Brandon Sanderson is well-known for his epic fantasy. He loves writing 1000 page books of swords and sorcery, so it’s always a treat when he dips his hand into another genre. And in his latest novel, Steelheart, Sanderson takes on super heroes…kinda. It’s difficult to say that Sanderson is playing in the superhere genre when none of the super powered folks are heroes. And that’s partly what makes this an interesting story. Let’s check it out.

At some point in the past there was an event known as Calamity which caused the creation of super powered people known as Epics. The majority of these Epics became villains (or more accurately, extremely powerful dictators). In Chicago, Steelheart has taken over the city. He is extremely powerful and indestructible. He’s aided in his efforts to control the city by Nightwielder (can cause perpetual darkness), Firefight (a flying fire Epic) and Conflux (a living battery).

David is a normal human who has a secret. He was a child when Steelheart took over and and, just before Steelheart killed David’s father, David saw Steelheart get hurt. Since Steelheart’s supposed to be invulnerable, this is a huge secret. Steelheart killed everyone else who saw him in the bank to keep this a secret. Now that David is grown up, he wants more than anything to take down Steelheart. He’s been gathering information for years and now is ready to join the Reckoners, an underground group that takes down Epics. But will he be able to fit in with their team, will they trust him and most importantly, can they use his memories to determine what Steelheart’s weakness is and actually kill him.

Sanderson is a wonderful writer. He does great characters and the plot is coherent and, for the most part, makes sense. The characters wonder about the same issues that the reader worries about (if Steelheart is killed will that cause more problems for innocents when someone else tries to take over the city) and a lot of the plot is driven by the characters. There are a couple twists near the end, one of which might not make a lot of sense, but they are handled well. Overall this is a really good book that brings us into an interesting world and shows us around. The novel is complete and stands alone on its own, but there is enough left in the world to handle the two planned sequels. Recommended.