Roy Tang

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my second Sanderson book after The Way of Kings, which made me a fan of his world-building. Given that this book is set in a dystopian near-future, the scale of the world-building here isn’t as large as that fantasy epic, but still gives Sanderson enough room to carve out a unique setting in the city of Newcago.

Newcago, yes, that name is ridiculous. A lot of the Epic names are ridiculous actually, and the protagonist himself points that out at some point.

The plot is fairly straightforward, with a couple of somewhat predictable plot twists thrown at us towards the end.

The outstanding parts of the book for me were the big action scenes where the Reckoners confront the Epics to try to take them down, with big complicated plans set up and things eventually go awry. It’s almost like the book combines multiple heist movies, which is a good thing as I enjoy heist movies.

Like the main plot, the protagonist’s character is kind of straightforward. “You killed my father, prepare to die”, that sort of thing. He’s not exactly too charismatic, but he is insanely clever and reacts well to the bad situations they find themselves in. His penchant for poor analogies isn’t particularly endearing either.

All in all an above average book, although not nearly as engrossing as War of Kings was, still quite a page turner once you get to the third and fourth parts.

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