All those people on the street, they were culpable for what had been done to my father and my friends. I’d seen how they treated the pilots at the test today. Well, I wouldn’t believe their lies of peace and prosperity. This was an act, a way to give outsiders a false impression of how great the empire was. How many of those people passing on the street were in the Superiority’s employ, directed to act innocent? It seemed so obvious, now that I thought about it. This place had to be a front intended to make it seem like life in their empire was peaceful. Starsight was one of their primary trade and political hubs. Understandably, she is nothing but suspicious at first, and it takes at least half the book for her walls to come down, and for her to start to realize that the majority of the population of Starsight are no more than civilians without any additional agenda. She’s promptly thrown in to the middle of inter-species politics of a society she knows nothing about. When an alien named Alanik crashlands on Spensa’s planet looking for her, Spensa follows her instructions and takes her place as a training pilot on Starsight. In Starsight, she becomes their representative, and she leaves Detritus behind to finally see what nobody from her planet has seen for generations – other civilizations. Skyward was the story of an outcast, a girl who had to fight all the odds to become a hero to her people. Ender’s Saga began strong with Ender’s Game, but the sequels felt increasingly dry and miserable until I quietly dropped them and walked away.

But Starsight succeeds where Ender’s Saga dragged itself into utter boredom, with characters becoming caricatures, and plots lengthening into unrelatable and unconnected stories. There was a sci-fi novel involving a young protagonist, a high stakes war, and contact with alien life. I realized I’ve been here before, with Ender’s Saga.

But Sanderson throws those standards out of the window as he takes sci-fi writing as we know it, and improves the hell out of it.

It’s good enough that a book follows the traditional tropes, as long as the story is told innovatively, interestingly and unproblematically. When reading, I don’t usually expect original writing. Synopsis: Picking up from where Skyward left off, Starsight follows Spensa Nightshade as she tries to defend her home planet Detritus from the Superiority – the alien alliance hell bent on destroying the human race once and for all.

Starsight goodreads