Review: The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson

The completed epic fantasy series is a wonderful thing – and all too often lost in the internet world where the focus so quickly jumps to the next big thing. Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy is one such gem – a completed fantasy series and a series that I very much enjoyed. The series begins with Mistborn: The Final Empire (US, UK, Canada, my review), continues with The Well of Ascension (US, UK, Canada, my review), and concludes with The Hero of Ages (US, UK, Canada, my review).

Mistborn begins by both challenging and embracing fantasy conventions. In Sanderson’s world, the Dark Lord (referred to as the Lord Ruler) triumphed 1000 years ago and ushered in tyrannical rule with an oppressive society dependent upon slave (skaa) labor and setting himself up as a living god. A group of specialized criminals (think Ocean’s 11) have grand ambitions at the behest of their charismatic leader, Kelsior – they intend to overthrow the Lord Ruler. The key member of this crew is newly recruited Vin – a young skaa thief struggling to survive in the brutal underworld of the Empire’s greatest city. Vin turns out to be mistborn – capable of tapping into the magic of Sanderson’s world – and she is the star of the Mistborn Trilogy.

Now this is a bit of spoiler for the first book, but the crew triumphs and the Lord Ruler is killed. The question quickly becomes ‘now what’ as the Lord Ruler’s death brings about the realization of just how bad things can be. The rest of the trilogy follows these struggles as a greater ‘evil’ emerges to threaten the very survival of the world itself.

Sanderson starts with an interesting premise – a world where the bad guy won. The prophesized hero failed to do the job and the world fell into 1000 years of rule by the Lord Ruler. On top of this backdrop, Sanderson uses a fairly standard caper plot with the charismatic leader as the introduction to his world. These elements make Mistborn both fun and unique while setting up the anticipation of a series that plays the conventions of epic fantasy.

But (there’s always a but), Sanderson also embraces the standard hero rising from obscurity and strife – Vin is an orphan, a slave, and she possesses huge magical prowess as she rises to become the hero of the story. Along the way she falls in love with a noble heir and struggles with her identity as a hero and potentially the world’s prophesized savior. While Mistborn jumps off to something of an unconventional beginning, these conventions of epic fantasy quickly overwhelm the rest of the series.

Of course whether you want to see conventions thwarted or embraced, neither can work in the vacuum of good writing – and Sanderson brings good writing. The prose isn’t really all that remarkable – it simply gets lost in the story. And this is a great thing in my opinion. Both terrible and wonderful prose have the potential to rip the reader right out of a story – but when middle-of-the-road prose allows for the story to dominate and the reader to be completely sucked into the story, it excels. As I was reading Mistborn, I’d often look up at the clock to find that I’d been reading much longer than I intended – that I’d completely lost track of the world around me. This is the sign of a great story.

I’d be remiss to leave out some of the other noteworthy aspects of Mistborn – particularly the magic system – allomancy. Simply put, allomancy is the utilization of metals for magical powers. A misting is a person who can ‘burn’ one of certain metals or a metallic alloys to gain a super-human ability – such as increased strength and endurance, increased senses (seeing, hearing, etc.), increased speed, the ability to push and pull off of metals, and several more. A mistborn is someone who can ‘burn’ all the metals and their alloys – a mistborn is a very powerful (and deadly) person. Other related powers become recognized as the series progresses. Not only is this magic system refreshing, but while retaining its clear magical feel, it does adhere to a set of internal rules that are mostly logical. On a personal level, as a geologist, I find it extra refreshing that the magic system has geologic origins.

Of even greater interest is the thematic use of religion through the series. One of the main characters, Sazed, is part of a secret order of scholars who search out and archive lost information from the time before the Lord Ruler. Sazed’s specialty is collecting lost religions. In the first two books, this thematic element is under-utilized – I really wanted more. However, I was rewarded in the third book when the religion them set-up in the previous two volumes takes center stage. Dead religions are re-visited, new religion questioned as Sazed searches for truth in religion and battles faith. While there are certainly strong Judeo-Christian aspects to the struggles of Sazed and the fate of the world, the real success comes with the universality of the human condition and the internal struggles of us all. What is explored lies at the root of humanity and all its religions, giving the exploration both depth and credibility.

