Firefight by Brandon Sanderson
Mar. 23rd, 2015 05:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe 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.
It’s almost a year after STEELHEART. Newcago is rebuilding after Steelheart’s rule but by killing him, David and the Reckoner’s have attracted the attention of other Epics keen to punish them. It soon becomes clear that someone is sending the Epics to Newcago and all suspicions point to Babylon Restored (once Manhattan), ruled over by the water-controlling High Epic known as Regalia.
David, the Prof and Tia head to Babylon Restored to meet up with another team of Reckoners to try and discover what Regalia is up to. But everyone in the team is holding secrets and some are far more dangerous to the world than others …
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.
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.
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.
It’s almost a year after STEELHEART. Newcago is rebuilding after Steelheart’s rule but by killing him, David and the Reckoner’s have attracted the attention of other Epics keen to punish them. It soon becomes clear that someone is sending the Epics to Newcago and all suspicions point to Babylon Restored (once Manhattan), ruled over by the water-controlling High Epic known as Regalia.
David, the Prof and Tia head to Babylon Restored to meet up with another team of Reckoners to try and discover what Regalia is up to. But everyone in the team is holding secrets and some are far more dangerous to the world than others …
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.
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.
