Cytonic — Book Review

Short read, major spoilers clearly marked under subtitles

Cytonic is the third book in Brandon Sanderson’s Cytoverse series! Here are my other reviews for the series:

• Book 1, Skyward
• Book 2, Starsight
• Book 2.5, Skyward Flight
• Book 3, Cytonic (this review!)
• Book 4, Defiant

I hope you read Skyward Flight before reading Cytonic, because it really changes the experience by wondering when we’re going to catch up to a certain someone’s vision of sad Spensa! And no, that’s not a spoiler—because is there any novel in existence where the main character fails to feel a little sad at some point??

Is there?

Anyway, in this review, I’m going to assume you’ve already read Skyward Flight, so onto the Cytonic review!

My Favourite Moments of Cytonic

Major Spoilers Ahead

My favourite moment might have been when Spensa finally hyper jumped back to Detritus at the end of the book, because I am crossing my fingers and my toes that this means that we get to spend some more time with Jorgen, FM, Rig, Alanik, Cuna, and the rest in book four, Defiant. Spensa now has two whole novels of growth and change to share with her friends and love interest, and I’m super interested to see how they’re all going to react to one another!

I’m also lightly surprised by the relatively happy, hopeful ending for Spensa after the decimation that befalls Jorgen’s life at the end of Skyward Flight. Despite the odds, no-one is truly lost at the end of Cytonic. Chet is entwined with Spensa’s heart, M-bot is running… hovering… floating (???) free in the nowhere like the mini-delver we always suspected he’d become, and he hasn’t even succumbed to villainy (yet).

The delvers are angry with Spensa and the cytonics, yes, but that has always been true. There is no new threat from this book, only new friends, new powers, and a surer sense of self.

Maybe the universe will stand a chance against the delvers in book four after all!

My Criticisms of Cytonic

Major spoilers for the end of Cytonic

My largest criticisms are the same as book two, Starsight, in that I do still miss Detritus, but aside from that, Cytonic was a really enjoyable book.

As I was reading it, I felt that some of the twists and turns are unlikely to feel satisfying for everyone—but then, if you’d read Skyward Flight, you’d know some of the twists in advance.

Jorgen’s final vision of Spensa from Skyward Flight is through Doomslug’s eyes while Spensa glumly cleans parts in the Broadsider base… from this, I hope most readers were able to figure out that Spensa’s suspicions that the pin is secretly her father are more telling about her own character and desires than a true ‘twist’.

Knowing that it was Doomslug and definitely not Spensa’s dad made her longing for the past even more tragic and meaningful for me to read, but I wonder if I’d have felt the same way if I had believed, as Spensa did, that there was a chance that the Nowhere was some grand metaphor for purgatory.

That wasn’t really a true critique from my perspective! It’s more of a pondering into an alternate timeline where I somehow missed the novellas—as many Sanderson readers I know have confessed!

Summary

I can’t wait for Defiant to release in the UK in paperback so I can finally add it to my collection and learn the latest secrets! Until November, then! And in the meantime… I read a very strange book called Once for 18+ readers!