Somewhat tangential to religion themes delved into are the interesting portrayals of good and evil, preservation and ruin, balance, and the (unintended) consequences of one’s actions. While I would hesitate to consider Mistborn a strong thematic work – it does provide a satisfying thematic depth.

With Mistborn, Sanderson shows he belongs in the VIP section of SFF authors. This trilogy offers a range of embracing and subverting fantasy traditions while providing a very entertaining experience. Highly recommended for fans of epic fantasy – 8/10.

Related Posts: Review of Mistborn: The Final Empire, Review of The Well of Ascension, Review of The Hero of Ages.

Review: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson has fast gained a reputation for being one of the better epic fantasy trilogies out there – especially since the publication of the all important conclusion, The Hero of Ages (US, UK, Canada). The Well of Ascension (US, UK, Canada) is the middle book – it’s The Empire Strikes Back of this trilogy, though only time will tell if like Empire, it becomes recognized as the best of the trilogy, but I can say that it is a noticeable improvement over the first book, The Final Empire (US, UK, Canada).

Plot summaries are hard, and in the case of a middle book, rather pointless in a review. It would be very hard for me to even attempt a real summary without completely spoiling events of the first book. It’s not giving too much away to say that the first book basically ends with a victory for our good guys and this book deals with aftermath – which proves to arguably be much more of an issue.

The feel of this book is both the same and different from many middle books. Generally, the first book of a trilogy ends with a great triumph and the second follows up with a set-back for the good guys. While The Well of Ascension does follow general this trend in many ways, it does so in a way that feels different. Throughout the book the struggle is to look forward without looking back – and the characters can’t help but look back. It feels like giant hangover – the hopeful levity inspired by Kelsior even in the darkest times is absent. No one can stand up and be who they need to be. Confidence is shattered, doubts ensue and even the strongest question if they have only made things worse. This struggle feels real – and it’s something that’s easy to relate to.

In my review of The Final Empire I praised Sanderson’s characterization. In The Well of Ascension, Sanderson both improves and regresses in this area. We see many more points of view to get a bigger picture and Sanderson generally handles this very well. However, I wasn’t as impressed with some of the secondary characters this time around while the main characters really come alive with their struggles, their weaknesses and their doubts. We don’t have the domination of Kelsior in this book and the characters often seem to be lying in this shadow, lacking that extra inspiration. This is exactly as it should be – this book is a shadow to the first and the struggle to escape this shadow rightly dominates the characters.

As in The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension has an interesting take on religion. Sazad is a Keeper who was charged with collecting all the information he can about religions that become extinct under the Lord Ruler’s tyrannic rule. Now that the Lord Ruler has been defeated, he is charged to spread his knowledge. When combined with creation of a new religion, this leads to some interesting introspection and questioning. As with The Final Empire, I wish this was further explored – I feel that it could be a real knock-out punch rather than an interesting side-bar.

Now, it’s time for me to admit to doing a bit of cheating. While all of that writing above is still true and does reflect my own thought about the book, I had to do a bit of research (techno talk for reading to other people’s reviews) to bring those thoughts to the surface – more than I usually need for writing a review. The simple truth is that from pretty much the first page, I was completely engulfed in this book. It sucked me in and I easily became lost in the story at hand. More than once I would look up dazed to find that I had been reading for much longer than thought – that I should have gone to bed hours ago. It’s this that makes Sanderson’s Mistborn series so great – the ability to completely remove the real world from my mind. Very few books achieve this with me and it was refreshing to find one that did – especially since it’s been a while.

The Well of Ascension admirably fulfills the role of a middle book in a trilogy. The more depressed tone represents a curious (and well-done) juxtaposition to the victory of the first book. While there is a bit of cliff-hanger for an end, the book is a complete story-arc and the conclusion to the trilogy is available for the anxious to jump strait into. This book grabbed me at the beginning and didn’t let go until the end, and that alone is enough to get a strong recommendation from me, but thankfully it’s not the only reason either. Sanderson is fast becoming a new powerhouse in the world of epic fantasy and I highly recommend the Mistborn Trilogy. 8-8.5/10

Related Posts: Review of Mistborn: The Final Empire, Review of The Hero of Ages, Review of The Mistborn Trilogy