Steelheart

Steelheart

 

Brandon Sanderson

 

 

I know this probably isn't the Sanderson book I should have started first since it's YA and not his usual fantasy, but from what I've read about his books, this is pretty much what I expected. Great world building, a lot of suspense and action, and okay characters.

 

Overall, I thought this world was really cool. Some red planet looking thing appears out of the sky and creates 'Epics', people with powers. Steelheart is one of the most powerful Epics and is emperor to David (our MC)'s city and he also killed David's father right in front of him 10 years ago. Now David's been learning as much as he can about Epics in order to take Steelheart down, hopefully with the help of the Reckoners, a group of people that have been killing Epics.

 

I love anything with superpowers. There's so many dimensions to powers and you can take them and do so many things in a story with them... and this was a good premise. But the lacking characters made me care less. David was okay, I didn't really feel the vengeance that was supposedly all-consuming and I didn't feel his grief or any other emotion. Also, his shitty metaphors were more annoying than comedic. Cody annoyed the HELL out of me. JUST SHUT UP. I spent the entire book hoping he would die, and he's supposed to be a friendly. Prof was cool. Tia was okay. Megan was just very unemotional and didn't feel real to me.

 

There's a character that dies (spoilers) and clearly didn't seem done. Also, it did not spark any emotion in me. If a character that we're supposed to like dies, I expect to flood with tears and that was not happening in this one. I feel like the series could continue to really develop and get much better as long as the characterization is improved.

 

It was a fun read, though.