Mistborn: The Final Empire
Now with over 10 million copies sold, The Mistborn Series has the thrills of a heist story, the twistiness of political intrigue, and the epic scale of a landmark fantasy saga.
For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the "Sliver of Infinity," reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler's most hellish prison. Kelsier "snapped" and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark. Kelsier recruited the underworld's elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Only then does he reveal his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot. But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel's plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she's a half-Skaa orphan, but she's lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets, and gotten it. She will have to learn to trust, if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed. This saga dares to ask a simple question: What if the hero of prophecy fails? Other Tor books by Brandon Sanderson The Cosmere The Stormlight ArchiveThe Way of Kings
Words of Radiance
Edgedancer (Novella)
Oathbringer The Mistborn trilogy
Mistborn: The Final Empire
The Well of Ascension
The Hero of Ages Mistborn: The Wax and Wayne series
Alloy of Law
Shadows of Self
Bands of Mourning Collection
Arcanum Unbounded Other Cosmere novels
Elantris
Warbreaker The Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series
Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians
The Scrivener's Bones
The Knights of Crystallia
The Shattered Lens
The Dark Talent The Rithmatist series
The Rithmatist Other books by Brandon Sanderson The Reckoners
Steelheart
Firefight
Calamity
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Community Reviews
2.5
I’ve been interested in checking out Brian Sanderson’s work for a while. His name seems to be everywhere, and I had little to no reference as to who he was prior to picking up this novel. All I knew about Sanderson was that he had a large fanbase, a prolific output, and an affinity for magic systems. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so I read Mistborn, and….it was fine.
Mistborn isn’t a bad book. It’s functional. It has characters that…work, a plot that works, and it wraps up nicely. By all means, it’s a well-produced book…but, my god, can it be boring sometimes. Here is a book that I would say achieves the bare minimum and never quite rises above that point. The characters gain a bit of depth as the story progresses but not much, leading to an ensemble character epic where the characters feel like little more than concept sketches given dialogue. And the plot -- by nature of being over explained -- feels less epic than it does rudimentary and predictable.
The plot of Mistborn is very straightforward. There is a race of people known as the Skaa being controlled and dominated by an authoritarian government. Vin -- a merchant and thief -- encounters a charismatic sorcerer named Kelsier who teaches her about magic and integrates her into his crew, carving the way for her to become a master of both alchemy and social skills as she works to overthrow the malignant monarchy causing pain throughout the land.
There is lots of time spent building up the world: its leadership structure, its architecture, its citizens. It’s efficient world-building, but it is at the service of a world that isn’t too terribly unique or interesting in the first place. The plot is basically just Star Wars, with more emphasis placed on the structure of the authoritarian government, and with metal-based powers taking the role of The Force. If you’re looking for a novel that reinvents the wheel, you will have to look elsewhere. Crafting a familiar story is not a bad thing, but I don’t think this story was told well enough to bypass the familiar premise of an evil government exploiting its people (a premise all too painfully familiar, especially in recent weeks).
Sanderson cares a lot about his characters, with a majority of the scenes in this novel being all the characters hunched together in a room discussing their plans. The characters discuss…everything. Every plan they make, every emotion they feel, they have to discuss it with each other, and I can’t describe how boring it can be. I’m not a dullard who thinks a book needs constant action, but a lack of interesting characters makes the constant barrage of exposition hard to bear. It’s kinda like when before you play a level in a video game, you hear a description of the mission. Now imagine if that mission description was 300 pages long, and that’s basically the first half of Mistborn. I swear, the first half of this book is just one scene of exposition after the other. Vin is taken into a room, she’s told more about the world she inhabits or about magic, and I’m left straining to get myself to care. I like talking scenes -- a lot of my favorite films are dialogue based. The issue I have here is that so many of the characters are devoid of distinguishing characteristics.
