Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
Hooked in on page one and I shed a tear on page 59.

Dystopian escapist fantasy.

Dystopian - slavery, which is a crude dystopia but it is a dystopia. Does dystopia have any particular heart?

Inequality? A heirarchy?

In it's most crude and blunt terms it's 'slavery'. It seems something more sophisticated might be better but it does work.

Escapist Fantasy - allomancy - the hero with special (magical) powers, you know something good's going to happen. Sci-fi just doesn't work as well as the ace up the sleeve isn't as grand and... with this magic is there the suggestion of religion lurking back in the subconcious? The magic suggests something very positive is going to happen. It somehow does so more than one could can manage with sci-fi...