Firefight (The Reckoners #2)

Firefight by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Brandon Sanderson has done it again. This book is fabulous.

Firefight continues the story of David Charleston, Amateur Reckoner with Potential and Inventor of Creative Metaphors. This character is probably my favourite of all time; he's smart and creative while being impulsive and rash, even bumbling at times. And above all else, he's really funny.

This second book in the series continues with the characters we met in Steelheart and a few new ones added in. David continues to get smarter and bolder, but it's really Megan whose character really develops and changes. We also get to know Prof a lot better and meet some new, devious Epics. This book is full of extremes and yet not; while the Epics tend to polarize the situations, they are never completely bad guys. Their intentions are always brought into question, making them complicated and thereby interesting.

The plot here is wonderful. While Steelheart had a dark, ominous feel to it, this book has instead a lighter tone. New Babylon (New York City) has been flooded completely and is painted with bright colours and plants. Things glow in the dark and the weather is warm. People have parties amid the destruction that happens. It feels like a new story that really could stand on its own; there's no middle book syndrome here. Just when you think the situation is impossible and/or inescapable, Sanderson throws in some unexpected event and things go haywire all over again. People die but aren't really dead, get mortally injured but don't die, get shot at and just when you think they were killed, they teleport themselves away. It is a crazy comic book at its best.

The book on audio is narrated by MacLeod Andrews and he is fantastic. He embodies David and the emotion he gives to the action scenes place the listener right there in the center of the action. The expressions he uses with the dialogue are spot on. He really made this book a pleasure.

Overall I have no criticisms of this book at all. How can you fault a story that begins with a reluctant hero chasing a supervillain who's shooting lighting bolts at him while he fights back with cherry kool-aid-filled water balloons? This book is a must-read for action lovers. Even Grammar Nazis will get a good laugh.

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