Steelheart, New Sanderson YA Superhero Apocalypse Novel

Less than a week ago, we told you about Brandon Sanderson’s upcoming releases for 2012 and 2013. We said he would publish no less than five books in the next year and a half. Make that six books! Yesterday, American publisher Dellacorte Press and British Gollancz announced that they are publishing a new young adult series by writing machine Sanderson, the first volume of which, titled Steelheart, will come out in the fall of 2013.

Here’s what Gollancz says about Steelheart, which Sanderson himself labeled as “Superhero Apocalypse” back in 2010:

The first novel of Sanderson’s new series, Steelheart, follows David—a teenager in the city that was once called Chicago—as he searches for the extraordinarily powerful Epic named Steelheart, who killed his father. Steelheart possesses 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. Nobody fights back… nobody but the Reckoners.

A shadowy group of ordinary humans, the Reckoners spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then taking them out. For the death of his father, David wants to be there for the kill. For years, like the Reckoners, David has been studying, and planning, and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience. He’s seen Steelheart bleed.

Steelheart takes an action-heavy plot, layers in complexity, and delivers twists and a breathtaking conclusion, as David and the Reckoners try to undo the dystopia the Epics have created. According to Sanderson’s agent Eddie Schneider, Steelheart has entered preliminary negotiations for a major Hollywood deal.

Both Delacorte Press and Gollancz call this Sanderson’s first ever YA series—Alcatraz was labeled as a series for children, after all. It won’t be his first YA book, however, what with Tor planning to publish The Rithmatist, a shorter alternate history steampunk novel, in early 2013—though it has been surprisingly quiet around that book ever since Tor bought it last year.

For those of you worrying about Steelheart delaying the second book in the Stormlight Archive, Sanderson addressed your worries on Reddit:

I first started talking about Steelheart a number of years ago. (Five, maybe six?) It was one of the projects I’d been planning to do in 2007 when The Wheel of Time came along and kind of distracted me.

Unable to work on it for years, I instead did up a proposal and started shopping it in Hollywood. I got interest, but everyone said “We’d be more comfortable if the book were done.” So, over the years, I slowly pieced together an outline in my spare time and did chapters when I could. (I think a reading I did of the prologue of this last year is floating around on-line somewhere.)

One of the problems with working on The Wheel of Time is that it’s so time-consuming, I basically can’t work on any other big project while writing it. I stay creative by changing to new ideas and new concepts whenever I start feeling burned out–I work on them for a short time, then get my groove back and turn to the larger project.

That’s why you see all kinds of little projects popping out here and there from me. I can’t do Stormlight 2 at the same time as WoT. Two big series are just too much to do at once; one would suffer. Yet, I still need artistic liberation now and then to try something new and refresh myself.

The two novellas I’m releasing this year (Legion, The Emperor’s Soul) and the short Mistborn novel last year (Alloy of Law) are things that came out of these side deviations. Steelheart is another. Shouldn’t affect Stormlight 2 very much. I always like to have one large project and a handful of smaller ones running at the same time.

It may seem like a lot to have on my plate, but if you add Alloy of Law, Steelheart, and the two novellas together they are combined around half the length of The Way of Kings. (And took about 1/10the brain space…)

I don’t want to make excuses for not doing Stormlight 2, but this might give a little insight as to why you keep seeing all of these other projects popping up.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any video or audio from Sanderson’s reading of Steelheart at WorldCon 2011. However, I did find some extra info about the book, from people who heard the reading:

The story is from the perspective of a child whose home has been destroyed by a supervillain, in the office of a “mortgage man” with his father, trying to get a loan for a new home. A different supervillain walks into the bank while no one is paying attention and begins killing people. A “superhero” comes in, eventually, but instead of taking out the villain he demands his subservience and announces he’s Emperor of the City. There’s a faceoff with soldiers, explosions…it’s very deconstructed comic book.

And:

There are no super heroes, only super villains, and they take over the world. The chapter he read describes two such villains and how a boy is the only surviving witness to the wounding of one of these supposedly invincible super-powered humans. Ten years after the events, the protagonist tries to find a group of humans who research the individual weaknesses of the “Epics” and assassinate them.

Sanderson’s idea is of normal people trying to take down someone with superpowers, a reversal of the powerful guy protecting the humble.

Those two quotes actually make me a lot more psyched for the book. The angle of regular people trying to fight superheroes gone evil sounds pretty interesting. It’s definitely a step away from Sanderson’s usual work. So, what do you think? Anyone looking forward to Steelheart?

If you like this, you might also like:

	Discuss this article on our forums!
	Visit the Ranting Forums, where you can discuss many topics with our reviewers and other readers, including recent reviews, upcoming books, the fantasy genre, your favorite books, movies, characters, authors, and much more.

	Death by Pizza
	“Such a well-rounded title, a deep dish of excellence, saucy but not cheesy, a well-topped slice of creativity,” were the words of Brandon Sanderson’s publishing agent upon hearing about...

	The Alloy of Law, a Mistborn novel
	We’ve previously reported about Death by Pizza, Brandon Sanderson’s side project during his three month break from writing, or well, from writing anything serious. Before finishing that project...