Review: Skyhunter (Skyhunter, Vol. 1) by Marie Lu

Marie Lu used to work as an art director for a video game company, and it shows. All her books could easily be adapted into games, Skyhunter included. It has everything: a picturesque world (post-apocalyptic, with wooden cities built around ruined skyscrapers), monsters of varying size and skill (“Ghosts”, a.k.a. zombies), and several warrior-type characters, each with their own weapons and combat style, for the player to choose as avatars. There’s even a final boss who, without spoilers, I can only say is genuinely creepy. If all you’re looking for is an action-packed thrill ride (cliffhanger ending and all), you’ll find it … but there’s more to this story than that.

The narrator, for example, is more than an avatar. Talin, the narrator, is both strong and vulnerable in realistic ways. As a child, she lost her voice during the invasion of her homeland, but Lu doesn’t try to gloss over the disability, nor does she make her heroine an object of pity. Talin can only speak through sign language, but she makes it work for her by serving as a Striker, part of an elite military force trained to hunt monsters in silence. She faces bigotry as a mute foreign refugee, which complicates her loyalty to her adopted country, but doesn’t stop her from defending it. She has a loving but complex relationship with her mother, as they keep secrets for each other’s own good. As a soldier, she feels both hatred and empathy for those fighting on the other side – including Red, a defector, who becomes her “Shield” or lifelong combat partner after she saves him from execution.

Talin’s slow-burn relationship with Red is at the heart of this novel. As the titular Skyhunter, a surgically altered cyborg soldier, Red has inhuman abilities that include metal wings, super-strength, and a telepathic bond with his leader. Since he escaped before the procedure was finished, he bonds with Talin instead. Where some authors would use this as a shortcut to insta-love, Lu has both characters put in the hard work of building trust and understanding, as well as giving each other privacy when they need it. The telepathy is mostly for tracking and translation (also, that bathhouse scene – if you read it, you know what I mean). Their real bond is that they both survived the worst of what humanity can do to each other, without losing their own humanity in the process.

If this book is like a video game, the final battle is devastating. I won’t give away the details, but with at least one sequel on the way according to Goodreads, you must know it’s not a happy ever after. If I could have rebooted the story to play it over again and end it differently, I would. But since that’s impossible (unless you’re a fanfiction writer, which I fortunately am), I’ll just have to wait for the sequel.

What did you think? Could you survive a mind-link with a former enemy? What books would you like to see me write about next? You can let me know in the message box below.