Book Overview #22: The Reckoners

Steelheart

Steelheart is essentially the book version of a videogame. I was literally visualizing a statistic screen every time someone opened his mouth. Characterization takes a backseat, since everyone with superpowers is defined by a nickname, an ability, and a weak spot. Most dialogues are about the superpowers and finding a tactic to counter them.

This is nothing new for Sanderson, who spends a big chunk of his books in infodumping how his magic systems work. It’s just that everything in Reckoners pales in comparison to his earlier work with Mistborn. The characters have far less personality and the expotalk takes up way more pages. It doesn’t help how many of the characters hide who they really are or what they can do up until late in the book. It’s making it hard to care about them since they are just mystery boxes up to that point.

The best parts are the spectacular action scenes; they have a Hollywood action flick feel to them. The few scenes where the characters talk about themselves, instead of darn powers and how they work, help in fleshing them out. They never manage to make them memorable though.

The worst parts have to do with the author hammering you with the notion of “Superheroes do not exist, you fool!” He does it in an edgy way in the opening scene where a father hopes in heroes to appear and stop the villains, only to be bitch-slapped around by villains who disintegrate innocents for fun. It’s done in a very teen-angsty way by someone who is fed up with traditional heroism and it shows too awkwardly.

As a whole, it’s a shallow story full of cartoony evildoers and idealistic people rising against them. It will be extra fun for those who love mindless violence, edgy deaths, and videogame-like analysis of superpowers. The more demanding audience will find it silly and superficial, with nothing of substance.

3/5 stars

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Firefight

Firefight makes one step forward and two steps backwards. The videogame-y talk is still there (this is Sanderson we are talking about after all) but at least the previous characters are more fleshed out. They have actual names instead of remaining mystery boxes defined by a nickname, a superpower, and a weak spot. Even the thing that negates their power is somehow related to their fear, making less arbitrary (although still irrelevant to the plot and their behaviors).

As a result, up until the middle of the book, characterization is improved considerably and the situation is less black and white. In the eyes of the common people, the Reckoners are less heroic and the Epics less evil for the heck of it. Too bad it goes to hell after midpoint, since superpowers are eventually turning you into a homicidal maniac with no exceptions, thus turning the situation back into clear-cut black and white.

Basically, the second book is ruined by the muddled motivations of the Epics. It wasn’t present in the first book, since the villains there simply wanted to rule the city and were no more than mystery boxes. Over here, their motivations are no longer hidden and it’s as if they all suffer from a multiple personality disorder, or contradict their claims way too obviously.
-The Epic who was a mole in the Reckoners keeps flip flopping from ally to adversary with no clear motivations
-The Epic who can blow up a whole city, doesn’t simply do that and pointlessly attacks the Reckoners
-The Epic who rules the city can destroy it as well, but doesn’t because she wants someone else to do it for her

The action scenes are still great, although they have been dumbed down because of the aforementioned reason. In the first book, the Reckoners were spending more time in killing normal people who were working for the Epics, than saving them. In the second, there are no normal people who need to be killed, and most of them are there just to be saved. So the attempt to make the Reckoners less heroic, backfires once the Epics start killing indiscriminately and the heroes sprint to the rescue. It’s a betrayal of the premise, and makes the second book worse than the first.

2/5 stars

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Calamity

Calamity carries on the bad habit of convoluted motivations. Why was the factory owner fighting the reckoners if they were his allies? Why were the reckoners fighting with the epics if they both wanted to destroy the Calamity? It felt like 90% of the plot was a pointless civil war once the big revelation came at the end.

Speaking of the big revelation, talk about coming out of left field. There were no hints given to foresee the Calamity being that person. He was behaving in a completely different way up to that point. And even as the ultimate epic, he wasn’t aware of his own powers as he had no idea of what was going on in other dimensions.

Basically, the book felt like a waste of time. The revelation came too late to mean something, the concept of the alternative dimensions was not explored, was there as plot convenience, and the big bads changed their minds way too fast despite all the irredeemable things they did. Sanderson lost his own train of thought amongst all the broken superpowers the epics possessed, and had no way to end the story in a non-convoluted way.

1/5 stars