

Them mentalities are examined at length along with an enriching smatter of alien cultures, political maneuvering, and varied misinterpretations of non-universal cues (i.e. The upside? A handful of fascinating new characters-including a non-gendered alien pilot who's technically only a few months old, a being that seems to exist as a semi-corporeal "smell", and an entire crew of sentient gerbil-like creatures led by a "king" (who, delightfully, reminded me of Reepicheep from Chronicles of Narnia.)

It's largely just our MC, Doomslug, and M-bot (which, to be honest, was all this reader really needed.) But if you were hoping for advancement to that tiny romantic subplot, just try to think of it as on hold for now. we see very little of the side characters and team dynamic from the first book-as Spensa is separated from her squadron for the duration.

I find their frail, emotionally unstable, irrational natures quite endearing.” “Not that there’s anything wrong with humans. And there is a larger element being drawn into the fight-one that threatens the very existence of all space-faring species. her jailors are nothing as she'd imagined. Although it DOES pluck our heroine completely out of her element and sends her on an espionage mission into the heart of the alien civilization that's been keeping her people captive for generations. This series continuation goes off-world and ups the ante to a galactic scale.īlessedly, Sanderson's second installment doesn't suffer from the slump of second-book-syndrome. Humankind has always celebrated heros, but who defines what a hero is? Could humanity be the evil the galaxy needs to be protected from? Spensa is determined to find out, but each answer she discovers reveals a dozen new questions: about the war, about her enemies, and even, perhaps, about Spensa herself.īut Spensa also discovered a few other things about herself-and she'll travel to the end of the galaxy to save humankind if she needs to. Everything Spensa has been taught about her world is a lie. When she made it outside the protective shell of her planet, she heard the stars-and what they revealed to her was terrifying. And she's sure that whatever happened to her father that day could happen to her. Spensa is sure that there's more to the story. Worse, though, he turned against his team and attacked them. The rumors of her father's cowardice are true-he deserted his Flight during battle against the Krell. She made it to the sky, but the truths she learned there were crushing. All her life, Spensa's dreamed of becoming a pilot and proving herself a hero like her father.
