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Defiant is the final fourth book of Brandon Sanderson's Skyward YA series.

Things I Enjoyed: * brought the series back around full circle to moments from book one * superb Gran-Gran moments * maybe the real friends were the hyperslugs we met along the way

This book was ~ok for me, but the pacing here didn't quite work for me; this is a character-driven series and so the focus on Spensa's emotional journey makes sense, but plot-wise the final book involves an incursion or two by the main squad, some [spoiler] with Spensa, and then we're right at the last[*] battle to wrap up the Superiority and the Delvers all in one. It's all just tied up a little too quickly for a four book series.

If I had to rate the series, the first book was a lot of fun, the second book brought in larger worldbuilding that I enjoyed, the third book went off the rails in a way that didn't work for me, the novellas in the middle here told some stories that wouldn't have fit otherwise, and the fourth book didn't quite bring it all back together with the satisfying closure I wanted.

(Maybe I shouldn't be comparing books to each other in a review, but if I had to recommend one other YA science fiction series that ended this year about the power of friendship and the horrors of space war, I would recommend Charlie Jane Anders' Unstoppable instead on pretty much all fronts.)

[*] I wanted to make a "last and first battle" joke, but book two has some of a Superiority/Detritus fight at the end even if I remember it mostly being about Delvers

A City on Mars is an enjoyable and easy to read non-fiction book about the (non)feasibility of space habitation. It's got a comedic-but-serious tone, which is not unexpected as half of the authors are responsible for the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic strip. Lots of digressions and breadth, but all enjoyable and accessible.

Despite space being really cool, I am personally went into this (and left!) with extreme skepticism about the feasibility of humans living in space any time soon. (It just feels like billionaire escapism from real problems that they are disproportionately responsible for causing!) There's probably some confirmation bias in my enjoyment here, as a warning. This book also treats several billionaires with much more respect than they deserve, although it's not fawning over them either.

We're pretty good at shooting things into space at this point (even if it's expensive) but largely past that I think I was amazed at just how little we know. We haven't had people in space for very long periods of time at all. We don't really know how radiation in space affects people long term. We have no idea if/how birth could work in low/no gravity. We have extremely little understanding of creating successful closed ecosystems. We certainly aren't doing a good job keeping our own planet going well.

One unexpected neat part was how much it went into space law (with a lot of deep sea and Antarctica analogies). It's not a topic that I feel like a lot of similar books have talked about, but it's incredibly depressing how exploitation-heavy all countries seem to be leaning at the moment. (Space socialism when?)

But we have not moved beyond conflict. Our ability to harm ourselves vastly outweighs our ability to protect ourselves. Settling the solar system will likely increase the danger, and we will not be leaving for distant suns anytime soon.

Even with my space skepticism, I had previous thought of space exploration as value neutral (or at least competing for resources that could have been used for better things), but this book convincing me that putting more people in space (and competition over space resources) would probably be actively dangerous for earth itself, especially given the lack of agreements (and peace) we currently have on earth.

I enjoyed everything out of Small Wonders Issue 2. Usually magazines with a bunch of pieces are hit and miss for me, but Small Wonders continues to consistently resonate for me. This one was especially good.

Here are my three most favorites from this issue (with extra trans bias this time):

• Guttation, Transformation by Devin Miller

"I don't think it's weird to want your body to be different than it was before," Lex says, wry smile beautiful.

A story about support in changing your body to become something else, through the help of plants. Not a trans story, but big trans vibes.

• The Only Way Out by Louise Hughes

I shouldn't be the one who has to leave my life behind.

Annie drives a taxi and hears the call of people who need to escape; she brings them to a reverse Lethe bridge, where everybody else forgets about them once they've crossed over it through the fog.

• Thrifting With the Snow Queen by M.J. Pettit

Marnie seeks a return, to regain Paradise. For me, on Saturdays, we are already there.

The Snow Queen and her servant, trapped in another realm, go thrifting together to try to find what they need to get home.

