Book Review: Firefight by Brandon Sanderson

They told David it was impossible–that even the Reckoners had never killed a High Epic. Yet, Steelheart–invincible, immortal, unconquerable–is dead. And he died by David’s hand.

Eliminating Steelheart was supposed to make life more simple. Instead, it only made David realize he has questions. Big ones. And there’s no one in Newcago who can give him the answers he needs.

Babylon Restored, the old borough of Manhattan, has possibilities, though. Ruled by the mysterious High Epic, Regalia, David is sure Babylon Restored will lead him to what he needs to find. And while entering another city oppressed by a High Epic despot is a gamble, David’s willing to risk it. Because killing Steelheart left a hole in David’s heart. A hole where his thirst for vengeance once lived. Somehow, he filled that hole with another Epic–Firefight. And he’s willing to go on a quest darker, and more dangerous even, than the fight against Steelheart to find her, and to get his answers.

The plot centers on the mystery of Babylon Restored. Since defeating Steelheart, the Reckoners, an undercover vigilante group dedicated to killing Epics, has defended the city. Recently, superheroes started coming after them at the apparent command of Regalia, Epic ruler of Babylon Restored. However, even as she draws them in, Regalia is beginning to rampage in her own city, destroying everything she has built, and the Reckoners join up with their compatriots to discover why.

This central mystery is the weakest part of the book. Easy to unravel, it serves more as a backdrop to the intricacies of character Sanderson explores as David’s experiences in the first novel color his opinions on Epics even as he hunts them. Sanderson also introduces an entire new Reckoner team, leaving old favorites in Newcago to the detriment of the emotional core of the story. I missed the equality and camaraderie of the old team because, though the new Reckoners are enjoyable in their own right, there is a division brought on by the events of the last book between them and David that detracts from the intimacy of the story. In the first novel, we really got a sense of a small tightly knit group of people pulling what was essentially a heist. In this, the other Reckoners have that degree of separation that is essential to David’s character development, but results in a narrative far more concerned with David’s quest for Megan than the details of the actual mission.

Brandon Sanderson’s greatest strength in his novels is his world building. The worlds he creates are always complex, fascinating, frightening and real. In thirteen short years civilization in America has become virtually extinct, with humanity subsisting only for the purposes of their Epic masters. The Newcago of the first book in his Reckoners series, Steelheart, was no exception with it’s city made of steel and the new hierarchy of domination and abuse that was created once superpowers manifested in humans. In Firefight Sanderson continues to show the Earth post Epic apocalypse with a realistic intensity and takes our protagonists to the underwater city of Babylon Restored, or as we know it, Manhattan.

Sanderson imbues this world with details of our own, making his America both frighteningly recognizable and an uncivilized wasteland. He makes sure to make us understand how the world has degenerated to this point, establishing rules and boundaries that he commits to, making it all the more real to his readers. I enjoyed how world building details from the first book continued into important plot points in Firefight, as we learn more about the circumstances surrounding the rise of the star Calamity and the manifestation and corruption of superpowers in those who would come to be known as “Epics.”

I hold Sanderson’s books on a different plane of judgment from other young adult novels, which is why this review sounds so very mixed. Firefight may not have been his best showing, but it is still above and beyond most YA novel on bookshelves right now. With a deftly plotted pace, intricate character and morality studies, and amazing world building, this is a series by a master author and will have any reader unable to put it down.

Rating: 8/10

Firefight is available in audiobook form at Audible.com.