The Reckoners by Brandon Sanderson
I've been trying to get my husband to read more. When we met, he was a huge fan of epic fantasy - Robert Jordan, Stephen Donaldson, David Eddings, etc. At some point, he basically stopped reading. Maybe because I was reading enough for both of us?
Anyway, I originally read an ARC of Steelheart pre-release and I really liked it. But, the next one in the trilogy didn't come out for a year or so, so by the time Firefight was published, it got put onto that every growing pile of "books I really want to read someday," but I figured I would wait until the end of the series. Then that came, and went, and I didn't get around to it.
And then my husband discovered audiobooks. He read a couple of Michael Connelly police procedurals, but was interested in trying something in modern fantasy. I had him read The Aeronaut's Windlass first and once he finished that one, I had picked up a copy of the Steelheart audiobook during a sale so I suggested he give that a go.
He devoured it, and then immediately listened to Firefight, and then moved on to Calamity. In order to not be left behind, because, no, he shall not pass (me, when it comes to books), I decided to buy the kindle editions and read them. At the same time, my daughter got hooked. So, this weekend she and I finished The Reckoners.
What a tremendously fun series. Brandon Sanderson's brain is so full of ideas and set pieces and interesting and cool invented locations. Babilar - what used to be New York, submerged by a water epic, where everyone lives in the top few floors of sky scrapers, surrounded by magically growing fruit and glowing spray paint. Atlanta, a mobile city made of ever renewing salt. Where do these things come from, Mr. Sanderson?
And the Epics were, really, not to coin a phrase or anything, epic. They got cooler and cooler and more and more unique until the end.
This series strides the line between urban and superhero fantasy. It is a delightful, self-contained little series (between the three books, it's only 1205 pages, not much longer than a single book from his Stormlight Archives) that fully develops a world. It would make an amazing trilogy of movies - someone, please, adapt these for the big screen. Now I just need to figure out a way to get my son to read these - he would love them!
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