Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

The Blurb On The Back:

Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his will.

Nobody fights the Epics … nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart – the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David’s father. For years, like the Reckoners, David’s been studying, and planning – and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

He’s seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Brandon Sanderson’s superhero fantasy - the first in a series – is an action-packed affair premised on the idea of great power becoming a great corrupter. Although aimed at a ‘grown up’ audience, the fact that David is 18, coupled with the coming-of-age themes and simple plot means that it would equally play well with YA readers. There’s a lot of world building in the book, which I really enjoyed – especially as Sanderson spends time establishing how the Fractured States came into being and the different powers and vulnerabilities that each Epic has. However the plot itself is slim – little more than an account of taking on – and taking out – various Epics and the Epics themselves are two-dimensional generic evildoers (although there is an opening for them to become more nuanced in later books). I also found David’s quirk of constructing tortured metaphors a little annoying after a while, while the obligatory romance with fellow Reckoner Megan for the most part played out fairly predictably. Saying that, the supporting characters have a lot of potential, specifically the Prof who formed the Reckoners and has secrets of his own and Cody a Scots/Tennessee guy with a penchant for big guns and tall stories and I also liked Abraham, a Canadian who believes that one day there will be Epics motivated to do good. Ultimately, there’s a lot of set-up to the book but Sanderson does it at a good enough pace for this to be an enjoyable enough read and with the set-up out of the way, there’s scope for the remaining books to go deeper and be more interesting. On that basis, I’ll be interested in checking them out.

Firefight by Brandon Sanderson

The Blurb On The Back:

Newcago is free.

They told David it was impossible – that even the Reckoners had never killed a High Epic. Yet Steelheart – invincible, immortal, unconquerable – is dead. And he died by David’s hand.

Eliminating Steelheart was supposed to make life simpler. Instead, it only made David realise he has questions. Big ones. And no one in Newcago can give him answers.

Babylon Restored, the city formerly known as the borough of Manhattan, as possibilities, though. Ruled by the mysterious High Epic Regalia, Babylon Restored is flooded and miserable, but David’s willing to take the gamble. Because killing Steelheart left a hole in David’s heart. A hole where his thirst for vengeance once lived. Somehow, he filled that hole with another Epic – Firefight. And he’s willing to go on a quest darker and even more dangerous than the fight against Steelheart to find her, and to get his answers.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

The second in Brandon Sanderson’s RECKONERS SERIES is a tepid affair that expands on the world-building in STEELHEART but does little with the characters – notably the supporting characters who are little more than stock affairs. The whole book revolves around secrets but the reasons why some of the characters keep those secrets are often flimsy – existing only to give grounds for the plot events that follow – and there’s an awful lot of the book that involves characters deliberately not talking to each other or holding off on having conversations that, logically, they should be having. This is particularly so in the case of Megan, who reappears in the book as there’s a key plot event that involves her but at no point does David seek to dig into it, even though he should be doing so given his feelings for her. All of this is a shame as there are some great things about the book – I like the detail that Sanderson gives to the powers his Epics have and the thought he’s also put into their weaknesses – particularly in the case of Regalia who operates in the context of very clear rules. I also enjoyed his reimagining of Manhattan as a sunken city and the effect that Regalia’s rule has had on its inhabitants. However the book didn’t come to life enough for me, especially as characters such as Prof and Tia don’t really come to life on the page, which means that some of the pay-offs lack the impact that they should have done. As a result, I can’t say that I’m going to rush to read the next in the series, although I will probably get around to checking it out.

Dreams Of Gods And Monsters by Laini Taylor

The Blurb On The Back:

What power can bruise the sky?

Two worlds are poised on the brink of a vicious war. By way of a staggering deception, Karou has taken control of the chimaera’s rebellion and is intent on steering its course away from dead-end vengeance. The future rests on her.

When the brutal angel emperor brings his army to the human world, Karou and Akiva are finally reunited – not in love, but in a tentative alliance against their common enemy. It is a twisted version of their long-ago dream, and they begin to hope that it might forge a way forward for their people. And, perhaps, for themselves.

But with even bigger threats on the horizon, are Karou and Akiva strong enough to stand among the gods and monsters?

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

The conclusion to the SMOKE & BONE TRILOGY is an overblown, crowded affair left bloated by the romance elements. If you’re a fan of epic romances filled with a lot of blockages before an eventual happy resolution, then you’ll enjoy this as there are a lot of breathless descriptions of how Akiva and Karou feel about each other coupled with a whole lot of roadblocks to them being together, which really irritated me. Coupled with this is that there are so many strings to the overall story that at times the book felt overcrowded, especially when Taylor introduces a new plot around human scientist Eliza who has secrets that will impact on Karou and Arkiva’s struggle. For me Eliza’s introduction simply came too late in the trilogy for me to care about her situation. I was also disappointed with the resolution to the Jael plot line, which felt very anti-climatic, mainly because so little time was devoted to it, even though the whole book is structured around it. I did enjoy the scenes with Mik and Zuzana, which brought some much-needed levity and a less complicated love story and I admire the scope of Taylor’s imagination and the vividness of her descriptions. Ultimately, although this book wasn’t the conclusion I’d been hoping for, I would definitely check out Taylor’s other books.