On Firefight (Reckoners #2) by Brandon Sanderson

Goodreads synopsis here.

Note (incase you didn't read the title): This is book two of the Reckoners series. Review for Steelheart (book one) here.

Review:
M. Night Shymalan (I know it's been a while since you read one of my reviews...  stick with me, this will make sense...  maybe). Who doesn't remember that first time they saw The Sixth Sense?  A great slow build-up of a movie.  Then BAM, Shymalan gives you a roundhouse kick to the face with a crazy plot twist (I should totally swap out that picture for Chuck Norris now...  /sigh). How long did you talk about it? How long did the "I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING!" last?  And then you bumped into that one friend or relative who didn't see it and you had to bite your tongue. We all have that person who wants to talk about it, but doesn't want to know anything. Or you're watching it again with someone who hasn't seen it yet, and you just kinda keep glancing over at them over and over again, bouncing with excitement, because you have to see their reaction! I just gotta capture the look on his face.  Man, that was fun times.  Kind of like what everyone is doing with Game of Thrones these days.  I watched for people's reactions before it was cool, but then I took a mixed metaphor to the knee.

Anyway.

Appropriate picture is appropriate

A few years pass and he puts out Unbreakable. Bruce Willis, but this time we get some Samuel L. Jackson. He can do no wrong. Snakes on a Plane. FANTASTIC! So. Another slow movie. Crazy twist. Signs. Slow movie. Crazy twist. The Village. Slow movie. Crazy twist. Ok. We get it. Crazy twists.  Lady in the Water. I don't think I stayed awake. The Happening. Didn't bother seeing it. The Last Airbender. Devil. After Earth. I don't think they're even mentioning his name anymore. It's become a stigma. I know what I'm getting in a Shamalamadingdong movie. Not fun anymore.

Steelheart had a total WOAH moment in it (or two). So, my hopes for Firefight was that Sanderson wouldn't use the same tricks again. When you start relying on the same tricks, you become boring. Like when you do your reviews over and over again through some long, obscure, metaphor about how you feel instead of how the book actually is, people may just skip through what you're typing...  ignore that.

There are certainly a few surprises in Firefight, but Sanderson's story isn't one long string of events that have a sole purpose of wowing you with the bright, shiny plot twist. The characters are well developed (even if some of them stay home this time). The new characters are entertaining.  The mythology around the Epics only gets more interesting. Sparks, this is just a fun series. Like early Shyguy movies.  Mmmm. Maybe not right. Like...  Die Hard (Bruce Willis was in The Sixth Sense, so that works...  I said so).

Yeah.  I give this "yippee ki yay, mot*#($&5(*@".

Ah, hell.  I'm posting one anyway.

On Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson - REVIEW

If you plan to read this book and know nothing about the story, skip the synopsis, skip the review, and just read the book.  The opening pages are much better if you don't know what the synopsis tells you.  

NOTE:  Comments to this post may contain spoilers

On a side note - this is post number 50 for me.  /cheer.

Synopsis (per Goodreads):

There are no heroes.

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 by the Reckoners.  A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and 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.  

Review:

Who really created Spider-Man?  Was it the radioactive spider that bit Peter Parker?  Was it Peter Parker?  Or, was it Uncle Ben?  Because it was Uncle Ben's wisdom and with Uncle Ben's death that Peter becomes more than a man in a mask...  with super powers.  He becomes a hero.  Well, what if there were no Uncle Ben?  What if there was no one to tell all the super humans that "with great power there must also come -- great responsibility"?  

John Emerich Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, was quoted as saying "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Great men are almost always bad men." Steelheart explores this concept with a world where man is given super powers, and man corrupt man is corrupt.  

I was surprised to find Steelheart amongst the YA novels in the library.  Perhaps it is known that this was to be a YA novel, but I had always thought of Sanderson as an adult fantasy writer, and I didn't do much research into the novel, so it was a mild surprise to find it there.  A few pages into the story, and yes, it is a YA novel.  The protagonist is 18, has no parents, and has all the answers.  The profanity is limited to "sparks!" or "Calamity!" or "slontze," etc.  This is not to say there is anything wrong with YA novels.  I just wasn't expecting it.

This is another revenge story (amazing how I come back to revenge stories over and over again), but set in a dystopian future of super powers and advanced technology.  It's the world after Magneto takes the homo-superior race to reign over the homo-sapien.  It's the story of mankind's fight back against the super powered oppressors.

I had been trying to find a good novelization of something with a comic book feel to it.  This is the best I have seen so far.  The setting is dark, but the characters still have a sense of humor.  David, our protagonist becomes known as the guy who cannot make a good metaphor.  The supporting cast is mostly one-dimensional having one significant quirk that makes them stand out from the others.  Regardless, the story is intriguing as the crew try to figure out how to get through Enforcement and super powered body guards to Steelheart, a man considered indestructible.  

The novel was a lot of fun, excellently fast-paced, and contains its share of unexpected twists.  

Well worth the read.  I give it...  Stan Lee and Kevin Smith...  web-slinging!  

We can't stop here, this is SPOILER country

(Seriously...  major spoilers will be "discussed" below)

Twist #1 - Prof and Megan are Epics.  I'll admit that at first, I didn't quite see this coming.  I had a suspicion about Megan, but was completely thrown off by her death.  But once Conflux was "captured" and it was determined that gifters couldn't gift to other Epics...  my thoughts went right to a) Megan was/is an Epic (since she couldn't use the tensors) and b) Prof is an Epic and the tensors are based on his powers.  So maybe Sanderson played the cards just a little too early.  That last clue was maybe just a little too big.  

Therefore I was not the least bit surprised to see Megan again at Soldier Field.

However, Twist #2 - Megan is Firefight.  Mind blown.  Did not see that coming.  A Brent Weeks-ian twist of "Epic" proportions.  And with book two of the series to be titled Firefight...