BOOK REVIEW: Firefight by Brandon Sanderson

Firefight is the second novel of the Reckoners series written by Brandon Sanderson. The series is published by Gollancz and was released on 8 January 2015. The ISBN for the book is 0385743580. I purchased this book.

PLEASE NOTE: There will be spoilers of this and the first book in the series Steelheart. So don’t read further if you haven’t read the first two books of the Reckoners series AND the novella Mitosis.

WHY I BOUGHT THIS BOOK

Steelheart (Reckoners #1) really took the idea of super powers and our traditional ideas of heroes and did something original. Add to that the lore of the world he created meant I was always going to head back once I realised it was a series.

WHAT I THOUGHT

Wow I certainly wasn’t expecting that when I heard about Firefight being released for the first time probably back in December. I was really looking forward to visiting the world of the Reckoners again and to learn more about Epics. I’m not sure how I feel about losing two of the central characters right off the bat. We may not have learned a great deal about them for the first book but then that is the point of a second book right to take the time to look at the other characters within a central cast instead we kind of discard them.

After a brief prologue of sorts in Newcago where the novella Mitosis is mentioned (so maybe check that out first if possible) we move to a whole new city. I find David frustrating some of the time I can understand why he does what he does and other times I just want to throw the book down in frustration.

Too many times he says one thing and do the complete opposite. It becomes frustrating but overall I think he is a likeable character. Perhaps it is a way of showing that he is feeling a little lost after realising his revenge against Steelheart. Also he has had to deal with the fact that he was only able to kill Steelheart through the direct help of two Epics. I just wish he would take the time to assess his thoughts on things like his approach to dealing with Epics and whether he ever intends on actually carrying out an order he gets given.

We also have to talk about Epic weaknesses which were introduced in Steelheart but were really a theme in Firefight. I bring them up because I think if you read Steelheart and Mitosis by the first third of this book you should know what the nature of all Epic weaknesses is at least the theory of it while of course not being able to know what it exactly is without a fair history of that particular Epic.

It can be frustrating when something seems so evident to a reader but that characters don’t get it especially in this case where the characters have access to all the same information that we readers do.

The things I liked about this book was the way that the Reckoners went about trying to learn about how things work in Babylar it is nice to see the methodical approach instead of just running in there with no plan even if it seems that Regalia was always two steps ahead. I have to admit that in the end her plan was complete genius and pretty difficult to stop.

The thing that bugged me other than David’s character ticks was the whole tease of David being made into an Epic. As soon as the scene started I knew this was one of those book teases where a writer proposes something that would fundamentally throw everything you know about a book or main character on its head only to lead up to edge then say no no no only kidding.

EDIT: On a whim I tweeted at Brandon Sanderson with a question. I asked him what David’s Epic name would have been should he have gone through with it and he replied that we have already heard that name in the books so far I have an idea of what it might be though it doesn't give much insight into what his powers might have been which is a shame I find myself wondering if David would qualify as a High Epic or not but we'll never know as I doubt we'll be going in that direction in the last book of the trilogy Calamity.

I finished the book being eager to find out what might be happening next in the world of the Reckoners. The last book in the Trilogy will be released next year and is called Calamity.