Defiant by: Brandon Sanderson

 

So here I am at the end of my over one-year long series of reviews to the works of Brandon Sanderson.  Defiant was the last novel released by Sanderson, not as part of the secret projects but through his regular young adult publishers, and ending the Skyward series overall.  The Skyward series had been good, each of the books were enjoyable if a familiar spin on a popular story of the hero’s journey mixed with stories of the boy and his dragon.  Defiant takes things in a different direction.  The novel is essentially 400 plus pages of the climax of a Brandon Sanderson novel and honestly since that’s where Sanderson excels, in exploring the climax of a story from the multi-layered perspectives of characters.  Defiant still lies in the young adult space, however, with Sanderson largely staying in Spensa’s perspective until the final climax against the Superiority where the perspective shifts through several.  This is largely because to justify the big ending of all the heroes Spensa has met through this series comes to save the day and free the universe the reader genuinely needs to see where the other characters are reacting to Spensa’s capture disguised as a diversion.  After three books of buildup with these characters, and three novellas cowritten with Janci Patterson, Sanderson also makes it very clear that by the end this series is still a fairy tale for children.  The bad guys get punished in the end in a mirror darkly from where the series began, a surprisingly dark ending being potentially read as being okay with retribution and revenge on the oppressors.

 

Defiant at several points feels almost like Sanderson reflecting, however unintentionally, on Suzanne Collins’ Mockingjay, a novel that reflects on the nature of war and becoming a symbol.  The protagonist of The Hunger Games trilogy, Katniss Everdeen, becomes a symbol against the oppression, a similar path that Sanderson has set out for his protagonist Spensa Nightshade: she becomes a symbol after integrating with a rebellion.  While Katniss finds the system of the rebellion perhaps equally as oppressive as the Capitol, Sanderson’s Defiant responds by asking what would happen with a rebellion that is determined to keep themselves in the right.  Sanderson has the humans struggle with a young leader, Jorgen is having his own character arc of continual following of protocol, struggling with Spensa’s impulsive attitude and mastery of her own cytonic, and having to deal with what comes next.  Defiant wants to genuinely ask what comes next.  Spensa’s internal narration has become less willing to kill, less willing to be a warrior, and less willing to remember her grandmother’s stories’ conclusion while finding her own solution.  Spensa is continually baited into engaging with the Superiority, largely in a way that plays on her insecurities.  It’s kind of surprising that with the end of the series and the opening of the universe into a legacy series to be written by Patterson, leaves Spensa behind in the end.  Like Mockingjay before it, there is a sense of purpose and belonging in the finality of the novel, though a very different finality to Collins’ work.  The title of the novel is integral: the war is the one last act of defiance to find freedom and the first real time that humanity’s future history is explored in the novel.

 

Overall, if you’ve been following the Skyward series from the beginning, Defiant will not disappoint.  It’s actually the novel in the series where it feels like Sanderson has improved since the four secret projects and The Lost Metal gave readers some of his best work.  It’s a simple rebellion plot that’s largely musings on what will come after, but it works so well because it’s come after three novels and three novellas to really work through that baggage.  It’s not perfect, the final fate of the Superiority is dark but presented in this almost comic light with one of my favorite little character interactions of the novel.  The series has peaked here and while there is intrigue for myself to continue, it feels like what should be a proper ending that any follow up is honestly going to have to struggle with continuing.  9/10.