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Starsight (The Skyward Series Book 2)
The #1 New York Times bestseller! From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Reckoners series, the Mistborn trilogy, and the Stormlight Archive comes the second book in an epic series about a girl with a secret in…
- Release Date
- 2019
- Length
- 481 pages
- Publisher
- Delacorte Press
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Our Review
About the book
In the second Skyward novel, Spensa learns more about the truth behind her people’s imprisonment on Detritus and takes a risky undercover mission far from home. Disguised among the many alien species of the Superiority, she must find a way to secure the technology her people need while uncovering the galaxy’s larger politics.
Our review
Sanderson blows the lid off the Skyward universe, trading a cozy flight school for galactic espionage and a cast of aliens.
The expansion is bold. Spensa’s undercover mission introduces an entire civilization with its own logic, and Sanderson has fun designing alien species whose cultures feel strange without being cartoonish. The book explores prejudice and propaganda with more nuance than the first installment, and Spensa’s growing understanding of her supposed enemies adds welcome complexity. M-Bot, now coping with new feelings, remains a source of both comedy and unexpected poignancy.
The trade-off is that we lose most of the beloved Skyward Flight crew, and the new ensemble doesn’t quite fill the gap. The middle section is slower and more political, with fewer of the dogfights that powered the first book. And the ending is a cliffhanger, so readers should have Cytonic ready. Still, this is a smart, ambitious sequel that deepens the series rather than repeating it.
What we loved
- A vividly imagined alien society
- Thoughtful themes about prejudice and propaganda
- M-Bot’s poignant, funny character growth
Keep in mind
- Most of the original supporting cast is absent
- Ends on a significant cliffhanger
Read it if you like
Fans of Skyward, Becky Chambers’s Wayfarers series, or the Mass Effect games.
The verdict
An ambitious, worldbuilding-rich sequel that sacrifices some of the original’s warmth for scope, and mostly earns it.
