Steelheart / Brandon Sanderson

   Currently, I am in the throes of getting a degree through an online university. Sometimes, this means fun research for film studies, which includes watching hella movies. Other times, it means writing a long, in depth paper about the psychology of sexual offending (among other papers on other non-uplifting subjects) and sinking into a months-long funk and feeling pretty hopeless. And in April, it's meant realizing that my months-long funk resulted in a need for crunch time in a major way. All this to say: I should have been reading and writing only academic things and damn you Brandon Sanderson but NOT REALLY because Steelheart was GREAT.

   Equal blame for my shirking of school goes to a friend of mine, who lent me Steelheart (along with the sequel and two other books). I told myself "as long as I don't take this book out of this bag, everything will be fine" and I held out for almost a week and then I was cleaning my room and I did it. I took the book out of the bag and that was my fatal mistake. Folks: this book is so good. I should have been writing essays but I didn't care, all I wanted was Steelheart, Steelheart, and more Steelheart.

   I'VE SEEN STEELHEART BLEED

   Here's a thing I love: people who look at the superhuman myth and question it, instead of assuming that a super-powered human would be moral. Because why would they???? There's no all-encompassing reason. Why wouldn't Clark Kent decide to take over the world? The reason the comics give us is "well, he was raised on a farm," and frankly? That's not a very good reason. Having a good upbringing does not mean that a person will never do anything evil. Adding phenomenal cosmic power to any sort of upbringing sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. And even if a super powered person turned out a-ok there would still be a slough of problems regarding their role in society. And sure there are super villains in run-of-the-mill comics but they aren't addressed in a very complex way very often and WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?!?!?!?

they will look up and shout, "save us!" and I will whisper, "no."

   This book might be a plot-driven sci-fi page-turner but that doesn't keep Brandon Sanderson from talking about vigilantism or morality or what happens when you make a power vacuum or the role of vengeance in our lives or what it means to make a difference in a corrupt society. Basically, this book is my jam. I mean, I love me a good superhero story as much as the next person but I also love to think critically.