Book Review: "Defiant" by Brandon Sanderson

 

4/5 stars

*Spoiler alert!*

Defiant is the closing chapter in Brandon Sanderson’s “Skyward” series. (Yes, it’s YA science fiction, and no, the “YA” part doesn’t make it bad. Tress of the Emerald Sea was YA, and it was good. The “Skyward” series is no different.) Spensa must make critical choices in her peoples’ battle for existence, ones that challenge her identity as a fighter.

 

Despite its indulgence in all the YA tropes, I think Sanderson ultimately got it right in this series. We find Spensa reckoning with her own self as the people of Detritus engage in a final showdown with the galactic empire of the Superiority. 

“As a kid, I’d have said that courage destroys fear. Now, I’d have said that fear is what lets us be able to be courageous.” 

Spensa’s people have been oppressed for decades since landing on Detritus, part of a faction of humans that didn’t want anything to do with the other humans and their war to conquer the galaxy. Humans, deemed dangerously aggressive by the Superiority, were pinned down on planets like Detritus. For Detritus, this meant their society evolved into a military dictatorship, where sacrifice in battle was glorious and you were shunned if you believed differently. Survival was everything.

 

Jorgen Weight, Spensa’s boyfriend and now reluctant admiral of Detritus’ forces and that of their alien allies, finds himself conflicted about civilian casualties even as his forces must strike the Superiority at key points in their supply chains. After a particularly bloody raid on their part, even Spensa, bloodthirsty Spensa, finds herself dreading going into battle. So much so that Spensa goes full-Spensa and goes behind Jorgen’s back repeatedly to protect Jorgen from having to shoulder that kind of weight.   

Well, at least that’s her reasoning. But to Jorgen, it’s a betrayal that conveys mistrust in his leadership ability. So, Spensa and Jorgen, as much as they care about each other, find themselves on the rocks, Spensa finding herself increasingly frustrated over his dogmatic adherence to the rules and Jorgen fed up with Spensa’s impulsivity and disobedience of the chain of command.

  

“‘Sneaky,’” she repeated. ‘Have become spy slug!’” 

Amongst all the big stakes, personally or collectively, there are bright spots. The taynix being one of the brightest of the bright spots. Doomslug, Spensa’s beloved taynix and hyperdrive, threatens to upstage the human characters in Defiant.  

Wait, let me revise that. All the taynix threatened to become my favorite characters.  

They are underrated sentient beings, whose cytonic communication abilities have made them mysterious to most beings in the galaxy, and the backbone of the Superiority’s ability to dominate the galaxy. The taynix can act as hyperdrives, but also facilitate faster-than-light communication and even underpin much of their weaponry. 

I was glad to see the people of Detritus give them the respect and care that they deserve.  

“I don’t think most people want to do what’s right. That’s what makes doing the right thing noble. It’s a conscious choice. A hard one. If it were easy, then why would we respect it so much?”

Jorgen’s a good guy, with an unimaginably weighty assignment, who ultimately chooses to try and win over the Superiority taynix instead of treating them as enemy combatants. Despite that making decisive battle strikes that much more difficult. We can’t deny Spensa’s influence on this front, although, like I said above, Jorgen’s a good person forced into a terrible, awful position.

 

Both Jorgen and Spensa are forced to meet each other halfway and reconcile their respective identities and personalities. Spensa becomes more restrained over time, while Jorgen sees the upside in being the one who can change the rules of the game. Both want a better future, and I think readers can see that during the final battle, with Jorgen gambling on winning over the Superiority taynix, and Spensa trying to help from behind enemy lines without unnecessary casualties.

 

Oh, and even Gran-Gran wants a piece of the action and finds herself unexpectedly in the thick of things. What an underrated character, Gran-Gran, aka Becca Nightshade. She’s 90 years old, blind, but is also charging into battle because she wants a better future for everyone. 

“Change is pain that fades.” 

Thanks, Brandon, for that lovely quote. I think he’s speaking to more than the story on this one. He’s speaking to his readers, sympathetic over the huge book hangover that’s coming to all of them—myself included—upon the close of the “Skyward” series. I think he threw us a bit of a bone though, because at the end of the book, it appears that the Sanderson is planning more books set in this universe.

 

That prospect of more exploration of this intriguing universe will help me get over the massive story hangover I am currently undergoing. Who says that YA can’t pack a massive punch and wrestle with very adult themes? (So many feels!) 

Happy reading! 

--BookOwl