Blog Tour: Cytonic by Brandon Sanderson

I’m thrilled to be part of the blog tour for Cytonic, the third book in the brilliant Skyward series! I was lucky enough to get a glimpse of the first few chapters before its release, so here are my first impressions…

Spensa’s life as a Defiant Defense Force pilot has been far from ordinary. She proved herself one of the best starfighters in the human enclave of Detritus and she saved her people from extermination at the hands of the Krell—the enigmatic alien species that has been holding them captive for decades. What’s more, she traveled light-years from home as an undercover spy to infiltrate the Superiority, where she learned of the galaxy beyond her small, desolate planet home.

Now, the Superiority—the governing galactic alliance bent on dominating all human life—has started a galaxy-wide war. And Spensa’s seen the weapons they plan to use to end it: the Delvers. Ancient, mysterious alien forces that can wipe out entire planetary systems in an instant. Spensa knows that no matter how many pilots the DDF has, there is no defeating this predator.

Except that Spensa is Cytonic. She faced down a Delver and saw something eerily familiar about it. And maybe, if she’s able to figure out what she is, she could be more than just another pilot in this unfolding war. She could save the galaxy.

The only way she can discover what she really is, though, is to leave behind all she knows and enter the Nowhere. A place from which few ever return.

To have courage means facing fear. And this mission is terrifying.

It’s tricky to know what to write here, because this series hinges so much on its enormous twists that I don’t want to say a word that might spoil the previous two books! However, I think it’s fair to say that both Skyward and Starsight were very different books, with the training school setting of the first giving way to a more diplomatic feel in the second, and I think the same shift in vibes is going to be true for Cytonic: while it keeps a lot of what’s amazing, the setting and adventure seem to be new, exciting, and a totally different direction for Spensa.

Things kick off immediately after the end of Starsight‘s cliffhanger, which is a relief – I was desperate to know what was going to happen, but I don’t think I could have predicted this! Spensa’s narration is still great, and there’s plenty of wonderful lines from M-Bot, so even in just a few chapters I was immersed right back in the story. This is going to be a lot of fun – I wish I’d had a much longer sample to read, as I think I could have been dragged right through to the end of the book!

If you’re not yet a fan of this series, you should check out my review of Skyward to tempt you into starting. I can’t wait to carry on once my finished copy of the book arrives!