Firefight

I think I like this one even better than Steelheart, much to my surprise. I'm not entirely sure why -- perhaps because of the really fascinating and beautiful image of New York flooded and flowering with glowing fruit and radiant graffiti. Perhaps because of the cautious optimism that David seems to have despite increasing manipulations fomr the local Epics. Perhaps in the slow unfolding of a really satisfying story. In every way a worthy sequel. ( )

First published on Forest Azuaron.

Firefight is a serviceable sequel to the amazing Steelheart. We get a bit more of an understanding of the Epics and their powers, particularly where their powers come from... and not much else. David is David, Prof is Prof, Val is Val, and we've got some new characters to pad out the roster, but it all feels like filler, like it should have been shortened and used as the opening to Calamity.

Of course, having read all Sanderson's published works, it's entirely possible I'm just spoiled. It's still Sanderson, so it's still exciting and well-crafted. I just expect more from him at this point.

4 fortune cookies out of 5 ( )

Actual rating: like 3.5 I suppose?

I don't know how to feel about this entire book series to be completely honest.
Objectively speaking? It's fine. Not great, not incredible, just fine.
But the fact that it's a Brandon Sanderson series is making me judge it far too harshly.
Did I maybe go in with very high expectations? Hell yeah I did, mainly because all of Sanderson's other works I've read so far were incredible.

I still think the idea of this book is really good, it's written beautifully, has an interesting cast (mostly) but it's still lacking something!
Something that bothered me in this book was the romance. I just didn't connect with it at all, I didn't really care about it and hell I thought David was an idiot for just trusting her like that even after everything.
I didn't really enjoy the way things were revealed in this book, or even how the characters reached certain conclusions or information. There was a lot of telling instead of showing and a lot of the information was just handed to the characters.

I must however give credit where credit is due, the ending of this book was quite interesting, I liked how it played out despite everything else.

All in all this was a fine read, I probably would've enjoyed it more if I had lower expectations when I started it. ( )

This is just a brief review, but don't let this stop you from listening to this great trilogy. No fantasy story, as Brandon Sanderson fans might expect, but a dystopy.



This is the second volume in the Reckoners trilogy, and it was another great listen. MacLeod Andrews does a fantastic job at bringing the characters to life, and the story has a lot of surprises, too. You really don't know who to trust, and what to believe. David himself doubts that killing the epics is the right thing to do. He'd rather try to save them, but this idea isn't fancied by anyone else in his team. The situation seems hopeless, a small team of people are fighting against men with superpowers -- yet there's humour to be found, especially when our hero uses his badly chosen similes, which he himself calls metaphors. The language is very good, demonstrating once again that you can write a book without resorting to cussing and cursing and yet portray the most difficult and hopeless situations in a convincing manner.

In the end, the line between friends and foes starts to blur, and the result is surprising. I can't wait to listen to the third and last book in this fantastic series. ( )

Hmmm... well ... I guess I liked this book? See, I REALLY liked [b:Steelheart|17182126|Steelheart (Reckoners, #1)|Brandon Sanderson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1357576738s/17182126.jpg|21366540], which I found riveting from beginning to end. Firefight, on the other hand - started off a little slow, which is not really a condemnation, but for the first 80% of the book I was questioning why I was even interested in this story. Frankly, I had no interest in the David/Megan dynamic, but it was an integral part of the story. So I kept trudging along, hoping that Something Would Happen, and when it finally did (David meets Calamity and gets Epic Powers!), it totally turned this book from a 2-star to a 4-star. I've decided to split the difference for the final rating.

( )