I thoroughly enjoy superhero stories, going right back to watching Spiderman cartoons every Saturday when I was a kid.
And given my absolute enjoyment that I got out of the Mistborn books I thought that the Steelheart books would be a no brainer enjoyment roller coaster. In some ways, it was.
The story tells of a world after Calamity, a big burst in the sky that’s given some people superpowers. And these people became Epics, but far from saving the world from its ills and evils, the Epics essentially became the superhuman overlords of the mortal populace. If you’re not an Epic, then you’re not worth anything, you just keep your head down and try to do the best you can without pissing off someone with any powers whatsoever so they don’t kill you.
Some of the Epics are strong and capable of ruling both Epics and normal people alike with an iron fist. It is one of these Epics that is the main antagonist, Steelheart who has taken Chicago and all the people in it and become their Emperor. Steelheart is essentially a superman like character with invulnerability, flight, super strength, energy blasting out of his hands, and most interestingly can change inanimate objects to steel.
Our protagonist, David, is the only person alive who has seen Steelheart bleed, everyone else believes him to be invincible. Steelheart went on a rampage when he did get injured, killed all the witnesses, the rescue workers and buried the bank it happened in. So he feels it’s vital that he meets and goes with the Reckoners, the only group of normal people who stand up to Epics.
But that’s enough of the story, I don’t really want to give too much away.
The writing of the book was never bad and I thought that some of the aspects of the world were quite interesting, like the Epics weaknesses. It provided an excellent sense of danger to fighting the Epics, even if they knew what the weakness was they still have to try and make sure the situation was just right to pull it off.
Technologically Sanderson made good use of the Epics to kick start some very sci-fi devices and so keep the world fresh enough that you never know quite what’s going to happen next.
The main character, David, was never irritating, always tried to do the right thing and I think that Sanderson did a good job of making his love story seem a bit immature like the character was. Pushed into the dangerous and very mature world of fighting Epics, we still find David emotionally immature in other areas, despite his encyclopedic knowledge of Epics.
But for all that it lacked a certain something. It almost felt like Sanderson was publishing this book just so he could write something about superheroes. The underlying theme of the book, whether power corrupts and the lengths you should go to stop dictators, didn’t seem to be organically worked into the story. It seemed to me that all of a sudden this theme was shoved right in your face. Something that reinforced this for me was the whole ‘geek’ thing with David. Sanderson seemed intent on making sure that you knew David was being identified as a geek. This could just be me being cynical but it struck me as something cheap to try and get David to connect with the readers at this point.
Overall, I was a bit disappointed with Steelheart really. I was hoping for something just as enjoyable and occasionally mind-bending as the Mistborn series. But what I got was the written equivalent of an okay action movie. It wasn't a bad experience and it wasn't badly done, it was enjoyable, but it wasn’t anything that would leave you speechless.
So if you’re looking for a bit of a romp through a post-apocalyptic world with superheroes rampaging about then this book will suit you. Don’t set yourself up for the most amazing read you’ll ever see, but you will find an enjoyable story with action and adventure to keep you entertained.
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