Title: Mistborn
Series: Mistborn #1
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Genre: High Fantasy
Back Cover:
For a thousand years, the world has been a wasteland of ash and mist ruled by the immortal Lord Ruler. Every revolt against his cruel reign has failed. But hope survives – and he bears the scars of the inescapable Pits. A new kind of uprising being planned, this one built abound the ultimate caper, one that depends on the cunning of a brilliant criminal mastermind … and the determination of a street urchin who must learn to harness the power of a Mistborn.
Review:
This is an adult book, and I don’t really like adult books. This is a high fantasy book, and I’m not a big fan of high fantasy. Really, the only reason I picked this up was because of the author’s name. I’d read Brandon Sanderson’s Alcatraz books (a YA series that I absolutely loved), so I decided I’d give one of his adult books a chance.
And I’m completely glad I did.
Vin, the main character, I immediately liked. She had trust issues, but I could see why. And I was immensely happy that she decided to join with Kelsier. It was fun watching the gifted thief girl attempt to play noblewoman. She was smart, strong, brave, distrustful, and later, very dangerous. She was also headstrong and stubborn. I feel like I’ll give too much away if I say everything I liked about her, so I’ll just say she was exactly the type of heroine I like to read about.
Quick side note – Allomancy (the system of magic) is explained in the book by teaching Vin about it, so it felt like learning along side her.
Kelsier ties with Vin for my favorite character. He had a dark (and, at the risk of sounding trite, tragic) past, but he was still optimistic. He was also headstrong and impulsive, which is probably why he and Vin kept butting heads. I haven’t yet come to a conclusion about rather he really was insane or not – but if he wasn’t, he was walking the edge quite a bit. That wasn’t a bad thing, though; it added an element of unpredictable danger and excitement to the plot. (And, I have to admit, what he did at the end is one of the reasons I’m not real interested in reading the rest of the books in the series.)
This book was really long (at least compared to most YA books), but it needed to be long to hold all the plot. Armies, assassination plots, rebellions, oppressed people, bad magical guys keeping everyone in fear…The “original plan” at the beginning of the book changed so much that I don’t even remember what it was. The twisting plot certainly kept me on my toes.
One thing I did wish, though, about the plot is that Vin had spent more time doing dangerous stuff and less time going to balls. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed most of the ball scenes, and they were relevant to the plot, but I wish there had either been less of them or more of other stuff.
One last thing I have to praise before I wrap this up is the system of magic. It was brilliantly complicated – enough so that at first, I had no idea what was going on, and even at the end, I had a hard time keeping some things straight. One main thing I liked best about this system of magic was that it had certain clear-cut limitations – large limitations, in some cases. And the magic actually made some sort of scientific sense. It followed logic and rules, and it could be defeated.
There are three more books in the series – The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages, and The Alloy of Law. But honestly, I think Mistborn wrapped things up perfectly. I was fine with where Mistborn ended, and I’m worried that future books will try to drag out a good thing too far.
UPDATE: I re-reviewed Mistborn three years later – read that review here.
The Mistborn series:
- Mistborn
- The Well of Ascension
- The Hero of Ages
The Mistborn: Wax and Wane series:
- The Alloy of Law
- Shadows of Self
- The Bands of Mourning
Bluejay Reads 