Thanks to the good folks over at Tor and in honor of the release of The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound) later this month, I have a set of ‘fantasy firsts’ to giveaway to 3 lucky winners. The sets include paperback copies of The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound) and Mistborn: Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson (US, UK, Canada, Indiebound). These books begin the landmark series of these great authors and this is a wonderful giveaway to celebrate the coming release of The Gathering Storm.
So, if you want a chance to win, just shoot me an email at nethspace ‘at’ gmail ‘dot’ com (replace the ‘at’ and ‘dot’ as needed or follow the link in the sidebar). Be sure to include your mailing address in the email and the subject line: EYE OF MISTBORN. The deadline of course is October 27th, the release date of The Gathering Storm and it’s limited to addressed in the US, Canada, and the UK and only one entry per person.
Good Luck!
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.
I’ve had my eye on Brandon Sanderson for a while as an author that I want to read. When it was announced that he would complete Robert Jordan’s final Wheel of Time book, A Memory of Light, I finally got around to getting a hold of his Mistborn books. It remains to be seen how successful Sanderson will be with Jordan’s legacy, but Mistborn: The Final Empire is fantasy that gets it right.
Imagine a world where a prophesized hero rises from obscurity in opposition to a great destructive force. Now imagine said hero, victorious against the known threat, falls victim to a darkness, inviting 1000 years of brutal rule by an immortal dark lord. Imagine a world where the good guy lost.
Humanity subsists under the yoke of the Lord Ruler with a majority of the people forced into slavery. While numerically superior, these ‘skaa’ have been so long oppressed that hope itself is little more than a myth. Even the brutal nobility who lease the skaa from the Lord Ruler are subject to the Lord Ruler’s tyranny by enforcers of a dangerous bureaucracy under theocratic rule.
Vin, a talented skaa thief, barely survives a horrid existence in the slums of the empire’s central city. Kelsior, rumored Survivor of Hathsin, the inspirational leader of a successful team of high-society thieves and a powerful allomancer, has a new plan. His seemingly impossible plan is to rouse the skaa and overthrow the empire and its powerful, immortal Lord Ruler.
Sanderson really nails the characterization in this. Vin and Kelsior get the most screen time and development, yet even the minor characters are presented as whole. Even the cliché caricatures seem alive. Most authors can get one character right, a few can do more, but in fantasy its rare when the minor characters have soul.
The writing generally provides a fun, even quick feel about it that serves the story well. Descriptions are not overdone and info-dumps cleverly integrated. However the narrative flow stumbles at times. Third person perspective is the utilized point of view, and Sanderson concentrates on a few characters. Problems arise when he feels the need to show us more, introducing new and unexpected points of view very late into the story. A bit more seasoning will hopefully give him the tools to avoid such slips in the future.
One aspect of Sanderson’s world that appeals to me in particular is the magic system. Certain metals and their alloys have ‘magical’ powers when ‘burned’ by allomancers, also known as mistings. Most have the ability to burn just one metal, a rare few can use them all – the mistborn. As a geologist, any magic system with such a geologic foundation is going to get thumbs up from me.
Mistborn: The Final Empire is a story of hope in a hopeless world, the story of trust, of rising up, of sacrifice, and corruption. Its religious implications offer some of the most interesting thematic elements. A sage-like secondary character collects the memories of religions long lost to the Lord Ruler’s tyranny. Kelsior seeks inspiration from these extinct but not yet forgotten beliefs, Vin struggles with the point. While this might have been my favorite aspect of the book, it’s also the greatest unrealized potential. I wish there was more.
Mistborn: The Final Empire is the first book in Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy, but can easily be read as a stand-alone book. There is a clear beginning, middle, and end – things are mostly tied up at the conclusion, but the characters and the world will move on and have possibly greater things to do in the future – a future I plan to follow in Mistborn: The Well of Ascension and forthcoming book 3, Mistborn: The Hero of Ages. I highly recommend this for fans and potential fans of epic fantasy. 7.5/10