Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson is the first in a new series of super-power novels. It's been billed as YA but to me it reads more like an adult book. The main character is eighteen but the other characters are older, which to me doesn't quite fit in with the YA genre. That said, I can think of no reason for teen readers not to enjoy it.

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 wills.

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.

In the world of Steelheart, some people acquired super powers and became "Epics". None of them are superheroes, though; they're all supervillains. Fortunately for the ordinary people, the Epics all have a weakness that theoretically allows them to be killed. Obviously, they don't go around advertising their weaknesses, however, and they can be very obscure like "can only be killed by a thirty-seven year-old man".

The titular Steelheart is the Epic who rules over Newcago, the city formerly known as Chicago (lol). He is extremely powerful, bulletproof, able to turn any non-living matter into steel, can shoot energy balls, and no one knows his weakness. On the other hand, his dictatorial rule over Newcago has resulted in a relatively prosperous, safe and well-run city, in the context of a post-Calamity world.

David, our main character, has a vendetta against Steelheart after seeing his father die at the Epic's hand. His advantage is that he also saw his father injure Steelheart. So when he's old enough to live on his own, he sets out to join the Reckoners, a rebel group dedicated to taking out Epics. The story follows David and the Reckoners as they work towards that goal.

Steelheart was an enjoyable read. Sanderson deftly lays clues along the way that I mostly didn't make sense of until the corresponding reveals, or close to them. I like the way he gives hints but not too much information. I hate it in books when I work out the mystery the main character is trying to solve much earlier than the character themselves. It's frustrating, but happily Sanderson avoids that pitfall.

The events of the book are mostly dire and serious, but Sanderson adds a bit of levity through character quirks. For example, David is terrible at metaphors and similes, but persists in attempting to use them anyway (one of my favourites was "like a brick made of porridge" — lol!), and Cody, another member of the Reckoner team, has a strong Southern accent but insists he's Scottish. Given there isn't much else to be cheerful about in most of the book, these quirks provide much needed balance.

Steelheart is a great read and I recommend it to most fans of speculative fiction. Readers who may have been put off by the length of Sanderson's fantasy series — which are mostly BFF — will be pleased to hear that this is a much shorter read, coming in at under 400 pages (according to Goodreads). I particularly recommend it to fans of superhero fiction, especially the darker, less heroic kind. I am looking forward to reading the next volume in the series. I should also note that, although this is a book one, it tells a complete story, without major cliffhangers.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: September 2013, Random House Delacorte US (UK/Aus version with different cover published by Hatchett)
Series: Yes. The Reckoners, book 1 of 3, I think.
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson is the conclusion to the somewhat epic Mistborn trilogy. You can read my reviews of the first two books The Final Empire and The Well of Ascension (the latter with minor spoilers).

The Hero of Ages is a worthy conclusion to an epic and detailed trilogy. All the titbits set up in earlier books come to fruition in this final volume as we, by the end, gain a fairly thorough knowledge of the world. As far as I remember, all the questions raised in earlier books are finally answered (I can only think of one that isn’t and that was raised towards the end of the final volume as, I assume, a hook for Alloy of Law set in the future of the same world).

What I found interesting in Sanderson’s wrapping up was that I was able to guess some of the revelations/twists he threw out before they were revealed (and some seemed obvious several chapters before they were confirmed), some of the twists caught me completely off-guard. Including some twists/revelations which were set up well in advance and for which all the relevant clues were in place. I think this is mainly a product of the sheer volume of intricate world-building he’s packed into the series (or, arguably, my lack of attention but I saw SOME things a mile off).

As with the previous books in the series, I would have liked there to be more female characters in The Hero of Ages since I can literally count all the named, on page women on one hand. The fact that Vin remains an important central character continues to make up for it a bit, but still. This aspect, as well as the intricate world building, makes me want to compare what I’ve read of Sanderson to Patrick Rothfuss but in this instance that wouldn’t be a fair comparison since Rothfuss’s female characters all revolve entirely around the main character and his attempts to lessen this in his second book were heavy-handed. And I’m going off on a tangent.

Back to the point, the entire Mistborn trilogy is well written and I would recommend it to all lovers of fantasy, particularly epic fantasy. It’s definitely the kind of series you have to read in order because the world building is so cumulative. Handily, my Gollancz (UK/ANZ) editions have summaries of the earlier books at the back. And appendices.

4.5 / 5 stars

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

The Well of Ascension is the second instalment of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy. You can read my review of the first book here. This review contains minor spoilers for the first book, mostly in the form of who lives and dies. If you don’t want to be spoiled, just go read my review of book 1, Mistborn: The Final Empire, and don’t read on down. I’ll just say that it’s an excellent fantasy series and I’ve given both books one and two 4.5 / 5 stars each.

***

SPOILERS AHEAD

***

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

***

END SPOILER WARNING

***

In The Final Empire, the crew of thieves and allomancers (metal-magic users) that make up the main characters in this series, succeeded in overthrowing the Lord Ruler, the seemingly all-powerful god who had tyrannically ruled over the land for the past thousand years. Where the first book asked (and answered) the question: What would happen if the evil overlord won?, the second book asks the question: What happens next once you get rid of him?

