Having been so invested in Spensa’s life after book one it felt a little strange to plunge into a much broader scale for this instalment.
After a relatively swift update on what our team have been doing, we are disrupted by the events taking place on a much larger scale. We learn of the dangers facing Detritus and the determination Spensa has to learn more about why the Krell keep attacking them.
Events conspire to send Spensa and M-Bot on a risky mission…to infiltrate Starsight and learn about their technology, with the aim of eventually stealing the secret of hyper travel.
This was a more ambitious scale of world-building. We’re introduced to different groups and learn a little more of their past and their interactions. It’s necessary, and was well done, but it meant we lacked the pace of book one.
Without giving away details, we quickly learn that Spensa is a pawn in someone else’s game. She has to challenge her own prejudices and decide to what extent she will use the teachings of her grandmother.
There’s more flying. There’s a lot of information about the characters and the way their historical beliefs have shaped their current behaviour. There’s some intriguing developments regarding Doomslug and M-Bot, and a rather momentous end-scene that has me curious to see what comes next.