Dockson, Hammond, and Breeze are basically all interchangeable outside of some trivial differences. Ham likes philosophy -- we know this because the characters announce that he does and he has like one scene where he contemplates the morality of killing. Breeze’s gimmick is that he speaks with even more formality than the other characters, and Dockson…he has literally no character traits at all. If you put a gun to my head and told me to describe a single character trait of Dockson, I would wrestle the gun from your hands and pull the trigger myself. He’s just some guy. He’s Kelsier’s friend. We know this because the book says he is. This shallow characterization also applies to the main villain -- The Lord Ruler -- who despite being mentioned constantly, has basically no personality whatsoever. He’s evil…for some reason. He felt it necessary to enslave and subjugate his subjects…for some reason. Kind of boring when I know nothing about the guy every character is painstakingly attempting to thwart.
The only characters who are interesting are Sazed, this C-3PO kind of character who is obsessed with religion; Elend, this turncoat noble; and the main character, Vin, who speaks in a refreshingly laid-back tone: a stark contrast to every other character who speaks in elongated, fanciful sentences.
That leads me to my next big issue -- the dialogue. It is trying very hard to be witty at all possible moments. Every character is impossibly clever, spouting one-liners during meetings like a bunch of diplomatic Arnold Schwarzeneggers. Vin, fortunately, speaks like a human. Her characterization focuses on being relatable to the reader rather than seeking to impress them. With everyone speaking so formerly, their style of speaking blends together, and it makes it difficult to differentiate the characters from one another. You know how in Red Letter Media’s review of The Phantom Menace, they play that game where they have to describe the characters of the movie without describing their job or what they look like, and none of them are able to come up with anything? You could play that game with the characters in this book and arrive at the same conclusion. We don’t get to feel emotions while reading -- instead, we are told what to feel. For instance, Kelsier is charismatic because the book says he is (Sanderson has him winking every other page. It gets to the point where you wonder why Kelsier doesn’t just keep one eye closed at all times).
If I could describe the issues with this book in one sediment it would be that Sanderson spends too much time telling and not enough time showing. I credit this to Mistborn being one of his first novels and Sanderson not yet having the confidence of an established writer. Sanderson’s lack of confidence is evident in this book’s approach to subtext. That is to say, there is no subtext. Whenever an interesting character moment happens, the book has to stop in its tracks and talk about it, over-explain it, until you wish the interesting character moment never happened in the first place.
An example of this can be found on page 348 -- Kelsier is talking to Yeden, a character who previously didn’t show Kelsier much respect. On this page, however, we can infer from Yeden’s dialogue that he now feels differently about Kelsier: “I was wrong about you, Lord Kelsier. This operation…this army…well, you’ve done something impressive here.” From this dialogue, we get everything we need to know -- Kelsier is an inspiring leader who can sway the hearts of skeptical men because of how charismatic and prone to winking he is. Of course, the first thing Sanderson does after this interaction is have Kelsier and Ham discuss this change in character, with Ham saying Yeden looks at Kelsier like “a kid idolizing his big brother.” Like, yeah, Brian Sanderson, I got it. I reached that conclusion myself. It’s really annoying reading a book that basically thinks for you. If anything subtly interesting happens, Sanderson will be sure to bring it out to the surface and endlessly discuss it until you want to die.
So anyway, I’ve been cynical and awful to this book for a long time, and that’s not a good impression to make for my first GoodReads review. What did I like about the book? After all, my rating is positive. I’d say Sanderson excels with his magic system. It’s simple and a bit repetitive, but having the characters use metal to soar through the air and pull and push objects feels fun, uplifting, and entertaining. It’s much less generic than if he just had the characters shoot fire out of their hands or something like that. I think Sanderson has lots of good ideas more so than the aptitude to execute those ideas. But, regardless, those ideas are interesting. It’s cool to see Vin develop and learn, and there is the occasional good character interaction and thoughtful interlude between the action. I just wish there was more.
Also: many interesting twists later on in the book, which I won’t mention here. This book follows the stereotypical hero’s journey to a T, and that makes the unexpected moments hit even harder.
I was surprised by how succinctly this book wraps up. If I didn’t hear about it beforehand, I would have no idea this was Part 1 of a trilogy because there’s really only one plot thread that isn’t resolved, and it’s mostly something in the background. This book basically ends with someone being like, “shoot, I left the stove on,” and I guess that’s what the sequel is about? I don’t really care to explore those sequels at this point in time. I’m much more interested in Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series, which I hear is better.
