Book Notes: "Steelheart" by Brandon Sanderson

“Steelheart” is the latest YA offering from Brandon Sanderson. I loved Sanderson’s “Legion”* and “The Emperor’s Soul”, so I was excited to read this one.

In the world of “Steelheart”, superheroes have appeared, only they’re anything but heroic. Instead, they’re greedy and violent and they oppress ordinary citizens. David, our young protagonist, watched as his father was killed by one particular Epic (as these superhuman are called), and he’s dedicated his life to getting revenge.

Overall, I liked “Steelheart”. It didn’t quite rise to the level of Sanderson’s other work for me, but that might partly be due to the fact that I’m not the target audience, seeing as how I’m well out of my teens. The set-up felt a bit slow, but it really sped up at about the mid-point, and I enjoyed the last third of the book very much, racing through it to see how it was all going to turn out.

One of the interesting things about this book is that I enjoyed the adult characters far more than the younger characters. And I’m not sure this was a problem with Sanderson’s writing, in any sense. A lot of the character-related bits of the plot revolved around David’s inexperience and sort of one-sided view of the world (revenge is all he’s shaped himself around), and so it made sense that the adults around him, who’d already had a chance to grow and change in a way he hadn’t, were more layered and interesting. In fact, they served as excellent foils.

I’m also curious to see whether this series turns out to be sci-fi or whether it’s actually fantasy. I don’t think Sanderson’s shown his hand yet in that regard, and that intrigues me.

I would recommend this to anyone looking for a fast, fun trip through a well-imagined near-future world. I had fun trying to guess how it was all going to turn out, and was delighted to find out at the end that I’d guessed wrong, and that the author had thought out a much cooler ending than the one that had occurred to me.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

*You can read my review of "Legion" here.

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