Steelheart Book Review

Major spoilers are included in this book review. Please read with caution.

Where there are heroes, there will be villains.

Steelheart was an enjoyable book to read, not the strongest of Brandon Sanderson’s novels, but it was geared toward a younger audience. The superhero genre was a nice change of pace from Sanderson’s epic fantasy books, but also almost borderline cliché at points due to how overused superheroes have been lately. This was no fault of Sanderson but more on the genre itself.

The plot of the story is about superheroes, called Epics in this series, coming to the world through an event called Calamity, and abusing their powers for personal gain and world domination. All Epics are basically evil and have taken over the world, creating the Fractured States. This made me think, “The Boys but in a post-apocalyptic world.” Again, superhero genre is close—but not really—to burning out like the vampire genre.

Brandon Sanderson did an effective job in showing how evil and murderous Epics are through the main protagonist’s—David’s—first encounter with an Epic named Deathpoint in the Prologue. He and his father were going to the bank, and everything went dark from there. When Deathpoint killed a baby in a mother’s arms, this guaranteed that the readers will hate Epics as much as David. It also cemented the dangers they posed to the new world order. David also wanted vengeance against Steelheart for his father’s death.

Despite the tragic backstory that was set-up in the Prologue, David was an amusing protagonist. His inability to create metaphors and his Deku-level knowledge (My Hero Academia reference) of Epics were his best traits. It also helped Sanderson deliver exposition about the world and the Epics as David was knowledgeable about the subject and absolutely loved talking about Epics. David was an entertaining exposition machine.

Brandon Sanderson’s first-person writing also allowed the reader to fully invest in David’s character, but the other side characters weren’t flesh out as much. If I had to rank characters, David was the main character, Megan was the secondary character, and Prof was the tertiary character. Megan and Prof had decent character development in the first book that will likely be developed and explored more in the second and third books.

The side-characters—the other Reckoners—in this novel were Cody, Tia, and Abraham. While they were entertaining and complex in background, Sanderson didn’t bother to give them character goals beyond doing what the group wanted to do. They were mostly just there for backup. Cody’s character was actually hilarious. He couldn’t stop talking about his Irish background and was an instigator in the David + Megan romance.

The world-building was excellent as usual, Brandon Sanderson. Newcago, formerly known as Chicago, was a city encased in steel due to Steelheart’s abilities and tyranny. It was considered a “paradise” compared to the other cities ruled by the other Epics. This was something mentioned in passing, but it read as foreshadowing for the series to explore the other Epic-ruled cities in books two and three.

The action scenes were also well-written and executed, especially when everything was going wrong for David and the Reckoners.

Overall, I enjoyed this novel and have plans to finish the trilogy. The series isn’t as intricate as his other book series like Mistborn or Stormlight Archives, but it was still a fun ride—despite the minor bumps—until the very end.