This book is a great example of a sequel that is even BETTER than the first book! A Million Suns even starts off with a totally mind-blowing bang!
When I first read the Goodreads summary (which is like 1/3rd the length of the above summary and much more vague), I felt like I had no idea what this book was about. It just seemed like a bunch of boring political stuff.. the ship members are getting restless, people are frustrated and not working, food production is down, and Elder (now technically "Eldest") has to deal with it. I mean that's okay, but it didn't seem Z0MG OUT OF THIS WORLD EXCITING! But this first impression was totally off the mark.
The very first chapter starts off throwing you right into the action and the conspiracy. Elder goes to the Shippers to talk about the engine problem and gets the sense that what Eldest told him was a lie. And badda-bing:
"Eldest lied to you," Marae says calmly, "because we lied to him."
So I went from thinking this book would be not-that-amazing, to "HOLY CRAP I NEED TO KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE!!!"
A Million Suns deals a lot with mob mentality, which was both frustrating and fascinating. The people on the ship are totally restless and overflowing with emotions. They blame Elder for the lack of food, they blame Elder for people not working, and they blame Elder for the ship not landing. They have it in their heads that Elder's rule is oppressive, when honestly, it's not. That's the frustrating part. We see Elder's old friends turning on him, shouting "Lead yourselves!" and blaming Elder for every tiny thing that goes wrong — even if he wasn't at all responsible for it. It was frustrated to see Elder targeted like this and have the people buy into it. They were all being so stupid and let's face it, they wouldn't be able to lead themselves. But it was also kind of interesting to see mob mentality at work. People buy into epic rebellious speeches so easily and one person chanting "Lead yourselves!" quickly turned into a whole group of rebels.
Another part of the story is Amy putting together clues that Orion left her. Apparently Orion uncovered some crazy secret about the ship — the secret that Eldest tried to kill him for. But this secret isn't what we expect. He put together a series of clues for Amy to eventually figure out the secret and make the best decision for everyone. This was really interesting because I was dying to figure out what information Orion left behind for her to figure out. It's kind of drawn out so I was literally whipping through the pages, desperately trying to find those answers that would surely be epic!
I didn't read A Million Suns right after Across the Universe, but from what I remember, I actually think I enjoyed A Million Suns more.. and that's saying something because I loved Across the Universe! A Million Suns just had so much more intensity and I guess it was exciting being that much closer to the truth and the planet. Like obviously they weren't going to get to the planet in the first book, but when I started A Million Suns there was always that "maybe" in the back of my head. Maybe they would get to the planet.. or maybe we'll find out more about it. That hope and all the new information really had me completely glued to A Million Suns!