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corrielle14. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
First of all, I have to hand it to the author for creating a system of magic that is, as far as I know, completely unique in this history of doorstop-fantasy novels. The primary type of magic in the Mistborn novels is something called "Allomancy," which is the power to use different trace metals in the body to do different things. Tin, for instance, heightens the senses, and pewter makes the person using it supernaturally strong, quick, and indestructible. The power is limited by how much of a metal is in an Allomancer's system at any given time, and using the ability associated with a metal burns through it, so Allomancers have to swallow flakes of different metals to keep their supply at a high enough level. It's a fascinating system, and as far as I can tell, he keeps to the rules he has established throughout the books. (Except when there is a very good reason for the rules to be bent, but even then, the characters remark on it.)
The story was… solid. A small group of thieves and one slightly crazy visionary named Kelsier are attempting to topple a millennia-old, oppressive, stratified society with a demi-god at its head. And when I say oppressive, I mean that the Lord Ruler makes the Sheriff of Nottingham look like Santa Clause. (Please excuse me while I wipe that mental image from my brain…) Also, the world in general is just bleak. Ash falling from the sky keeps plants from being anything more than brown and sickly, and no one can remember the sky being blue. They all think it's a myth that it used to be any color other than gray. Anyway, along the way, our ragtag band find Vin, a girl who has the ability to use every kind of metal (a rare talent) and recruit her to the cause. Vin and Kelsier are probably the two characters who are best developed, though I like Sazed (Vin's tutor in… pretty much everything from how to act like a lady to how to read and write) quite a lot as well.
As he did in Elantris, Sanderson has a good grasp of how people work, and on the power of hope and a little bit of dignity. He's not preachy about it, but it comes through very strongly all the same. I'm also fascinated by his take on religion. There is no religion but the worship of the Lord Ruler, but Keepers like Sazed do their best to remember and record the old religions that disappeared when the Lord Ruler took power. Sazed seems to think that all of the faiths he has recorded have value and power, and that faith is something that people need rather than an expression of objective truth. By the end of the book, Kelsier has managed to martyr himself, posthumously get made head of his own religion, and caused a revolution that never would have been possible without the fervent belief that the population had in him. This… practical, but not overly supernatural view of faith seemed to be something that the rest of the story agreed with, until the end of Well of Ascension. It's going to be interesting to see how the world Sanderson has created handles a real, actual divinity coming onto the scene (if Ruin is a divinity at all, that is… the Lord Ruler certainly wasn’t). But I get ahead of myself.
15. The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
It took me a little longer to read Well of Ascension than it did the first book in the series. Though it's about a hundred pages longer, I feel like… less happens than happened in Mistborn. I think that this book suffers from "second in a trilogy" syndrome. Things have to keep happening, the plot has to be moved forward, but there's not the excitement of discovering a new world or the tension that comes along with moving toward the climax of all three books. I also feel like certain things should have happened sooner. Elend (Vin's bookish sweetheart) losing the crown and coming into his own as a leader were well done, and I liked Tindwyl, the lady Keeper who lit a fire under him and got him to stand up and lead, immensely. But I felt like the standoff with the three armies and the council taking the throne away from Elend took up far too much of the book, and that Vin should have left for the Well of Ascension much sooner than she did. As it is, the last two hundred pages or so are packed, and quite exciting to read, and the five hundred before them are… slower. Not boring, just… slow. There was a lot of talking, a lot of trying to decipher exactly what the prophecies about the Well and the Hero of the Ages said, and a lot of "Oh no, there are lots of armies here… what are we going to do now?" I also couldn't help thinking that the side plot with Zane trying to win Vin away from Elend and poison his father was… unnecessary? I guess that Vin needs that "dark mirror" to show her what she could have become under different circumstances and to help her to choose Elend in the end when it's important, but… something was flat there, and I can't quite put my finger on it. On the other hand, the subplot about Vin's developing friendship and respect for OreSeur, the kandra that she employs even though she had a great deal of distaste for his kind, was really well done, and I was actually quite upset when his big secret was revealed and he had to leave her because he had broken the Contract.
The book ends with Vin knowing that she's released something not-very-nice into the world, and worrying about what's going to happen now. It also ends with the revelation that everything they thought they knew about the prophecies was a lie – a trick thousands of years in the making to get Vin to release the power to Whatever It Was that wanted it. And now, like all good fantasy heroes, they're going to deal with the consequences of their actions in the third installment that I'll pick up very soon.
To sum up: Sanderson is often very good at complicated relationships between people and races that don't understand each other very well. This bodes well for his foray into the WoT world. However, he has lots of scene with people standing around and talking and planning rather than actually doing. This worries me. The WoT series is already very talk-y. It doesn't need any more of that than it's already got. He also tends to give big events less focus than I think they deserve, and that worries me as well. But, to end on a positive note, he's really good about describing the workings of "magic," staying within the rules he establishes, and explaining new developments in a plausible way. That's key for anyone who's going to try to be writing about saidin and saidar for fans who have been meticulously paying attention to how they work for going on twenty years now (Eye of the World was published in 1990…). I'm hoping that Mr. Jordan's plotting and notes and the experience of having written a trilogy like this one already will alleviate some of the problems I've mentioned.
I don't want to make it sound like I didn't like these books... I liked them very much. I think I'm just getting to be a more critical reviewer in my old age. (Old age being just shy of thirty, in this case... though I feel much more crotchety than that.)