When Calamity lit up the sky, the Epics were born. David’s fate has been tied to their villainy ever since that historic night. Steelheart killed his father. Firefight stole his heart. And now Regalia has turned his closest ally into a dangerous enemy.
Calamity is the final installment of Brandon Sanderson’s Reckoned trilogy which began with Steelheart. As any well-read Sanderson knows, Brandon doesn’t allow one book to be identical to the one that came before it. In fact, he makes sure that there are plenty of new things (locations, characters, powers, etch.) in Calamity that makes sure that the reader is always engaged and never bored. Also, while the Reckoners books are Young Adult, adults are sure to love them. Brandon Sanderson brings all of his trademark writing to the trilogy, making it an exciting read for any Sanderson fan.
With ever single novel he has written, Brandon Sanderson creates a world that is hard to ever forget about. A couple of these are Roshar from the Starlight Archive and Scadrial from the Mistborn series. Although the world of the Reckoners is the same one as ours, it is very different. We’ve seen Newcago (present day Chicago), Babilar (present day New York City), and now we are taken to Ildithia which is present day Atlanta. As with the former two cities, the city is not quite what (or where) it used to be. Readers will find themselves easily immersed in Brandon’s unique world.
One issue I did have with this book (and the previous two) I sometimes had to go back to make sure that I understood a certain sentence of paragraph correctly. I don’t normally have to do this when reading a book, but I found myself doing so about half a dozen times when reading Calamity. I also had a little difficulty with some of the dialogue as sometimes the characters had a tendency to temporarily get sidetracked and talk about something else for a little while.
While Calamity is the last book of the trilogy, Brandon Sanderson has expressed an interest in possibly returning to the world in the future, though that would not be for quite some time as he is hard at work on a numerous amount of projects that are demanding his attention. I am glad that he has an inkling of an idea to come back as there are some things that were brought up but were not resolved which leads me to form some theories about whether or not these books have a connection to his Cosmere which is, for those who do not know, is the greater universe in which the Stormlight Archive and all of his adult fiction books take place.
Despite the few minor issues that I had with Calamity, it is definitely worth a read if you love Sanderson’s amazing world building skills, superhero stories, or the dystopian genre.
Evan W.S. Morgan 