The red star Calamity came, and suddenly a small number of people on Earth had superpowers. But they weren’t superheroes – they were tyrants.

Let’s face it: realistically, that is what would happen if people suddenly got superpowers. But the Reckoners trilogy is less about the Epics that now rule the world, and more about the plucky, ingenious little guys who want to take them down. And Brandon Sanderson’s boundless imagination and clever writing turn this trilogy from a straightforward twist-on-superheroes into a clever, suspenseful tale of superpowered friends and foes.

Ten years, Calamity came — and so did Steelheart, who conquered Chicago and made it his personal kingdom, Newcago. Steelheart is invincible, super-strong, can control the elements, and his rage turns everything inorganic to steel. But ten years ago, someone made him bleed, so he killed everyone who had seen it. The only survivor is David, who devotes his life to studying the weaknesses of the Epics.

Ten years later, he bumbles into a sting by the Reckoners, a vigilante group trying to kill the Epics, and they reluctantly let him join when they find out he’s a walking encyclopedia of Epic information. With his info, they can take down Steelheart’s lieutenants. But the group is torn by fears about what killing Steelheart might cause — and they don’t have a prayer of killing him until they figure out his weakness. What’s more, one of the Epics may be closer than they think.

“Fireheart” opens with war being declared on the Reckoners by the powerful water-bending Epic Regalia, who rules the half-sunken city of Babilar (formerly Manhattan). But even worse, Regalia has summoned Obliteration, a cruel fanatic who destroys cities with solar energy, and is preparing to destroy everything in Babilar. As the Reckoners struggle to figure out her plan, David finds that the woman he loved is also in this city — and that the lines between friends and enemies are about to blur.

“Calamity” is appropriately named – the Reckoners are all but wiped-out, and their benevolent leader has been corrupted by his own power. So they follow him to Ildithia (formerly Atlanta), a moving city of crystalline salt, and manage to drag the bratty, power-stealing Larcener into their fight against Limelight. But their attempts to stop Limelight lead to the discovery of a devastating plan that could give him the ultimate Epic power — and a confrontation with the greatest Epic alive.

In a world where dictators and governments perpetrate unspeakable horrors, most people with incredible unstoppable superpowers would quickly be corrupted, or end up wussing out and serving someone who is corrupt. Yet in the Reckoners trilogy, Sanderson reminds us that “You can’t be so frightened of what might happen that you are unwilling to act” against tyranny, and that people can ultimately choose to be good.

And he does this by showing us a world transformed by Epic ego — some cities are destroyed, some are gloomy masses of grey steel… and some are colorful, ethereal places of glowing paint and nightly parties, or creeping salt sculptures. Similarly, he weaves in some multiverse stuff (there are parallel dimensions where things went slightly differently) and the clever idea of a weakness for every superpower.

And part of what makes the Reckoners series so engaging is that Sanderson knows how to mingle the grim, apocalyptic setting with a quirky sense of humor, whether it’s the bubbly Mizzy or David’s endless weird similes (“You’re like a potato! In a minefield”). His robust, fast-moving prose keeps the story moving along briskly even when nothing much is happening, and he weaves in some genuinely shocking twists (the entire third book is basically the fallout from the double-twist ending of the second) and some truly explosive action sequences.

David is an excellent hero, in the same mold as the “extraordinarily ordinary” heroes that Sanderson writes so well — self-deprecating, eager, a little dorky, with some haunting scars from the loss of his father. He’s a good counterpoint to Megan, a darker and more sarcastic woman who finds herself being pulled back by David’s purity and uncomplicated faith.. And Phaedrus rounds out the cast as a man riddled with fear over his own powers, struggling to resist the darkness that comes when he uses them.

The Reckoners trilogy is a thoroughly solid twist on superhero stories, made even more enjoyable through Sanderson’s clever writing and boundless imagination. Here, the superheroes are the little guys — and their power is that they will never give in, despite their doubts.