Review: Starsight by Brandon Sanderson ⭐ Intrigue, Aliens and lots of eyes 👁

Storygraph – Goodreads – Amazon  – Book Depository

CW’s: Death/Murder, Violence, War Themes

All her life, Spensa’s dreamed of becoming a pilot. Of proving she’s a hero like her father. She made it to the sky, but the truths she learned about her father were crushing. The rumors of his cowardice are true—he deserted his flight during battle against the Krell. Worse, though, he turned against his team and attacked them.

Spensa is sure that there’s more to the story. And she’s sure that whatever happened to her father in his starship could happen to her. When she made it outside the protective shell of her planet, she heard the stars—and it was terrifying. Everything Spensa has been taught about her world is a lie.

But Spensa also discovered a few other things about herself—and she’ll travel to the end of the galaxy to save humankind if she needs to.

“A hero does not choose her trials. She steps into the darkness, then she faces what comes next.”

This sequel follows Spensa as she attempts a daring heist to save her people 👀 Her people back home are running out of time with no way to escape the planet and their enemies sending in increasingly more fighters. Spensa’s still just figuring out more of her cytonic powers but when a chance encounter with an alien cytonic gives her a way into her enemies headquarters called Starsight, she embarks on a secret mission! I loved seeing the world expand as we finally get a glimpse outside Spensa’s planet and see how the rest of the galaxy lives like. There’s a lot of new alien species Spensa encounters, as well as a world that prides itself on being peaceful and non-aggressive. She knows that this supposed utopia devoid of any war, as the galactic government – the Superiority – is playing its own games. There might not be any war, but anyone who is different and doesn’t act like the Superiority wants gets exiled and cut off from their monopoly on travel. I liked the political intrigue, as Spensa gets caught between two powerful people and tries to find out what else the enemy is hiding. We learned a lot more about cytonic, the mysterious eyes watching Spensa (👁👁👁) and how most of the galaxy operates!

I loved that the new characters were also complex and challenged Spensa worldview. She’s forced to disguise herself as the alien Alanik, who is participating in a pilot test to fly for the small military. Therefore, we don’t see much of Skyward Flight or anyone back home. Instead she meets a new team that will fly with her, full of completely different people. There’s Morriumur, an alien called dione who is only ‘drafted’ and has to prove to their parents that he should officially exist. Then there are the kitsen (led by Hesho), a big crew of fox-like creatures that were so fun to read about and Vapor, an invisible, mysterious creature called a figment. In interacting with these aliens Spensa begins to see what lies on the side of the enemy and that they are more than the faceless monsters she built up in her mind. Of course M-Bot is on the mission with her and remains a true gem ❤ He’s struggling with his identity and what it means to be alive.

“That’s what war is,” Cobb told me. “A bunch of sorry, desperate fools on both sides, just trying to stay alive. That’s the part that those stories you love leave out, isn’t it? It’s always more convenient when you can fight a dragon. Something you don’t have to worry you’ll start caring about.”

The book is a bit slow to get started but then really takes off! I still had a good time reading this book as I found Spensa’s spy mission, the new world she encounters and the political intrigue fascinating to follow. Her interactions with M-Bot also remain one of my favorites, as they are always filled with banter, and I’m glad that both of them stayed together for this mission. You can see a lot of threads coming together over the course of this sequel and the ending specifically was so good! The last part of the book really picked up the pace and was hard to put down, was there was so much suspense and tension 😱

Some M-Bot Highlights

• “Not that there’s anything wrong with humans. I find their frail, emotionally unstable, irrational natures quite endearing.”
• “All right, M-Bot,” I said. “We have a problem. We might need to hijack that entire carrier ship.”
  “Excellent,” M-Bot said. “Would you like your corpse cremated or ejected into space?”
• “So, you’re worried about what?” M-Bot said. “That your shadow might take your place?” “No,” I whispered. “I worry that I’m already the shadow.”

IN CONCLUSION. ➽ Starsight was a fantastic sequel to Skyward and opened up a whole lot of new possibilities for the characters and world. There’s political intrigue, banter, discussions about war and morality and survival! Some things are already coming together and the end was really fast-paced and intense. I cannot wait for the next book to come out this year!

Have you read Starsight? What is your favorite book set in space? ⭐

Advertisement