Marcus Sakey is the author of an entertaining and exciting series of books, called The Brilliance Saga. This series consists of the three books Brilliance, A Better World and Written in Fire. It is set in an alternate timeline where starting in 1980 a small, constant percentage of children are born with special abilities. These kids are called "Brilliants" (or abnorms) and as they grow older and their abilities start to manifest our world begins to change as Brilliants make their mark. Society reacts by coming up with ways to identify and quarantine abnorms; people gifted with special abilities are denigrated and shunned by the 99.9% of the population who fear and (are envious of) them.
I think I would rate the Brilliance series overall at 4.5 stars (out of 5). If you liked the first two books (Brilliance and A Better World) you will probably also like the concluding book Written in Fire. All three books share the same aspects: action-packed fight sequences, stunning plot developments, surprising character deaths and thought-provoking moral dilemmas.
The main character in all three books is a former secret agent named Nick Cooper whom we are introduced to in (the first book) Brilliance as someone who uses his abnorm talents (of being able to predict anyone's motions from their body language) to work for a special, secretive agency called the Department of Analysis and Response (DAR) to find and capture other gifted individuals who are using their abnorm abilities for self-enrichment or unsavory ends. Cooper is divorced, with two kids, a company man and seemingly average good guy. However, his loyalties are tested after he meets (is bested by and attracted to) an abnorm whom he calls The Girl Who Walks Through Walls who is working for a government-declared abnorm terrorist called John Smith who believes that abnorms should take over the world and will use his enhanced strategic abilities to stop at nothing to achieve his vision. Slowly, Cooper starts to realize that DAR, the group he has been working for, may not in fact be the good guys after all.
In A Better World (the second book) Cooper is now completely caught between multiple forces competing for his loyalty and attention as the world slowly comes apart. For example, it becomes clear that his daughter is also gifted, while the government becomes increasingly regimental about how abnorm children should be treated. At the same time, Cooper gains an even higher profile as he becomes a special advisor to the president of the United States on abnorm issues as well as meeting Erik Epstein, an abnorm who is the richest man in the world, who is trying to form a better world by creating an abnorm sanctuary in Wyoming called New Canaan Holdfast. All this happens while he and Shannon (The Girl Who Walks Through Walls) are becoming closer and closer, but he's also having increasingly tender feeling about his ex-wife who is raising his kids. There are a lot of balls in the air, but Sakey controls all the multiple plot twists with aplomb.
The stakes are raised even higher in Written in Fire (the third book). The World is really on fire, with the White House destroyed, the President killed and civil war has broken out between the 1% of the population that are abnorms and the rest of the population (norms), with neighbor killing neighbor and most aspects of civilization grinding to a halt.
A key flashpoint occurs at New Canaan Holdfast when a vigilante army of ex-military norms is amassing to get revenge for the events that occurred at the end of A Better World in order to exterminate the brilliance phenomenon once and for all. Some of the key questions Sakey is not shy about asking are "Is genocide ever acceptable?" and "Do the ends ever justify the means?" He also does an excellent job of providing twists in the story so that just when you think the plot is going to zig, it sags, and vice versa.
Eventually (of course) an abnorm invents an artificial way of making any humans gifted and both sides (John Smith and the DAR) are searching for the scientist(s) who created it, with one side trying to find it in order to destroy it and the other hoping to get it to as many people as possible, despite the side effects, which appear to be more serious (and potentially fatal) the older you are because the less flexible and/or resilient your brain is to rewiring to develop amazing new talents.
The author does an excellent job of putting our characters in situations where there are no easy ways out and where bad things often happen to the good people. This is one of the best parts of the book because the moral quandaries that the characters face are very thought-provoking and are a source of the deep emotional impact the books have on the reader. He also does an excellent job of creating a sense of verisimilitude by including creative content between chapters (like mock advertisements, news reports and television transcripts) that bring liven the story and make it tangible for the reader.
I don't want to reveal the ending of the series but it seemed like the author wanted to have it both ways. To me Written in Fire ends in a way in which it is not completely clear as to which side actually is victorious in the end; in fact it's not clear to me which side I wanted to win. (One side says abnorms should take over the world because they are the next evolutionary step of humanity and the other side says abnorms should be microchipped and exterminated to preserve humanity as we know it.) I can see the benefits of both sides and although we definitely get a resolution of most of the central conflicts by the end of Written in Fire we also get a prologue which implies that the side that we thought lost might have actually found a way to win in the end.
Overall, the Brilliance saga is based on a compelling (but pretty familiar) premise about the widespread development of fantastic powers, set in a contemporary and immediately recognizable world and told in an action-packed, thrilling style.
Title: Brilliance.
Author: Marcus Sakey.
Paperback: 439 pages.
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer.
Date Published: July 16, 2013.
Date Read: May 1, 2015.
OVERALL GRADE: A- (4.0/4.0).
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.
Title: A Better World.
Author: Marcus Sakey.
Paperback: 390 pages.
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer.
Date Published: June 17, 2014.
Date Read: May 4, 2015.
OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.
Title: Written in Fire.
Author: Marcus Sakey.
Paperback: 345 pages.
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer.
Date Published: January 12, 2016.
Date Read: June 17, 2016.
OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).
PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A-.
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