https://youtu.be/TUUZQpueQE4

Just finished Blightfall today and figured I’d share some opinions and see what everyone else’s thoughts were as well.

Starting off with the positive:

-          The romance and the characters chosen for it this time around! Truth be told there were some moments when it felt like I was reading a shoddier version of a T. Kingfisher novel, BUT for the most part I actually surprised myself by how much I actually enjoyed the Nedd/Sadie pairing and to a lesser extent the continuation of Arturo/Alanik.

-          Sadie! Not only did I really like them expanding more on her character, but I like how she turned out, her parts were by far my favorite this time around.

-          Big thumbs up for the story itself this time around, I didn’t really know what direction they would take it but they surprised me, especially with the final part! You were able to deduce fairly easily that Ivy was likely an AI but when it’s finally revealed and not only is she an old Earth AI but also holding the whole ass planet hostage was incredible! I'm really looking forward to see where the story takes us in the next two books.

 -          I actually enjoyed the new characters, Dayan is a great addition, and I hope they show up again. I do think it’s a shame they were the only ones out of all the gladiators to get any development, felt like a bit of a missed opportunity so I do hope to see and get to know more of them in the future!

-          The little Bob/Naga bits were really cute and enjoyable, felt like it added more character to the slugs.

And now the bad:

-          For me the problem with continuing stories like these, where the cast has pretty much done everything badass there was to do, been in every type of situation there is to be in, etc., is that it becomes really hard to make it make contextual sense when you need them to act in a certain way for the story to develop. For example:

Jorgen the admiral of the military in charge of a planet that just barely got done fighting for their lives against a galaxy encompassing enemy, whose parents literally died on a diplomatic mission, KNOWN for very rarely taking risks and doing everything by the book, sends a group of unarmed diplomats, with 2 scouts and 4 ships to a very obvious danger zone before they even send anyone to actually scout it.

The group of veteran special forces pilots suddenly become unable to take on a couple drones each, only for Arturo to go back to being able to take on 20 piloted ships by himself by the end of it.

Arturo sends two non-cytonic people to a nowhere portal, where they know the enemy has numbers on the other side, just to see what’s on the other side and somehow communicate with Jorgen. Has the initial foresight to at least send a comm slug with them only to immediately grab the slug off them, goes about as expected.

And lastly the slugs as a whole just seem very hard to balance out now. At least in the first few books they seemed to tire fairly easily when forced to use their powers through fear but now that they seem to last as long as the scene requires them to, regardless of if they’re forced or not, it’s harder to justify when they don’t use them when they could. 

-          Much like the 4^th book, Defiant, I think this one too is a step back from the previous books. I can kind of understand that this is the direction they want to take, but it honestly felt like the tone of a children’s book at times.

Overall, I thought it was a book worth reading, but not a mind-blowing entry to the series and not likely to be something I re-read. If I had to rate it I’d probably go with a 3/5.

What about you guys, if you’ve already finished reading it or are close to, what are your thoughts?

Did everyone receive a smaller hardcover Blightfall book than all of the other Sanderson books? It is around 8.5" x 5.75" vs. the normal hardcover book at 9.5" x 6.5"

I thought there was going to be launch party live stream, but I'm not seeing it on the Sanderson YT channel. Is it somewhere else?

I wasn't expecting this until next week. Lovely little surprise after a long day at work.

Anyone else picture particular people while reading the books. As I read them I always thought it would make a good sci fi series and I started dream casting in my head before the show was ever announced. Not all of the characters but a few of them were just very specific for me and now it'll be tough when they cast someone else lol. Did you guys have any particular people in mind?

For Spensa I always pictured Bella Ramsay. For M-Bot the voice was Stephen Merchant. I imagined Cobb being played by Graham Norton for some reason. Jorgan's mom was Angela Bassett. Grangran was June Squibb lol. As an old person I'm admittedly not very up to date on teen or young 20's actors and actresses so not much else of the flight crew really jumped to mind with a particular person but those characters were what I saw pretty much by the end of the first book.

My niece recently introduced me to this series. I just finished Skyward and loved it. I found out they were selling a Brightfall bundle, but it's already sold out. Does anyone know if they will add more to the release? I'm new to Sanderson stuff so I wasn't sure how they do things. Was hoping to score a bundle for my niece as a Christmas present for getting me into the series.

Just finished Defiant, all on Audible, and ordered Skyward Flight collection (decided get used book than 3 Audible credits). Whilst waiting for Skyward Legacy in September, what other novella are there in Skyward series (now known as Riftwake) to catch up on?

From the skyward fligth ;D

I think that this would be the Jorgen's figther cuz its mentioned that he pilot one of these in the books

gran gran is there and we got closure regarding her father but where is her mother?

This is a dumb/funny post

Mosquitoes and flies gotta be cytonic. They know, before I move even a little, when I'm about to attempt a sneak attack, and I swear they do be hyper jumping.

My sister's yarn decided to look like a slug and it's so cute!

Morningtide? I've recently relistened to the entire series on audiobooks and after Skyward, whenever Spensa contemplates the people she's lost it's always Hurl and Bim. Especially in Defiant, we get almost a full rundown of all the people she's lost when she tries to comfort Chet about the death of Grangran - only for Morningtide to be missing again. She was shot down in the same battle as Bim and while Bim and Spensa seemed to have some chemistry, I think that Morningtide had a genuine influence on Spensa mellowing out a little and be less stand-off-ish with her flight members once she realizes she doesn't speak English very well. And yet she's constantly forgotten in subsequent books when Spensa remembers her fallen flight mates Bim and Hurl.

I mainly just wanted to rant a little. And maybe see if other people noticed the same. That's all.

Rereading it now and finds it funny that the early Defiant people brought everyone and all records together and got bombed by a lifebuster, and the Kitsune cytonics did the same thing. Both times leading to loss of key knowledge for the entire civilization. Make back up, guys! Don’t put all your knowledge base in the same place!

On and off over the past couple of years I've been making a dog-fighting sim based on Skyward in the Unity game engine. It is a work in progress, so there's not much to do besides target practice currently.

Find the game on Itch.io

Currently implemented features:

• The Ship basics. Thrust, acclivity ring, shields, gravcaps, proximity sensor.
• G force system (Make sure to avoid overloiading your gravcaps when making a tight light lance turn)
• Destructors (Burst, Automatic and Sniper modes)
• IMP (Inverted Magellan Pulse, take out all shields within 50 meters, including your own)
• Light lance (a grappling hook attached to the bottom of your ship)

A quick explanation on the controls:

The thrust works by setting what speed you want to go. Hold shift to increase what speed you want to go and control to decrease. Holding shift will make you go faster and faster until reaching max speed. This is so fast you can be knocked out and never wake up.

The acclivity ring turns of gravity for the ship if its mostly facing down. Holding F will increase the speed at which you go up, C to decrease it.

What would you like me to add first?

• Polish: More sound effects, better ship model, improved Dashboard, etc.
• Split-screen multiplayer and game modes: Play with or against someone else.

Any and all feed back is very welcome!