Firefight by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
“Well, trust me,” I said. “I’m more intense than I look. I’m intense like a lion is orange.” – David Charleston ‘Firefight’
Firefight is the second book in Brandon Sanderson’s dystopian YA Reckoners trilogy. The series is set in a post-apocalyptic fractured America in which superheroes have come but the source that grants them their powers also causes them to be arrogant, selfish and destructive with no regard for anyone around them. The Reckoners are a group of humans fighting back against the tyranny and oppression of the Epics mostly by trying to assassinate the ones they can. This book continues after Steelheart, but does not stand as well on its own. It suffers from second book syndrome. It’s not a bad book, but lacks context without the first book and does most of its heavy lifting to set up the conclusion to the trilogy. It still manages to be a fun adventure with a comic-book sensibility, interesting worldbuilding and well thought out super-power action.
Following Steelheart, Firefight continues the story of David Charleston after he falls in with the Reckoners to help him fulfill his personal life-long goal of getting revenge by killing Steelheart (the supposedly invincible Epic who rules Dystopian Chicago (Newcago) and casually murdered David’s father in the prologue to Steelheart.) In the first book the premise was new and exciting and David’s awkward humor, social incompetence and fanboyish knowledge of epics was endearing, but this book has trouble moving past that. David’s obsession with Megan and the lack of an immediately visible personal connection with the mission that takes the Newcago Reckoners to Babilar puts a wrench in the focused direction and structure of the first book and we end up in a slower paced almost teen-melodrama for a while.
The writing works well enough, though David’s propensity for bad similes continues and Sanderson’s attempts at injecting overt humor comes across forced and a little awkward, but I couldn’t help snorting anyway. The character development is minimal, the characters are very much black and white with not much in the way of nuance. A handful of new characters are introduced which end up feeling a little lackluster compared the supporting cast in Steelheart. The new city that we visit (New York City, known after the Calamity as Babylon Restored or Babilar) is interesting but we don’t have the same personal connection with it that we did Newcago in Steelheart and it just ends up being a set piece for the puzzles and action that are presented. .
The plot with its mysteries, twists, turns and reveals and the logic behind the ‘magic’ of the superpowers and weaknesses of the Epics is, as always with Sanderson, the best part of the novel, though it fell a little flatter than usual. The largest problem with the story is that the attempts at balancing the idea that Epics are inherently driven to be evil with the need to have interesting villain characters and also having the possibility that some might be saved undermines the entire premise of the setting.