Blightfall by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson
There is peace in the Skyward society. They are now going on a mission to meet a human colony that never seemed to be under the Superiority. It seemed simple. However, they ran into problems. There was a dangerous debris field and they were attacked by an AI. The AI is controlling the society with a gladiator game to get the best fighters who she supposedly sends out to fight human enemies. Through some difficult spying they discover that the AI is actually freezing these people as she accumulates a frozen army. The AI has been programmed to save humanity. She had done this by moving earth through the "nowhere", which in the process destroyed the Americas (which became a debris field). Those that survived the earth moved over to this new planet which included walking trees. The Skyward crew manage to get out as they also struggle with relationships among each other and the awkward communication challenges, especially across species. They explore relationships and as "joy" vs. population necessity as well as gender expression as they try to save themselves and this other world. Tone is light, though it does feel a bit long.
There is a big coding camp coming up, but middle-schooler Allie Navarro doesn't have any new game since Click'd. She also wants to save money to get her best friend from Arizona to fly out to a gaming conference. Oh, and in class, there is an assignment to reuse past code for a new app.
A middle school girl goes off to a prestigious summer coding camp. There she creates an app that helps people meet each other. She hopes to qualify for a "Games for Good" contest and wants to have a little bit of usage to help demo her game. However, she decides to share it with a few friends, and soon it goes viral in the school and others.
The original "final book" of the Alcatraz series ended on a downer, but it ended. To work around the bad ending, this "final final book" switches the narrator to Alcatraz's protector, Bastille. We learn that Alcatraz was pretty much "out of it" near the end, and Bastille provides the narrative that gets us towards the fulfilling ending. It also allows for a co-author to take the reigns of story-writing. It is a different character narrating, so we would expect the style to be a little different.
I read the second and third Skyward books before reading Evershore. This helped a lot in understanding what was going on. This novella is told from the point of view of Jorgen. The earth people go to the planet of the Kitsen (small rodent-like creatures.) They Kitsen are not too fond of humans and challenge them to a duel. But, luckily for the humans, the Kitsen get bogged down in bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the Superiority comes to attack the Kitsen planet. Suddenly a league with the humans is not all that baad. They do a lot to realize the strength of the cytonic powers to finally come to a conclusion. The novella moves at a quick pace with plenty of action, filling in some of the gaaps in the Skyward novels. It felt like something that could easily fit in a Star Wars movie.
Alanik is a member of a species from the ReDawn planet. She has some special abilities and belongs to a group that does not like the Superiority. However, others are caving to them and she uses some of her powers to escape and recruit some humans for help. There are plenty of interesting "cross cultural" relationships between her and the humans. Some special slugs also have great powers, but simple emotions and communication abilities, leading to another type of cross cultural challenges. The ragtag group of humans sneaks away to help Alanik. However, the opposition has power to make people appear as somebody else making their quest even more challenging. There are just enough events from other books to tie it all together, while presenting a totally different story.
Sunreach is a novella tells of events in the Skyward universe from a different point of view. We hear of the impact of Spensa, but she doesn't play much of a direct role in the book. Instead, the characters are battling through some of their own existential struggles. There is a fight without coms that leads to the death of a friend. There are also important beings that help the humans, as well as monsters that confuse space ships for food.
I listened to Skyward back in 2019, but never got around to writing about it. It starts out with the story of Spensa's difficult life. She had idolized her father and his flights into the sky to protect their planet. However, one day he was deemed a traitor for giving up on a fight. She still had a desire to help protect the planet. She had some friends. Eventually things fell her way and she was able to do things. The world that she inhabited was also interesting.