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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 has 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.
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Cytonic, like Starsight before it, feels a little disappointing in that we abandon many of the characters we loved from the previous novels. If it wasn’t for the previous novellas, I think I would have been much more disappointed with how this book panned out. But this is still a really cerebral, entertaining and emotional story - perhaps a little filler-y for a whole novel, but a good read. If you hated the deviation of Starsight I think this would anger you too, however.
I really enjoyed the new characters and concepts introduced here, and the Jumanji-like approach to the Nowhere. There were a lot of laugh out loud moments, bother from the usual M-Bot/Spensa banter, and the sheer absurdity of some of the plot. Spensa’s conflict is entirely emotional and psychological, as opposed to physical, which does make some of the action feel a little toothless at times, but then again this is written into the text in various ways so it still works.
Controversially, I think I prefer the novellas as a whole to Cytonic - partially due to their different PoVs, their focus on Skyward’s characters and their overall plot/setting - but it’s a fun story that builds on a lot of lore and sets up some things for the last entry. Incidentally, I’m very happy how elements from Defending Elysium are explicitly acknowledged and drawn on, that was very fun.
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