I can’t say I’m 100% on the Sanderson hype train, but I get the appeal. Mistborn is an optimistic, empowering book with characters who, while lacking in depth and intrigue, are not terrible to be with (although I certainly wouldn’t want to have a beer with any of them). For all my complaints with the book, I did read all 643 pages, and I would recommend it to those interested in fantasy. But this is very much an introduction-to-fantasy book. If you’re well-versed in more complex stories, you may want to stay away.
That’s not to say I’m well-versed. Outside of Dune (which is arguably more sci-fi than it is fantasy), and my pride and joy Berserk, I haven’t read much from the genre. Mistborn did not scare me away, but it also did not entice me. I plan to read Rothfuss’ KingKiller Chronicle books next, so we’ll see how that fares in comparison to Sanderson.
I’ve been interested in checking out Brian Sanderson’s work for a while. His name seems to be everywhere, and I had little to no reference as to who he was prior to picking up this novel. All I knew about Sanderson was that he had a large fanbase, a prolific output, and an affinity for magic systems. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so I read Mistborn, and….it was fine.
Mistborn isn’t a bad book. It’s functional. It has characters that…work, a plot that works, and it wraps up nicely. By all means, it’s a well-produced book…but, my god, can it be boring sometimes. Here is a book that I would say achieves the bare minimum and never quite rises above that point. The characters gain a bit of depth as the story progresses but not much, leading to an ensemble character epic where the characters feel like little more than concept sketches given dialogue. And the plot -- by nature of being over explained -- feels less epic than it does rudimentary and predictable.
The plot of Mistborn is very straightforward. There is a race of people known as the Skaa being controlled and dominated by an authoritarian government. Vin -- a merchant and thief -- encounters a charismatic sorcerer named Kelsier who teaches her about magic and integrates her into his crew, carving the way for her to become a master of both alchemy and social skills as she works to overthrow the malignant monarchy causing pain throughout the land.
There is lots of time spent building up the world: its leadership structure, its architecture, its citizens. It’s efficient world-building, but it is at the service of a world that isn’t too terribly unique or interesting in the first place. The plot is basically just Star Wars, with more emphasis placed on the structure of the authoritarian government, and with metal-based powers taking the role of The Force. If you’re looking for a novel that reinvents the wheel, you will have to look elsewhere. Crafting a familiar story is not a bad thing, but I don’t think this story was told well enough to bypass the familiar premise of an evil government exploiting its people (a premise all too painfully familiar, especially in recent weeks).
Sanderson cares a lot about his characters, with a majority of the scenes in this novel being all the characters hunched together in a room discussing their plans. The characters discuss…everything. Every plan they make, every emotion they feel, they have to discuss it with each other, and I can’t describe how boring it can be. I’m not a dullard who thinks a book needs constant action, but a lack of interesting characters makes the constant barrage of exposition hard to bear. It’s kinda like when before you play a level in a video game, you hear a description of the mission. Now imagine if that mission description was 300 pages long, and that’s basically the first half of Mistborn. I swear, the first half of this book is just one scene of exposition after the other. Vin is taken into a room, she’s told more about the world she inhabits or about magic, and I’m left straining to get myself to care. I like talking scenes -- a lot of my favorite films are dialogue based. The issue I have here is that so many of the characters are devoid of distinguishing characteristics.
Dockson, Hammond, and Breeze are basically all interchangeable outside of some trivial differences. Ham likes philosophy -- we know this because the characters announce that he does and he has like one scene where he contemplates the morality of killing. Breeze’s gimmick is that he speaks with even more formality than the other characters, and Dockson…he has literally no character traits at all. If you put a gun to my head and told me to describe a single character trait of Dockson, I would wrestle the gun from your hands and pull the trigger myself. He’s just some guy. He’s Kelsier’s friend. We know this because the book says he is. This shallow characterization also applies to the main villain -- The Lord Ruler -- who despite being mentioned constantly, has basically no personality whatsoever. He’s evil…for some reason. He felt it necessary to enslave and subjugate his subjects…for some reason. Kind of boring when I know nothing about the guy every character is painstakingly attempting to thwart.
