[Review] Who wouldn't die for Doomslug? - "Starsight" by Brandon Sanderson
What happens if you mix a "Kampfzwerg"¹, an AI with an existential crisis, and a whole lot of fighting in space? You get the Skyward series by Brandon Sanderson, and specifically Starsight. One of my most anticipated releases of this year and I had to wait until the year is almost over for it to come out. But the wait seriously was worth it.
We pick up about six months after the end of Skyward. The people on Detrius now know somewhat why they are there and why the Krell are fighting them. But to fully survive they need a proper hyperdrive to escape the planet. The best way seems to be to infiltrate the Krell spaceships above their planet. Until one day something arrives on Detrius that changes that plan just a little bit.
From here on out there will be slight spoilers for the overall plot. Nothing too spoilery but to properly review this book I have to talk about the thing that changes the plan for the humans on how to escape their planet.
Because what arrives on Detrius is another alien who crashes there. She's humanoid but with purple skin and a Cytonic like Spensa. She manages to give Spensa the coordinates to reach some sort of space station called "Starsight" where the Superiority, who the Krell are a part of, wants to train fighter pilots to fight a possibly returning evil. So the plan changes and Spensa disguises herself as the alien, Alanik, and flies to Starsight to participate in the training.
What Spensa didn't expect to find there are unlikely friends and even an answer to what it means to be human in this universe. There is political intrigue, there are various alien races who act differently to humans, there are space fights, and there is a threat looming over the whole of the universe.
Again, Sanderson keeps us on the edge of our seats. You know this is YA and things most likely won't turn out as bad as it would in Adult novels but still you are tense in the best way. What if Spensa gets discovered? What is this alien's actual motive in working on this fighter pilots project? How exactly does a hyperdrive that isn't Cytonic work and how could Spensa steal one?
You start to see spies on every corner just like Spensa in this story and it helps with immersing yourself into her world. She herself isn't a spy and tries her best but obviously she might make a blunder here and there. And trying to hide a slug that is supposedly toxic and an AI which shouldn't exist anymore doesn't make it easier.
What this story does is not just giving us more to the overall story. It also creates a vivid wider universe with many different alien races that all have such varied ways of living. One of the big topics of this story is actually the way one of those races procreates. That definitely leads to some fascinating conversations and would make for a great bookclub discussion topic.
It also shows us the topic of body language and facial expression - how races differ from each other in that regard and how they try to be accommodating to other races by trying to emulate their behavior. It's such a fascinating read because it does make you think. If we finally met aliens how would they perceive us? How would we perceive them? What if they already came here and we just don't know because they seemed like gods or something along those lines?
Sanderson takes all those questions and infuses his story with this while giving us the fun elements of Spensa's conversations with M-Bot, the fighting, and the bonding of various aliens. This book really focuses on the nature of sentient species and what it means to be alive. Skyward was about survival, Starsight is about living.
What I have to say is though that now I would even say this series is more Science-Fantasy than proper Science-Fiction. I know many people struggle with this and I've also seen Star Wars fans calling their favorite story Sci-Fi when it is Science-Fantasy or more of a fairytale. Science-Fiction should be about the possibility of science (see Jurassic Park which is SciFi with monster horror elements). And just because something is set in space doesn't mean it's automatically SciFi (see Star Wars). In Starsight we find out more about Spensa's abilities and, to be honest, for me this is so far a bit too fantastical to be proper SciFi. Not a complaint though because I love Science-Fantasy as well. This is just about why I think this book doesn't necessarily fit the genre of Science-Fiction.
And now I seriously can't wait to see what Sanderson will do in the next installment of this series because that cliffhanger makes me be a mixture of the Timmy Turner's dad yelling 'Dinkelberg' meme and the one of Grandpa "old man yelling at cloud" Simpson. I am angry but I am also so impressed and in love with the way Sanderson writes these cliffhangers. So thank you for another fantastic book. Now I need to continue reading through his whole back catalogue.
5/5★
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Disclaimer: I wasn't asked or payed to talk about any book or author mentioned. Everything is my own opinion.
¹ - "Kampfzwerg", literally "fight dwarf" or "fighting dwarf", is a German expression usually meaning someone who is tiny who seems ready to fight at any minute. Used here because of how often Spensa is referred to as being rather small compared to most humans. It is also often used to refer to male musicians (usually rock singers) who are smaller than the average male height.
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