The Surviving Sky

9h 2m

Published by Recorded Books.

(1 review)

This Hindu philosophy-inspired debut science fantasy follows a husband and wife racing to save their living city—and their troubled marriage—high above a jungle world besieged by cataclysmic storms.

High above a jungle-planet float the last refuges of humanity—plant-made civilizations held together by tradition, technology, and arcane science. In these living cities, architects are revered above anyone else. If not for their ability to psychically manipulate the architecture, the cities would plunge into the devastating earthrage storms below.

Charismatic, powerful, mystical, Iravan is one such architect. In his city, his word is nearly law. His abilities are his identity, but to Ahilya, his wife, they are a way for survival to be reliant on the privileged few. Like most others, she cannot manipulate the plants. And she desperately seeks change.

Their marriage is already thorny—then Iravan is accused of pushing his abilities to forbidden limits. He needs Ahilya to help clear …

This Hindu philosophy-inspired debut science fantasy follows a husband and wife racing to save their living city—and their troubled marriage—high above a jungle world besieged by cataclysmic storms.

High above a jungle-planet float the last refuges of humanity—plant-made civilizations held together by tradition, technology, and arcane science. In these living cities, architects are revered above anyone else. If not for their ability to psychically manipulate the architecture, the cities would plunge into the devastating earthrage storms below.

Charismatic, powerful, mystical, Iravan is one such architect. In his city, his word is nearly law. His abilities are his identity, but to Ahilya, his wife, they are a way for survival to be reliant on the privileged few. Like most others, she cannot manipulate the plants. And she desperately seeks change.

Their marriage is already thorny—then Iravan is accused of pushing his abilities to forbidden limits. He needs Ahilya to help clear his name; she needs him to tip the balance of rule in their society. As their paths become increasingly intertwined, deadly truths emerge, challenging everything each of them believes. And as the earthrages become longer, and their floating city begins to plummet, Iravan and Ahilya's discoveries might destroy their marriage, their culture, and their entire civilization.

2 editions

enne📚 reviewed The Surviving Sky (Surviving Sky, #1)

4 stars

Surviving Sky is a dystopian sff book with flying cities, powered by people who can reshape plants magically, and who work to keep their cities and citizens safe above a jungle-covered planet scoured and destroyed by increasingly frequent "earthrages". There's all sorts of politics, an interesting magic system that people are working to explore the edges of, and Hindu philosophy running through all of it.

One of the things that I especially like about this book is that the two main characters are a married couple in their thirties. This is not a book where two people fall in love or a typical romance genre book. I appreciate having a book focus for once on an established (and estranged at times) relationship, in a way that felt very authentic. The main source of friction in this relationship is that they are both adults with their own individual pursuits; it makes …

Surviving Sky is a dystopian sff book with flying cities, powered by people who can reshape plants magically, and who work to keep their cities and citizens safe above a jungle-covered planet scoured and destroyed by increasingly frequent "earthrages". There's all sorts of politics, an interesting magic system that people are working to explore the edges of, and Hindu philosophy running through all of it.

One of the things that I especially like about this book is that the two main characters are a married couple in their thirties. This is not a book where two people fall in love or a typical romance genre book. I appreciate having a book focus for once on an established (and estranged at times) relationship, in a way that felt very authentic. The main source of friction in this relationship is that they are both adults with their own individual pursuits; it makes sense why they connected and supported each other in the first place, but also why these different paths, changing values, and secrets about those pursuits continue to pull them apart. Ahilya and Iravan try to make it work, and don't, and try again, and then don't, but I feel like the way the book ends feels very true to both of them.

If I had to nitpick, I feel like there's a little bit too much info dumping. The start of the book overexplained a little bit about the world, but mixed in plenty of action and politics; however, the end of the book was a whole series of explanations in a row that weren't quite delivered in a way that worked for me, even as I was intrigued by their content.

This is apparently the first book in a trilogy, which is a bit of a surprise to me. In sharing so much lore at the end of the book it felt like the world was fairly well explained and the story wrapped up with a lot of closure. I'm very curious where it will go from here.