Steelheart
Someday I will have read everything that Brandon Sanderson has published. Steelheart brings me one step closer to that goal.
While most of Sanderson's writing takes place in his epic fantasy Cosmere-universe, he also has a scattering of novels that aren't connected to that massive series. The Reckoners trilogy, of which Steelheart is the first novel, takes place on our world, more or less. It's a post-apocalyptic version of our world, where a bunch of people were granted superhero powers. Rather than becoming benevolent guardians of society, they quickly too over the world, transforming it into a collection of city-nations, each with its own tyrannical ruler.
David lives in what used to be Chiago, which is ruled by the eponymous Steelheart. He's able to transform nearly anything into steel, which he did to half the city. He's impervious to bullets or any other attempt to kill him. Plus he can fly and shoot energy and he kills at random to maintain his control. But David saw him bleed once, so he knows he can be killed. He sets out to meet up with the Reckoners, a shadowy group of rebels in the business of killing lesser epics, in the hopes that they can help him free his city.
This book was exciting and fast-paced. It reminded me a bit of Alloy of Law. Sanderson knows his tropes, and he embraces them to spin out a story about superheros and vengeance that is, above all, a lot of fun.
The thing that threw me is the seeming randomness of both the powers and the weaknesses of the various Epics. Sanderson tends to embrace rules-based systems, and he's written at length about that. He likes imposing those rules on himself both for clarity and to encourage his own creativity. There are still two books to go in this series, so it's likely that the underlying rules will become clear in the future books. For now, I kept thinking that there has to be a simpler explanation (which, frankly, is my approach to most of life, so it could just be me).
While most of Sanderson's writing takes place in his epic fantasy Cosmere-universe, he also has a scattering of novels that aren't connected to that massive series. The Reckoners trilogy, of which Steelheart is the first novel, takes place on our world, more or less. It's a post-apocalyptic version of our world, where a bunch of people were granted superhero powers. Rather than becoming benevolent guardians of society, they quickly too over the world, transforming it into a collection of city-nations, each with its own tyrannical ruler.
David lives in what used to be Chiago, which is ruled by the eponymous Steelheart. He's able to transform nearly anything into steel, which he did to half the city. He's impervious to bullets or any other attempt to kill him. Plus he can fly and shoot energy and he kills at random to maintain his control. But David saw him bleed once, so he knows he can be killed. He sets out to meet up with the Reckoners, a shadowy group of rebels in the business of killing lesser epics, in the hopes that they can help him free his city.
This book was exciting and fast-paced. It reminded me a bit of Alloy of Law. Sanderson knows his tropes, and he embraces them to spin out a story about superheros and vengeance that is, above all, a lot of fun.
The thing that threw me is the seeming randomness of both the powers and the weaknesses of the various Epics. Sanderson tends to embrace rules-based systems, and he's written at length about that. He likes imposing those rules on himself both for clarity and to encourage his own creativity. There are still two books to go in this series, so it's likely that the underlying rules will become clear in the future books. For now, I kept thinking that there has to be a simpler explanation (which, frankly, is my approach to most of life, so it could just be me).
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