The only characters who are interesting are Sazed, this C-3PO kind of character who is obsessed with religion; Elend, this turncoat noble; and the main character, Vin, who speaks in a refreshingly laid-back tone: a stark contrast to every other character who speaks in elongated, fanciful sentences.
That leads me to my next big issue -- the dialogue. It is trying very hard to be witty at all possible moments. Every character is impossibly clever, spouting one-liners during meetings like a bunch of diplomatic Arnold Schwarzeneggers. Vin, fortunately, speaks like a human. Her characterization focuses on being relatable to the reader rather than seeking to impress them. With everyone speaking so formerly, their style of speaking blends together, and it makes it difficult to differentiate the characters from one another. You know how in Red Letter Media’s review of The Phantom Menace, they play that game where they have to describe the characters of the movie without describing their job or what they look like, and none of them are able to come up with anything? You could play that game with the characters in this book and arrive at the same conclusion. We don’t get to feel emotions while reading -- instead, we are told what to feel. For instance, Kelsier is charismatic because the book says he is (Sanderson has him winking every other page. It gets to the point where you wonder why Kelsier doesn’t just keep one eye closed at all times).
If I could describe the issues with this book in one sediment it would be that Sanderson spends too much time telling and not enough time showing. I credit this to Mistborn being one of his first novels and Sanderson not yet having the confidence of an established writer. Sanderson’s lack of confidence is evident in this book’s approach to subtext. That is to say, there is no subtext. Whenever an interesting character moment happens, the book has to stop in its tracks and talk about it, over-explain it, until you wish the interesting character moment never happened in the first place.
An example of this can be found on page 348 -- Kelsier is talking to Yeden, a character who previously didn’t show Kelsier much respect. On this page, however, we can infer from Yeden’s dialogue that he now feels differently about Kelsier: “I was wrong about you, Lord Kelsier. This operation…this army…well, you’ve done something impressive here.” From this dialogue, we get everything we need to know -- Kelsier is an inspiring leader who can sway the hearts of skeptical men because of how charismatic and prone to winking he is. Of course, the first thing Sanderson does after this interaction is have Kelsier and Ham discuss this change in character, with Ham saying Yeden looks at Kelsier like “a kid idolizing his big brother.” Like, yeah, Brian Sanderson, I got it. I reached that conclusion myself. It’s really annoying reading a book that basically thinks for you. If anything subtly interesting happens, Sanderson will be sure to bring it out to the surface and endlessly discuss it until you want to die.
So anyway, I’ve been cynical and awful to this book for a long time, and that’s not a good impression to make for my first GoodReads review. What did I like about the book? After all, my rating is positive. I’d say Sanderson excels with his magic system. It’s simple and a bit repetitive, but having the characters use metal to soar through the air and pull and push objects feels fun, uplifting, and entertaining. It’s much less generic than if he just had the characters shoot fire out of their hands or something like that. I think Sanderson has lots of good ideas more so than the aptitude to execute those ideas. But, regardless, those ideas are interesting. It’s cool to see Vin develop and learn, and there is the occasional good character interaction and thoughtful interlude between the action. I just wish there was more.
Also: many interesting twists later on in the book, which I won’t mention here. This book follows the stereotypical hero’s journey to a T, and that makes the unexpected moments hit even harder.
I was surprised by how succinctly this book wraps up. If I didn’t hear about it beforehand, I would have no idea this was Part 1 of a trilogy because there’s really only one plot thread that isn’t resolved, and it’s mostly something in the background. This book basically ends with someone being like, “shoot, I left the stove on,” and I guess that’s what the sequel is about? I don’t really care to explore those sequels at this point in time. I’m much more interested in Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series, which I hear is better.
