Steelheart
Brandon Sanderson
Delacorte Press
Published September 24, 2013

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About Steelheart

Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his will.

Nobody fights the Epics…nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart — the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David’s father. For years, like the Reckoners, David’s been studying, and planning — and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

He’s seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.

My Review

The thing that drew me most to this story was the concept of it. Humans begin to have superpowers, but all of them become evil. How do ordinary humans fight back? It’s a great underdog, keep the hope in hopeless circumstances kind of tale, and I really liked those things about it.

The only thing that tripped me up at all were the characters. Several of the male characters have accents and interesting backstories. (One was kind of odd, but okay.) There are only two speaking female characters in the whole story, and I don’t think we learn much if anything at all about their backstories. They are beautiful but a bit flat.

On the whole, though, I enjoyed reading STEELHEART. I got it years ago as an audiobook to listen to on a road trip, but never actually listened to it until recently. It’s the first book by Sanderson that I’ve ever read.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Major characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently. More often, faux swears like calamity and sparks are used.

Romance/Sexual Content
David clearly has feelings for a girl on his team.

Spiritual Content
Some Epics style themselves as gods, demanding service.

Violent Content
In the opening of the story, an Epic uses his power to turn workers, customers, and a baby in a bank to ash and bones. There are other scenes of battle between the Epics and David and his allies.

Drug Content
None.

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