#78 Starsight

Starsight by Brandon Sanderson 

(Skyward Book 2)

Spoiler free

Skyward was my joint favourite book of 2018, joint top with Evelyn Hugo so its pretty safe to say ive been waiting ALL year for this and it was one of it not my most anticipated book of 2019. Slight spoiler alert, it did not disappoint! whilst i must admit i did prefer Skyward i still thought this sequel was a fantastic continuation and my favourite YA sci-fi series. 

A little synopsis of the first book: Skyward follows Spensa a young girl with big dreams of becoming a pilot, her father defected from a battle and was deemed a coward, he was shot down and his legacy as a coward was moved onto Spensa which made her dreams of attending pilot school almost impossible. Almost ;) 

Starsight continues on directly from Skyward which i enjoyed as i dont care for massive time jumps. The book opens with the continuing fight against the krell. With Spensas unique ability to sense the Krells controls and direction of their spaceships the last remaining humans are therefore able to push the battle farther out from Detritus. When a small single unknown spaceship appears Spensa is sent to intercept it, when she find the pilot injured, the pilot gives Spensa a warning and pleads with her to go to Starsight, a krell space station and then she slips into a coma.  Spensa is subsquently presented with a unique opportunity in this book to imitate an alien from a different planet and to infiltrate their space station to steal their hyper drive technology in the hopes they will figure out how the krell are winning the fight, the risks are high but it may be the humans only chance.

Whilst on Starsight Spensa takes on a new pilot training challenge and must help to train a new crew which was a nice throwback to Skyward. With this there is an introduction of a range of new characters. The new crew comprises of many different races of aliens and a human defector character. Spensa is able to disguise herself as the alien that is currently in a coma using M-bots technology whilst wearing a bracelet on her wrist. Will Spensa complete her mission to steal the krell hyperdrive and make it back to Detritus alive?

So like ive mentioned previously i didnt enjoy this as much as Skyward but i still gave it a full 5 stars as i still thought it was a great story. I enjoyed the characters more in Skyward but i did appreciate the varied characters in Starsight and found that each of them had a unique and interesting backstory. The world building was also bumped up a level in this continuation and i really enjoyed learning more about the other side and found myself warming to the krell and feeling sorry for them. 

Some stand out characters for me were Spensa (obviously) her character growth was fantastic whilst at the same time shes the same impulsive, fiery gal. I enjoyed how the cytonic side of her is developed. I also loved development of Jorgens character towards the end as he has his own developments in this book, wont say anymore as i want to keep this as spoiler free as possible. The alien characters were an interesting addition too. 

I was also very glad that like Skyward this book was pretty much romance free and thats probably why i loved it so much, i love that Sanderson can write an action packed story but doesnt feel the need to focus on a romance storyline. His writing really is second to none. I was very pleased when not only a book 3 was announced but a book 4 too! Shame we have to wait until Spring 2021 for it but im sure it will be worth the wait!