Book Review: Firefight by Brandon Sanderson

Hello dear readers.

Brandon Sanderson has been my favourite author for a number of years now. I love his diversity of stories, the depth his writing goes to, and the characters he creates before your eyes. He has several series that I enjoy, and the Reckoners Series is one of those.

Steelheart was the first book in the Reckoners Series, and you can find my review of it here.

If you’ve read Firefight, let’s talk about it in the comments, or share your review of it on social media!
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Babylon Restored, formerly Manhattan, may give David answers. 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.

Title: FIrefight
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Rating: ★★★.5☆☆

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The Epics

With Steelheart now out of the way, I think Sanderson’s creativity really shines in Firefight. We got to read about quite a number of different Epics in Steelheart, but Firefight gives us some interesting ones, and lets us go more in depth with them.

Here are just a few of my favorites:

• Regalia – Her powers included the ability to push large amounts of water and sustain the move, along with creating duplicates of herself via water and created tentacles that could be used to attack. Needed a small pool of water, at least 2 inches deep, to ‘see’ through the water.
• Mitosis – A epic capable of splitting himself to create several clones of him. His weakness was music, and was the only epic that could be killed by his weakness alone.
• Sourcefield – A epic capable of using electricity to teleport, fire at people and could even use it to destroy bullets coming towards her. Her weakness was koolaid.
• Newton – Epic capable of force redirection. She was able to deflect anything away from her in any direction she wanted. Basically, if you tried to punch her, she would make the force from your punch hit you instead. In her meeting with Obliteration, he fired multiple bullets at her, which she stopped without rebounding. She had a minor second power of super-speed of up to sixty miles per hour. Her weakness was getting complimented.

There is a bit of ridiculousness to some of the Epics’ weaknesses, but it doesn’t seem out of place. Sanderson makes it so that it makes the Epics more relatable and it helps the reader feel more connected to a world with superheroes everywhere they turn.

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The Characters

Similarly to the Reckoners, we get a lot more depth to our main characters with Firefight, and that was both good and bad to me.

Some of the Epics and the side characters were really interesting, and the depth into their characters were actually a really nice addition to the world. They seemed to fit into it naturally.

It was David that ruined the book for me. In the first book he was interesting because he had a goal in kind: revenge. With that goal now completed, he becomes a lot less interesting, and a lot more annoying.

He comes of too chipper and childish, and he doesn’t seem to fit the world around him. He is a complete outlier, which doesn’t make sense considering the events before Steelheart, and during the book.

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The Read

Firefight is a Young Adult book, so if you’re a half decent reader, you’ll get through it no problem. The YA writing style fits the story very well actually. The story of the Reckoners could be written in 800+ pages no problem, and I guarantee it would still be a fantastic read, but the quick writing style of YA fits it much better, because it’s almost exactly how David thinks.

He’s analytical, quick and to the point. He makes smart ass comments, but he doesn’t waste much time. There’s never a dull moment with YA books, and its the same with the Reckoners’ story.