Mitosis by Brandon Sanderson

What do you do once the bad guy is gone.  How do you teach a population to take charge of their own destiny.  How do you convince them they should?  These some of the questions that are brought up in this, the book between the  books.   Mitosis also gives us an opportunity to spend a little time with David and the team of Reckoners he is a part of while they deal with yet another Epic.  Can you guess the Epic's name? Yep, Mitosis.  This winds up being more than just a story of how to rid a city of an overbearing super-human.  This story is a beginning.  This is the beginning a new city and a new society.

Brandon Sanderson, as always, does a masterful job of not just telling the story but, bringing it to life.  Like making the perfect martini, blending science-fantasy with real world concepts to the point of near believability is more than art, it's a craft.  Mr. Sanderson uses one of my favorite devices in this endeavor: anecdote as allegory.  Some book series do an excellent job of illustrating that world's political intrigue with nuanced conversation and clever manipulation.  Sanderson uses things like a hot dog.  It may not be the most elegant way to impart information but it does start to pin point some of the problems and supposed solutions to the situation David finds his city in.

Most of the characters we loved from Steelheart are back.  There wasn't much need for development.  For me, it was like seeing how an old friend was doing.  The one who does show a bit of maturing is, of course, our hero, David.  The rest of the crew is a bit older than he is so, for him to be on the steepest learning curve only makes sense.

I think this is a very worthy addition to the franchise.  More than that, I believe it helps the audience transition from Steelheart to Firefight.  The series reads well without it but, it reads much better with it. This is a YA book and I won't hesitate suggesting it to my teenage son.  There is some violence and some relationship discussions so, it is still in the PG-13 range.