How many left turns can one book series take? Not that I’m complaining. I wish book four was right now. And will I finally give five stars to a book in this series? I guess I will find out by the time I finish writing this review. (You are already aware if you are reading this right now. Writing is like time travel!)
This is book three in Sanderson’s YA sci-fi/space opera series, Skyward. I liked the first book just fine, but book two, and now this one, upped this series to a whole new level. The scope just keeps expanding, and stuff that was set up way back in the first half of book one is coming back around and being explained. I honestly don’t know why I’m surprised, because this is what Brandon Sanderson does, but I am. This was also a sneaky little character piece disguised as an adventure quest. Spensa does some major growing in this one, and she matures in a way we haven’t seen from her before (while still remaining her essential Spensa self). We also get character growth from M-Bot!
Spensa spends the entire novel stuck in the Nowhere with M-Bot, after jumping in there in the last scene of Starsight. The Nowhere is a very weird, trippy place. She meets a surprising amount of people, including pirates, strange alien beasts, and a human man named Chet, who enters riding what looks very much like a dinosaur, and who becomes her traveling companion. The less I say about Chet the better, but I ended the book just loving that character. There were several bits of the Nowhere worldbuilding that had me skeptical at first, but it makes a frightening amount of sense once you realize everything is there for a reason, and it all does make sense in the end.
I will say, you definitely should read the two novellas that take place before and during this book, as they give a much needed update on what’s going on outside the Nowhere, plus although there is Doomslug in this book, there is nowhere near enough of her, and there are a PLETHORA of other slugs in the novellas, and they are so fucking adorable it makes me want to die. Plus, you know, key worldbuilding and character growth, yada yada. There’s also a third novella due to be published this month (ETA: yesterday as of posting this) that I’m definitely on board for, because after finishing this book, I just want to spend more time in this world.
Whoops, guess I talked myself into rounding up to five stars.
[4.5 stars]