I can’t say I’m 100% on the Sanderson hype train, but I get the appeal. Mistborn is an optimistic, empowering book with characters who, while lacking in depth and intrigue, are not terrible to be with (although I certainly wouldn’t want to have a beer with any of them). For all my complaints with the book, I did read all 643 pages, and I would recommend it to those interested in fantasy. But this is very much an introduction-to-fantasy book. If you’re well-versed in more complex stories, you may want to stay away.
That’s not to say I’m well-versed. Outside of Dune (which is arguably more sci-fi than it is fantasy), and my pride and joy Berserk, I haven’t read much from the genre. Mistborn did not scare me away, but it also did not entice me. I plan to read Rothfuss’ KingKiller Chronicle books next, so we’ll see how that fares in comparison to Sanderson.
Listened to this via audiobook—glad I did. Very much enjoyed it. I didn’t connect as much to our main character as I wanted to but I am interested in her storyline and cannot wait to see what happens. I think this book does something that so many authors struggle with: they complete a story in book one, setting us up for book 2–without boring us and without making the story feel unsatisfying. And my prediction (that the 11th metal allowed you to come back to life) wasn’t true—so while I wished it was (RIP), I’m also glad I didn’t guess the twist. Cannot wait to start the next book and if you’re intimidated by reading this book—grab the audiobook. It’s well done and looks like all the books are done by the same reader. Of course, read this if you love fantasy; unique magic systems and found family. (I will say, so far, it’s quite “traditional” but hey—can’t win them all, and while I prefer queer fantasy, this book is too good to pass up. Favorite character? Sazed.
Wow! Just, wow! This is my first foray into the work of Brandon Sanderson and I must say I am not disappointed. Having read my share of fiction over the years, I thought at the beginning I would have been able to predict where this story was going. While some of my conclusions were correct, the direction that the characters took to get there completely surprised me, and others just didn't turn out at all the way I expected. I think this is what made this such a wonderful read for me, I like to be surprised and not be able to guess the ending and outcome. I may not be as well versed in the fantasy world as others, so the "magic" in this book (using injested metals to control objects and one's self) was completely new and intriguing to me. With the scheming, politicking, and infiltration, this book had a very Ocean's Eleven/Political thriller feel to it. Simply put, it's like Danny Ocean and Frank Underwood met, discovered they had hidden abilities, and decided to overthrow the governement and rule the world.
If you're looking for some amazing story telling, an engrossing narrative, characters you can fall in love with, and an introduction into the writing of Brandon Sanderson, then I highly recommend this book.
This and other reviews can be found at my blog: http://backporchreview.weebly.com
If you're looking for some amazing story telling, an engrossing narrative, characters you can fall in love with, and an introduction into the writing of Brandon Sanderson, then I highly recommend this book.
This and other reviews can be found at my blog: http://backporchreview.weebly.com
The Mistborn series was a trilogy that I was recommended a while ago and finally picked up to read. I went through the first book relatively quickly and with relative ease, the story itself piqued my interest enough for me to not want to put the book down however there were a few moments that I considered could have been written better.
The world within which the story is set is a brilliant idea, the use of allomancy is something that drove me to find out more about it, what it means and what it's limits are, this is one of the main reasons I want to continue on to the next book.
Where I struggled was with the relationships the characters have. Vin initially came across as a little too "edgy" and I found myself thinking "we get it - you have trust issues". Similarly, I originally found Kelsier a little too hard set on his inability to forgive and belief of some people simply deserving death for who they were, sounded a little to extreme. The rapidly moving feelings Vin ends up experiencing also felt rushed and unnecessary.
Overall though I did enjoy the novel and am looking forward to the second one.
The world within which the story is set is a brilliant idea, the use of allomancy is something that drove me to find out more about it, what it means and what it's limits are, this is one of the main reasons I want to continue on to the next book.
Where I struggled was with the relationships the characters have. Vin initially came across as a little too "edgy" and I found myself thinking "we get it - you have trust issues". Similarly, I originally found Kelsier a little too hard set on his inability to forgive and belief of some people simply deserving death for who they were, sounded a little to extreme. The rapidly moving feelings Vin ends up experiencing also felt rushed and unnecessary.
Overall though I did enjoy the novel and am looking forward to the second one.
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