Review of “Starsight” by Brandon Sanderson

 

Review of “Starsight” by Brandon Sanderson

Because I loved reading the first book, “Skyward”, I was really looking forward to reading the second book, “Starsight”. While I still enjoy the series and the story, I wasn’t as gripped with the second book as I was with “Skyward”. The book picks up a few months after the ending of the first book, and we catch up with Spensa and the crew and their new mission.

I liked the opening of the story, learning about what the crew’s new mission is on top of the floating platforms in the sky. However, when an alien girl lands on their planet, the story takes a turn. Spensa goes to train with the Superiorty, which sounds like a fun adventure, but I wasn’t as enthralled as I wanted to be with the plotline. I do like getting more information about the Superiorty and seeing their station and how they operate. However, unlike the characters we met in the first book, I found most of the new characters to be either boring or forgettable.

I will say that I did enjoy meeting and learning about the other alien races, such as the Dione and the Kitsen. One of the new friends that Spensa makes is Morriumur, a Dione that is only a few months old. I like their friendship, and learning about Morriumur race, the Dione. Unlike the other new characters, Sanderson builds a fondness for Morriumur, which shows us that not all races and people of the Superiorty are enemies. It also gives us a reason to care about the ending of the book.

Another positive is that we learn more about Spensa’s cytonic powers, and the Delvers and the Superiorty. We even get a reveal about her pet Doomslug, which factors in greatly to the plot of the series. However, I think Sanderson did a poor job setting up the villains of the story, because their plan at the end of the book comes out of nowhere and doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Because most of this book follows Spensa and her trip to the Superiorty, we don’t get many of her friends and family back on her home planet of Detritus. But the scenes that we do get are well done, and we learn more about Jorgen and his own cytonic abilities.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as the first one, but I still loved being in this world, and learning more about what is going on with the overall plot. Spensa is still a fun character, along with her banter with M-Bot. The new characters aren’t great, but there is a lot of new worldbuilding being done that is exciting for the future of the series. Next up is the short story companion, “Sunreach”.