Entertainment Weekly has revealed the cover to Steelheart the first book in Brandon Sanderson’s forthcoming dystopia trilogy from Random House. Click the image for a larger version.
Steelheart marks the first novel by Brandon Sanderson not set in a separate fantasy or science fiction world. Here he tells the story of a group of people dubbed the Epics, all of them superpowered, and all of them evil.
The story blurb released by Random House describes the book as follows:
There are no heroes.
Every single person who manifested powers—we call them Epics—turned out to be evil.
Here, in the city once known as Chicago, an extraordinarily powerful Epic declared himself Emperor. Steelheart has the strength of ten men and can control the elements. It is said no bullet can harm him, no sword can split his skin, no explosion can burn him. He is invincible.
It has been ten years. We live our lives as best we can. Nobody fights back . . . nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans who spend their lives studying powerful Epics, finding their weaknesses, then assassinating them.
My name is David Charleston. I’m not one of the Reckoners, but I intend to join them. I have something they need. Something precious, something incredible. Not an object, but an experience. I know his secret.
I’ve seen Steelheart bleed.
According to Sanderson at this past year’s San Diego Comic Con, the inspiration for the series occured when he got cut off by another driver one day. “I thought, if I was a supervillain this guy would just be… BOOM.” Which got him thinking about a world where people could actually do that.
In the world of Steelheart, these people are considered “forces of nature” and eventually the most powerful form little fiefdoms. The protagonist is an 18 year old boy who’s father was killed by Steelheart, one of the most powerful superpowered villains, who joins an assassination guild in hopes of taking Steelheart down.
Excuse, me which is the difference from Legion?
Whatever, I’m looking forward to it. Sounds promising.
Ooh, that sounds really cool!
@1 I imagine the distinction is that Legion is a novella.
Legion is classified as a novella, therefore the distinction. His Alcatraz series was also set in a fantastic version of the real world, but is for YA.
I haven’t seen any other modern author go haring off in so many different directions so successfully. MUST READ!!
*Edit: Beaten to it I see
@mel, I keep not understanding this. Maybe it’s because I’m Italian, but could you please explain me the differences?
Novella = single short book?
Novel = short book in a sequence of books?
@1.
Legion is a novella, while this is a full-length novel.
Seems like that I have to read Alcatraz too.
Luckly, I can consider myself a Young Adult, so nothing wrong with it…
@5 — The difference comes in the length of the work. A novella is typically between 20,00 and 50,000 words in length. A novel is anything that is more than 50,000 words.
David Charleston – an homage to Robert Jordan, born in Charleston SC?
I am really looking forward to reading this as I’ve enjoyed many of his other books, especially the Mistborn series.
@7
My age could definitely not be considered Young Adult, but I enjoyed that series thoroughly. Good luck finding it though, because it’s YA it’s not with his usual publisher and was massively underprinted.
He shared part of this at WorldCon in Reno. I’m looking forward to reading the whole thing.
Erm..You have seen this, right?:
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/01/the-19th-century-painting-that-most-blockbuster-movie-posters-are-based-on
Hahaha, yeah, I saw that today. One more in that tradition.
A novella is between 17,500 and 40,000 words, per the definitions used by SF awards. Legion is 18,000 words but it basically takes place in our world—the fantastic elements are very localized.
The Rithmatist comes out first but it’s an alternate history fantasy with a rather smaller planet Earth, not just our world with a turning point. Steelheart is completely our world, but a few years in the future (in the not-too-distant future, next Sunday A.D.). It’s about 12 years in the future…from whenever you start reading the book.
The Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians books are middle grade rather than YA. They’ve gone out of print in the US, but you may find the omnibus imported from the UK. The individual books are being released in the UK this year. And we should have ebooks out fairly soon this year (the omnibus ebook is already out in the UK).
I wonder if Hoid will turn up.
That would be awesome if Hoid turned up! That would bring up some cosmere questions, I wonder if he considers his stories able to happen in the same universe, even with alternate earths. Who knows.