Calamity

Calamity was an excellent conclusion to Sanderson's Reckoners trilogy. It's just as exciting and fast-paced as the previous two installments, with tons of new powers and exciting twists.

The city it's set in this time, a wandering Atlanta, seems even more implausible than a drowned Manhattan or metallic Chicago. This one is made of salt and crawls across the country, completely rebuilding itself every week. But Sanderson is less concerned about the logistics than the opportunities they present. And he takes full advantage of a half-built city that can never be completely wrecked to create some really thrilling scenes.

Sanderson continues to play with the ideas of trust and redemption, while arguing that it's important to face your fears and that most humans are basically good but easily corrupted. Which I can't really say I disagree with. And the trilogy as a whole serves as a nice coming-of-age tale for the main character, who even gets a happier ending than I could have possibly predicted.

As always, Sanderson leaves plenty of questions open-ended. And he will theoretically be revisiting this universe with his next YA trilogy, The Apocalypse Guard. Knowing the premise of that series and being able to see all the dangling threads here has me really excited for those books to come out.

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