Brandon Sanderson's Blightful returns to the Cytoverse — read an exclusive excerpt

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Brandon Sanderson is working on a pilot for a TV show based on Skyward, the first book in his Cytoverse YA science fiction series about teen pilots fighting aliens. The show from Tomorrow Studios, who handled Netflix’s live-action version of One Piece, is in early development, so you’ve got plenty of time to catch up. But if you need another excuse to dive in, a new Cytoverse books trilogy is kicking off in September and Polygon has an exclusive first look.

Co-written by Sanderson and Janci Patterson, Blightfall is set decades after the events of the original series. Sanderson and Patterson previously teamed up on Skyward Flight, a novella trilogy set between the events of Sanderson’s 2019 novel Starsight and 2021’s Cytonic. Blightfall puts the spotlight on a pair of Cytoverse’s side characters: Arturo has been part of the series since Skyward while Sadie joined Skyward Flight in Starsight.

Arturo is now leader of the Defiant Defense Force, escorting diplomats on a first-contact mission to a planet with a long-isolated human settlement. But when his team is attacked, they wind up trapped on a mysterious and inhospitable world where old enemies are lurking. Arturo and Sadie will have to find new allies in order to escape.

Blightfall will be released on Sept. 1, and Delacorte Press gave Polygon the chance to exclusively share the prologue, where Arturo is in a lot of trouble.

Excerpt from

Blightfall — book cover

Blightfall

I fell.

The foreign planet loomed beneath me, hundreds of thousands of acres of deadly forest stretching in all directions, as I plummeted toward it without the protection of anything but my flightsuit. The land below grew larger, as if rushing up to meet me. It might have been beautiful, were it not about to be the instrument of my demise.

Wind buffeted my skin, the atmosphere growing thicker, providing more resistance as my body cut through it. My stomach lodged in my throat, adrenaline coursing through me. I held tight to Naga, my hyperslug, who trembled violently in my arms. The inhibitor field around the planet prevented her from hyperjumping until we were near the ground—and then Naga could ask for and receive permission to teleport us to safety. If permission didn’t come, that would be that.

My team couldn’t catch us. They had already been chased toward the forest by countless enemy ships. If I died, they’d be left here, fighting for their lives.

Blightfall

Stars, we’d fallen so far, so fast. I couldn’t open my mouth, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even scream except in my mind, a silent wail of terror as I dropped down, down, down, gripping Naga because if the wind pulled her from my grasp, there was no hope of anything but a swift death. I began to make out the texture of the trees. We had mere seconds before we would crash through the branches and become a fine paste of blood and decaying bark.

Alanik’s face flashed across my mind, and I regretted failing her the most. My head swam, and I wondered if I would faint from panic and fail to experience the last moments of my life.

Though she couldn’t hear me, I silently pleaded to Naga.

Give me another chance to find a way out of this.

Don’t let me die here and abandon my team.

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