The answer, of course, is almost 800 pages long.

The original crew, plus Elend and sans Kelsier, is trying to hold onto the city of Luthadel and keep the people fed and free. A year after the Lord Ruler’s fall, they’re more or less managing, particularly with Vin to take out any assassins sent against Elend. Then two armies arrive on their doorstep and things get a little bit more tense.

The story follows the crew as they try to hold the city together, prevent the skaa peasants from starving to death or being slaughtered or enslaved again by one of the opposing kings. Unsurprisingly, they face many ups and downs (mostly downs) along the way both external and personal.

Vin, the powerful Mistborn, has grown into her powers and gained a lot of self-confidence, compared with the start of the series. Her bouts of doubt about her place in the world felt realistic and her interactions with Zane, a new character were frustrating, but in a good writing sort of way. Speaking of Zane, I liked the unpredictable element he brought to the plot, but I also spent a lot of time hoping for him to go away and leave Vin alone because she really didn’t need him to make things harder for her than they already were. Another sign of good writing, I think.

The other important new character introduced in The Well of Ascension was Tindwyl, a Terriswoman very different to Sazed, the existing Terris member of the crew. As well as providing a different view of the Terris people (turns out, Sazed is a bit of a rebel) it was nice to see another female character in the foreground. She and Vin are the only two women who are in more than a handful of scenes and who aren’t background decoration (maids, wives, miscellaneous peasants). While they’re both kick-arse characters, I’d still like to see more women, hopefully in the next book.

Overall, this is an excellent book and I would recommend the series to any fantasy readers. I definitely suggest starting from the first book, however, The Final Empire. Handily, if it’s been a while between books one and two, there is summary of book one included at the end of The Well of Ascension.

4.5 / 5 stars

Mistborn / The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

Mistborn, as it’s known in the US, or The Final Empire, as it’s known in UK/ANZ, is the first in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy. I include both covers because my ebook matched the top cover, but I’m fairly confident when I buy the sequels they’ll match the bottom edition (and be less smelly). No points for guessing which cover is which.

The premise of Mistborn is that a thousand years ago the evil overlord took power and began an immortal reign of terror and oppression in the region now known as the Final Empire. The peasants are heavily oppressed by the nobility — descendants of the Lord Ruler’s supporters back when he originally took over. And, although they have more money and power, the nobility are constantly watched by the Lord Ruler’s powerful minions.

Some nobles or people with noble blood (of which there are few because the law is that if a nobleman sleeps with/rapes a peasant woman, she must be killed soon afterwards to prevent half-breed spawn) have magic abilities. The magic system is based around metals. Allomancers “burn” different types of ingested metals to give themselves temporary powers such as super strength, super senses, magic metal vision, the ability to push or pull metal objects towards themselves (and if the object is anchored, to move themselves by pushing or pulling on metal objects). Some people, mistings, only have the ability to burn one metal but a special few, mistborn, can burn all of them.

Enter our main characters. A band of misting (half-) peasant thieves, led by a mistborn, is set to try to take down the Final Empire. The story mostly focuses on their plans and the execution of those plans.

The world-building is fairly thorough, I found. There’s a lot of background things which are mentioned but which seem like they’ll be investigated further in the sequels.

I enjoyed reading all the characters’ PoVs. None of the properly developed characters were annoying, which is unusual now that I come to think about it. All the antagonistic characters, including the Lord Ruler, were mostly off screen or treated like evil forces rather than people. I think this worked well because otherwise we would have been forced to empathise with, for example, someone who killed a lot of good characters. It also reinforces the fact that most people in the world see the Lord Ruler as a god and his inquisitors as an extension of that godliness. “Forces of good v forces of evil” things where the evil doesn’t have much depth to it and is just evil for the sake of it, annoy me. However, Sanderson avoids that trap (explaining how is spoilery) which was nice to see. Also, a lot of the rebellion’s planning involves trying to subvert the ingrained thinking that it’s impossible to rebel against god, which was interesting.

Brandon Sanderson is one of the current Big Names of fantasy and, from this book, I’d say it’s deserved. There was amusing banter, there were lots of cool fights and some clever tricks. The only thing I would have liked to see more of is the development of the love interests. There was only one romantic storyline and I liked both the characters involved but I would have liked to see more of it. Hopefully, there’ll be more in the next book. Oh, also more female characters would have been cool. Only one of the main group, Vin, was female (arguably, she was the mainest character) and the only other women with speaking parts (ie not random peasants being slaughtered) were court ladies who weren’t in that many scenes. The presence of Vin as a pretty-damn-kick-arse central character meant the gender balance didn’t annoy me while I was reading and I only really noticed it looking back.

I recommend this book to lovers of fantasy. I’ll definitely be picking up the sequels when I can.

4.5 / 5 stars