I deeply enjoyed System Collapse--it was a nice followup book to the events of the previous one and I don't think could stand alone. Murderbot has certainly been through a lot, but the last book was particularly intense and it makes sense that there's lasting effects from it. It felt like a smaller and more internally-focused book with less snark and more trama, but I am here for that.

To me at least, Murderbot and its series feels like the embodiment of vulnerability avoidance: handwaving, the first few books seemed like Murderbot coping with learning it cared and people caring about it; Network Effect was about """relationships"" (with ART and 2 and 3); this book in particular explored the vulnerability of trauma and being partially human (or at the very least having some fleshy parts). I think it helps to better situate Murderbot as a construct--not a bot, not human, but somewhere in between with the problems of both.

On the surface, this certainly looks like a shift in Murderbot's competence. (It's certainly a shift in its self-perceived competence; Murderbot both seemingly does a good job while also beating itself up for not being perfect; it's hard to see past the narrative bias.)

Previous Murderbot dealt with situations and humans out of its control (still does but used to too), but in this book there's an extra struggle of coping with its own [redacted]. Given that it has people around it that care, it also has to deal with the shame of these people covering for it too. Dr. Mensah dealing with her own trauma during the last book felt like a nice foreshadowing here for what Murderbot is going through here.

Bonus joy moments: * the documentary! * ART being a jerk to both Iris and Murderbot * ART and Holism butting heads

Now this was the sort of pirate queen adventure I was expecting when I had read Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea. (That book is historical pirate politics and internal musings about power and this book is more fantasy adventure; I liked them both, they're just different.)

Amina al-Sarafi is a middle-aged pirate queen who gets blackmailed out of retirement into "one last job", gets the criminal gang back together, and ultimately faces off against a sorcerer and his sea monster (as if the cover doesn't give you this hint). (Also, gender stuff! You love to see it.)

It's set in the same world as her Daevabad trilogy although you don't need to have read those books at all. (You might appreciate a single character briefly appearing as well as the lawyer parrots, but that's about the extent of it.) My opinion here is that this is a fantasy pirate heist book and so is a bit more accessible than a fantasy djinn politics book (even if here it means that the world feels more like a stage and the side characters get a little bit less air time).

All in all great fun, highly recommend especially if you liked SA Chakraborty's previous work.

It's extremely hard to only pick a couple of pieces of short fiction out of Small Wonders Issue 1, but I'm going to limit myself to my three most most favorites:

• CoverLetter_Version5 by Courtney Floyd

My advisor says it's perfectly normal--mage candidates pouring too much of themselves into job applications their first time on the market can lead to all kinds of grief.

"You're manifesting your own potential futures," she assured me when this all started, "They'll fade with time."

For me, applying for a jobs always feels like stretching yourself into the dream of some potential unrealized future you; this short story manifests that idea by having these future yous be literal.

• Sunnyside Daycare Employees' Chat Log, Post Alien Takeover by Amanda Helms

I don't have to listen to you tell me I should be happy for losing my job just because some other alien colonizer didn't eat me.

Continuing the through line from the previous issue of awkward alien invasions, this is a comedic short story about bad alien management who didn't know what they were getting into.

• Not Set in Stone by Gerri Leen

How long can you love me in this isolation?

This is a poem about a gorgon trying to cure themselves with the help of a dear friend; this line in particular hit me right in both the covid and the chronic health feelings.

Paladin's Faith is the fourth book in T. Kingfisher's sad paladin romance fantasy series. I really appreciate the genre mix: the fantasy adds interesting context to the world (and often some mystery being tracked down) as well as a compelling plot, while the romance bit adds the genre comfort of having a rough idea of the story arc that is likely ahead. The book's details aren't predictable other than at its broadest strokes of both romance and fantasy foreshadowing, but it's an echo of the coziness you get in rereading something you've read before but can't quite remember.

Overall, all of these books are just solid enjoyable reads for me and I'm excited for the rest of the series. I think specifically this book competes with the first one for being my most favorite so far.

I have been informed secondhand via birdsite that this is apparently book four in a seven book series which I hadn't known up until this point. It makes a lot of sense for this book in terms of the additional worldbuilding setup that it does for the future, as well as the slow spooling out of detail about the Saint of Steel.