Starsight

Spensa’s people are under threat of annihilation.

Imprisoned on a remote planet, they’ve been guarded by a race they call the Krell. In the past, the Krell would only raid Spensa’s people in limited numbers, keeping them down but not trying to wipe them out.

After Spensa engineered a massive victory against the Krell, that changed.

Now the Krell are mobilizing to wipe out the humans once and for all. So Spensa must use her unique gifts to infiltrate the heart of the Krell empire and steal a hyperdrive, as a means of getting her people out of harm’s way.

Starsight is a good YA sci-fi book, but only an okay sequel to Skyward.

Skyward was a war plot. A big section of the book was devoted to Spensa and her wingmates training and fighting and dying. At the end of the book, you felt you really knew Spensa and her surviving compatriots well, having followed them through numerous trials and tribulations.

Those characters barely figure into this book.

Starsight is primarily a spy/political intrigue plot. The bulk of the page count is devoted to Spensa infiltrating the enemy, getting a feel for their factional politics and trying to steal a hyperdrive. We see an occasional glimpse of the characters from the prior book back home, but they are clearly on the backburner for this one.

It’s still well written and paced, a page turner despite being 480 pages. The space combat scenes are very well done and the banter between Spensa and her AI Ship is funny and charming. But it is a little disappointing coming from the prior book.