The Reckoners Series
Steelheart (Book 1)
Mitosis (Book 1.5)
Firefight (Book 2)
Calamity (Book 3)
Written by: Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Post-apocalyptic, YA
Lengths: 12h 42m (Book 1); 1h 3m (Book 1.5); 12h 5m (Book 2); 12h 18m (Book 3)
Publisher: Audible Studios
Normally, when I review books in a series, I do it individually, reviewing one book (or more) as a stand-alone. In the case of the Reckoners, by Brandon Sanderson, I decided to review the entire series instead. Because while each book could certainly be reviewed on its own, the Reckoners is actually a series in the most traditional sense.
Many series are stand-alone stories connected by a thread or two. That’s fine, of course. But the Reckoners is a series that is one in-depth story divided up into 3 (and a half) parts. So I want to review it as one big story.
The Reckoners series consists of three novels and one short story, in this order:
Steelheart
Mitosis (short story)
Firefight
Calamity
They can be read alone, but I highly recommend reading them all and in order.
Spoiler warning: While I am going to refrain from sharing any major plot resolutions, I can’t talk about the overall story without talking about some elements. So there will be a few spoilers in this review, but mainly of plot points (rather than resolutions).
In a way, the series is a post-apocalyptic story. Everything as we know it has changed. The United States has fractured, millions of people are dead, and society is forever changed.
This all happens when a red “star” appears in the sky, commonly called Calamity. One result of its appearance is that ordinary humans gain epic powers of varying flavors (and intensities). But these powers are not free. With them, come nightmares and darkness. The use of these powers drives away the humanity of the ones inflicted with them. They become cold, cruel, and merciless.
The Reckoners series begins with Steelheart, where we are introduced to the main character, David Charleston, as a child. His journey is initially one of vengeance (Steelheart kills his father in the opening scene), but transforms over the series into one of redemption and acceptance.
The Reckoners themselves are a group of people who kill Epics. David has been tracking their movements for his entire childhood in Newcago (the city which use to be Chicago which was transformed with Steelheart’s takeover). In addition, he’s also spent the ten years between when his father was murdered in front of him and now collecting intel on the Epics. He knows their powers and, in some cases, their weaknesses.
In the first book of the series, David is accepted by the Reckoners, though there are some in the group who think he is too risky and goes off-plan far too often. But the head of the group, Jonathan Phaedrus, brings him in anyway, even with the misgivings they have.
I’ll also point out that having a male protagonist in a young adult book is somewhat uncommon. Male protags tend to dominate many other genres/demographics, but in YA, female main characters are the norm. So viewing the story through the lens of a young man was interesting and new.
I can’t get too into plot without revealing some serious spoilers, so I’m going to talk about the Epics, their powers, and the world that Sanderson has built.
The mechanics behind how humans get powers that transform them into Epics is a big part of the plot of book three, Calamity, so I’ll leave that alone. But the actual powers themselves are interesting and fun.
Some Epics have your usual superpowers: flight, invincibility, super-healing, etc. Normal stuff. But it’s clear that Sanderson had a lot of fun with some of them. An Epic named Dawnslight (who happens to be someone who’s been in a coma since childhood) can create plants and grown different types of fruit. This fruit is what sustains the population of Babilar, formerly Manhattan, but “fruit” is a relative term. Dawnslight begins communicating with David by growing fortune cookie fruit, complete with messages inside.
Curveball, a minor Epic in Steelheart, had the power of unlimited handgun ammunition, so he did not need to reload. Mitosis, the Epic Sanderson’s short story is named for, could create clones of himself by splitting in half over and over again.
Not all Epics had particularly useful powers though. Installah’s power was to make people speak in rhyme. An Epic called the Wooden Soul could control mannequins. The Thaub was able to speak in any made-up language. Not the most fear-inducing skills, but probably fun at a party!
Other cool powers included shape-shifting, being able to manipulate air, sound, water, or earth, the ability to disrupt another Epic’s external powers, telepathy, creating force fields, and lots of other interesting things. Atlanta (now called Ildithia) has turned into a sand city that constantly dissolves itself on one end as it re-builds itself on the other end, making it move along the landscape. We never really know why, but it is probably due to an Epic’s powers (perhaps Larcener, who was the Epic leader of the city until the story in Calamity unfolds).
Most High Epics are very difficult to kill, because they often either have a healing power or a power that keeps from from being hurt in the first place (such as an innate, uncontrollable ability to teleport when something is about to harm them). David theorizes that discovering and exploiting an Epic’s weakness helps in defeating him or her. And some of the weaknesses are fun.
One Epic’s weakness was music… but not just any music. Music from the band he used to be in. Why? Because, as a classically trained musician, he thought the popular music he and his band created was horrid and so simplistic. Another Epic’s weakness was red Kool Aid. For another, it was receiving compliments. Additional weaknesses included fear of failure, people not fearing the Epic, loud noises, and UV light.
It’s things like this that excite me about speculative fiction: not just thinking outside the box — completely obliterating the box! Controlling mannequins? Causing fruit to grow? Creating a moving sand city? This is serious no-box thinking. And only SpecFic lets creators do that.
So my final thoughts on this trilogy is that I recommend it pretty highly. Young Adult isn’t my “genre” of choice (though I do read in it, obviously) and I found this series to be a really good departure from a lot of what’s on the YA shelf these days.
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