Calamity by Brandon Sanderson

417 pages

"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.

David knew Prof's secret, and kept it even when the Reckoners' leader struggled to control the effects of his Epic powers. But facing Obliteration in Babilar was too much. Prof has now embraced his Epic destiny. He's disappeared into those murky shadows of menace Epics are infamous for the world over, and everyone knows there's no turning back...

But everyone is wrong. Redemption is possible for Epics--Megan proved it. They're not lost. Not completely. And David is just about crazy enough to face down the most powerful High Epic of all to get his friend back. Or die trying." -Dust Jacket

This is the 3rd book in The Reckoners series. Steelheart was a great twist on super heroes or super villains, to be more precise, and one of my favorite things about this series has been David's fascination with and knowledge of the Epics, not to mention their awesome names and abilities. He's like a walking encyclopedia and his knowledge has helped the Reckoners time and time again. The cultural references in this book are funny too. David thinks the word "groovy" is ridiculous yet his word of choice is "sparks." I will say that the ending of this series was a bit out there for me and I didn't really like the reference to a very famous superhero. It didn't ruin the series, but I sort of wish it would have ended differently.

{Spoilers}

The key to bringing down the Epics has always been discovering their fears. David was able to kill Steelheart because he wasn't afraid of him. It's also the key to saving them, by making them face their fears. That's what's helped Megan keep a grip on her humanity. In Firefight, David learned that Calamity is an Epic. Calamity tries to turn David into an Epic and David refuses but he's changed as a result of that encounter.

David and the Reckoners regroup after Babilar and seek out the help of Knighthawk, a man who's created a bunch of tech for the Reckoners using Epic cells. David is intent on saving Prof because he's certain that's what Prof would want him to do. His team isn't so sure because Prof will have to live with the guilt of knowing he's killed some of his friends. They think Prof would want them to kill him. The Reckoners track Prof to Ildithia, a city that is made of salt and constantly changing. Prof is there to carry out Regalia's plan--which turns out to be stealing Larcener's powers so that he can teleport to Calamity, kill him, and replace him.

David faces several Epics in Ildithia and Larcener, an Epic who can steal other Epics powers permanently just by touching them, hides out in their shelter. He turns out to be quite the coward. Megan's powers bring Firefight through to their reality from another reality and that's where things go a bit crazy. She opens up seams to several different realities during some of their fights and it's during one of these that David realizes that his father is alive in another reality and Steelheart is a good Epic there. In the end, they bring Prof back by finally discovering what his true fear is (failure) and David faces Calamity, convincing him that humanity doesn't need to be destroyed because the Epics are capable of being good and it's his presence that is forcing many of them to be bad. David's dad has powers in the other reality and David has revealed that he does too. His father teaches him to fly and they both wear a cape with an "S" on it. Does this mean that this is a Superman story? It's pretty hard to dismiss that reference which for some reason just makes this series end on a bit of a weird note for me. Maybe too, I compare this series to Sanderson's Mistborn series where the writing was so much more interesting. That's an adult fantasy series though where this one is designed for teenagers. This series was a fun read and pretty great for kids, with the exception of the ending which I don't think they'll understand.