was anything but an easy to follow story. It is about a place in England Devon separated from the rest of the world and connected to Qita, an alien place. It is an agricultural place with little technology and trade is thru barter and exchange.
There is an inn where Jem and Isley, an Qitan, run and serve an alien drink. Jem has a son who early on was sent to her brother to live. A visitor comes to the inn and upsets the town process.
The son wants out of the community, especially when he meets some squatters who apparently suffer from a disease outside of town. They show him some magic, a byproduct of the disease but he doesn’t know.
There are so many issues which this story has concerning love, family, co-exsistance, pain and hope. but, they don’t necessarily end in conclusion.
I was not able to follow everything that happened and like in any science fiction, I am left with what was that? For example what is the strange liquid coming from the earth?
But that’s what makes it science fiction.
If you love that type of weird stuff by all means read it!

4.4 stars

Science fiction with aliens but so much more...

I am grateful to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

This story was so much more than I was expecting. This was an intriguing piece of surrealist, literary science fiction and I enjoyed in thoroughly. The rural, agricultural setting is interesting from the offset, especially considering the ever-present knowledge of alien life. We are introduced to our characters in this post alien invasion world, where they live in this isolated setting that lends an eerie and almost claustrophobic feeling, that persists throughout the plot. There is also a dreamlike quality to the narration that makes you question everything that is going on, even the setting itself, and the mystery element of this "alien virus" just takes the atmosphere to another level.

The characters were layered and complicated. I love the way Whiteley explored the relationships in this story. The characters' inner monologues were rife with confusion and difficult emotional states, as they navigated their relationships, which was contrasted with the stark, placid manner of the aliens. There was a good balance between romantic and familial bonds explored.

The prose was accessible, though the story itself may be a bit too weird for general audiences. The writing style here was refined, but I think it fit perfectly with the type of story this was and enhanced the overall effectiveness. And for the science fiction element.... Brilliant! I loved the way the alien presence was described and the world building was gradually revealed as we progressed through the story. The story seemed to get more immersive over time and the ending was so emotionally impactful.

I think this was great and I recommend to fans of surrealism speculative fiction, science fiction, and more specifically for readers who enjoy authors like China Mieville.

Skyward Inn is a sci-fi retelling of Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn and a weird and increasingly surrealist story of love, belonging, and togetherness. Skyward Inn, on the moorlands of the Western Protectorate, is removed from modern technology and politics. When humans first went through the ‘Kissing Gate’ to the planet Qita, the protectorate turned its back on modern civilization to live in rural isolation. Although there is a spaceport nearby, the villagers have nothing to do with it. Theirs is a quiet life – The Protectorate has stood apart from the coalition of world powers that has formed. Instead, the inhabitants choose to live simply, many of them farming by day and drinking the local brew at night. The co-owners of the inn, a traditional English village pub, are Jem and Isley. Jem, a veteran of the coalitions’ war on the perfect, peaceful planet of Qita, has a smile for everyone in the bar. She abandoned her baby years earlier for a decade-long contract to plaster Qita with propaganda posters, which is where she met her partner Isley. Isley does his cooking in the kitchen and his brewing in the cellar. He’s Qitan, but it’s all right – the locals treat him like one of their own. They think they understand him, but it’s only Jem who knows his homeland well enough to recreate it in the stories she tells him at dawn.

But their peace is disturbed when a visitor comes to Skyward Inn, bringing reminders of an unnerving past and triggering an uncertain future. This is a strange, gentle, utterly beautiful book about how humanity might live alongside other people wholly unlike us – and about how we live alongside each other. It's exciting, refreshingly original speculative fiction from the pen of one of the fiercest British writers in the genre at present and is very much a character-driven novel full of strangeness and a thoroughly intriguing plot. Her vivid imagination allows her to create unpredictable, intricate, sprawling worlds rich in detail with plenty of surprises and a real feel of reading something special. It is a slow-burn tale from the very beginning and continues that way as it progresses giving Whitely ample time to craft complex, multi-layered worlds and populate said worlds with superbly developed characters and interesting lore. Through all of this, Whitely still manages to explore issues of large-scale colonisation, assimilation and invasion, among others. It's thoughtful, intelligent and asks questions of the idea of the individual and the collective, of ownership and historical possession, and of the experience of being human, it is at once timeless and thoroughly of its time. Highly recommended to those who enjoy bizarre science fiction. Highly recommended.

To summarise this novel is an injustice in so many ways; with episodic instalments of weird speculative fiction, wrapped up in commentary on human connection, and a touch of quarantine fear, Skyward Inn is something you have to experience at a languid pace.

In the briefest way possible, the Kissing Gate appears in Earth's skies, an invisible space that enables humans to travel to Qita. In the typical way of humanity, they decide to war with Qita only to meet them on the battlefield and be welcomed to the planet.

This is where Jem comes in, working as a missionary, spreading the offering of friendship from Earth. In this work she meets Isley, a Qitan who seems drawn to her humanness. Both return to Earth and settle at the Skyward Inn, a place they can trade items for drinks and Qitan 'brew' - a community pub, for want of a better expression. However, this is inside the Western Protectorate, part of England that rejected Qita and other forms of technology for the 'old' way of life. Isley is the only Qitan here and whether he is fully welcomed is another question to ponder.

Running parallel to this is the story of Fosse, Jem's son, who has been raised by her brother Dom after she fled to Qita. With his own complex feelings regarding masculinity, resentment and anger, Fosse encounters people from outside of the Protectorate and learns about the quarantines coming into affect. Both of their stories run from here, offering much to meditate on.

Flitting between perspectives and timelines, the narrative calls upon the reader to find their own meaning within the pages with no clear cut resolution. Personally, I was most drawn to how Jem's narrative set a precedent for Fosse to unwittingly follow, creating mirrored timelines that brought these characters together in a shared sense of human nature. Seeing these threads intertwine meant the reveal at the end wasn't a shock, but the engineering of the pace made it deeply unsettling. Placing this next to environmental changes all culminated into something haunting that felt akin to the works of VanderMeer and Le Guin as suggested.

Additionally, I was incredibly interested in the theming around trade; human modifying technology; and ideas of identity. Every scene was thought provoking and its compelling character arcs will left me deeply unsettled but expectant for more.

This story of slow violence, of humanity, and the lengths we go to not be alone will certainly leave you questioning.

I was excited about going into this story without knowing exactly what to expect. Then it took a turn and I wasn't sure. Now that I finished, I still don't know what to think really. I just don't know. But I did like the world. It's a futuristic but historic setting and the mix is great.

The story is divided into 5 parts. The first 4 parts are all set on Earth and follow the members of the village in Devon. This was the logical part of the story. Then part 5 happened. It was pretty much just as long as the previous 4 parts put together. This is where the weirdness happens. Most of the story was built up nicely without any major surprises.

It's a simple but complex world. We are in the future but in the first part, we are in an independent part that focuses on the old skills like farming, preserving etc. So there isn't that much worldbuilding needed int he beginning. However, the bigger picture is introduced on the first page and then slowly trickled into the story until the end where it all

The magic, if I can even call it that, only happens in part 5 and its weird. But the author describes it well without it losing its weirdness nor its magic. It's difficult to explain. It's an alien thing.

Well written. I had no issues with it and no struggles reading this book.

After writing this review, I still don't know how I feel. I think I like it a tad more than when I started writing this review.