Just finished reading Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn; the first book in the Mistborn Trilogy…
Aug 24
2011
First, the verdict, because I can not wait any longer to get it out there. This book is freaking EXCELLENT! There, if you read nothing else, go get the series and read it.
If you want to know why, read on.
I like fantasy books, but after awhile, many of them sort of fall into a rut. There’s elves, dwarves, humans, some magic, an overshadowing force of evil, etc. Some books attempt to break out of the mold. Wheel of Time has no elves or dwarves, and the magic system is interesting. George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire also has mostly humans, and magic is undefined and dark…the evil is less defined, and his politics are absolutely stunning. But many other works are exceedingly derivative of Tolkien, etc. Granted, I’ve not read as much fantasy as many people I know, but I’ve read a great deal. So I am always pleased when I can find a series that breaks the mold, and does so successfully. Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy is one of these, and is well worth reading.
To begin, there are only humans in this series. Nothing spectacular there. The books take place (from what I can tell) on a different world, far removed from ours. The time period is a little harder to pin down. The people sometimes have things like watches, and the humans’ skill in building is certainly more than medieval stonemasons could boast, I think. However, in Sanderson’s world, ash falls from the sky, and has done so for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Every night, the mists rise, and the people seem to be frightened of them, almost universally. There is what appears to be an omnipotent tyrant on the throne, who rules with an iron fist. Oh, and it’s basically a heist novel. Intrigued? I was.
The other thing about these novels that is exceedingly well thought out is the magic system. However, I don’t want to spoil it, as I feel Sanderson does such a fantastic job of explaining it in his own time. Speaking of being well thought out, that pretty much describes Sanderson’s writing to a “T”. Sanderson appears to me to be a very careful writer. This is not to say he does not take risks in his writing, but rather, he appears to have approached this novel from the standpoint of developing rules for how his world works, and has been very careful to stick to those rules. Unlike, say, Terry Goodkind, who seemed to re-invent how magic worked in each chapter, keeping you wondering what his system of magic could and could not do, Sanderson is quite clear (though he may not always be completely forthright about each detail until its proper point in the story) that if anything defined Allomancy (one of the systems of magic in the world) it is rules which are inviolable, as far as most people are concerned. In reading through the action scenes (which rely VERY heavily on his descriptions of the characters’ use of Allomancy, and are SUPERB), I was struck with how well this system would translate into a video game or even a tabletop RPG. While characters don’t necessarily think in terms of spell points or numbers, the system as Sanderson has written it would translate very well into a numbers-based abstraction of how the magic could be used, and honestly, I would love to play such a game!
I spoke about this novel being a heist novel. This was, I have learned, his intention. When I read some of the opening chapters, I immediately thought of some of the early scenes in Ocean’s Eleven. This was definitely intentional on his part. The characters all have nicknames, as you might imagine master thieves would call each other by when meeting to discuss a new, visionary job. Do you remember in Oceans Eleven when Danny and Rusty get together to discuss the various roles they will need to accomplish this daring job? Here’s the scene I’m talking about:
Rusty: You’d need at least a dozen guys doing a combination of cons.
Danny: Like what, do you think?
Rusty: Off the top of my head, I’d say you’re looking at a Boeski, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros and a Leon Spinks, not to mention the biggest Ella Fitzgerald ever.
(Copied and pasted from IMDb.)
Sanderson has a scene like that. They’ve got themselves a Soother and a Thug (or Pewterarm), but they’re going to need a good Smoker. Add to that some well-written, witty dialogue like what you see in Oceans Eleven, and you end up with an excellent author who has written a VERY, VERY entertaining book. Kelsier (the Danny Ocean of the novel) is running the whole shebang, but doesn’t it seem a little like he’s running something on the side? Is he ready to doublecross his own crew, or is he just dreaming bigger than any of them can imagine? The suspense keeps up until the very end.
Another thing that I think is AWESOME about Brandon Sanderson is his openness with his fans. When he writes, he does so methodically. He is a workhorse, setting goals, and meeting (or missing them) quite publicly. When he sets out to write a book, he estimates the amount of words he plans to write. Sometimes the story takes him less or more, but he has that estimate, and with it he sets up a counter of sorts on his website. Go there now, http://www.brandonsanderson.com, and see the counters on the left side of the screen. This is a tremendous amount of openness that most writers, even when they have a good relationship with their fans, do not usually trouble themselves to attempt. Another thing he does is write annotations on each of his chapters as he writes and re-reads them, and posts them on his website. This is akin to the director’s commentary you might find on a DVD, but for EACH CHAPTER of his books. I mention that the Ocean’s Eleven similarities were intentional. I know this because I read some annotations of the earliest chapters, and I read it from his own hand. He does these chapter annotations so as to avoid spoilers as much as possible, so people can finish a chapter and can go immediately read some of what was going on in the author’s head. Talk about openness!! I’ve never heard of another author doing this, and it endears him to me. He is rapidly becoming my favorite current author for this reason primarily. I love going to read the annotations and see some of the things he was considering, and why he chose to do them the way he did. Character developments that changed over time, or were dropped entirely, and why. Some deleted scenes. It provides us with a glimpse into the forge of the author’s mind, and it really is quite fascinating. In an early chapter, when you meet one of the major characters, Sanderson writes that he was pressured by his editor to write out a description of a scene that he let occur “off-screen”. He explains why he chose to resist and why he feels it’s more dramatic for the scene to occur where the reader cannot read it. He also explains a technical reason for omitting the scene, namely that he relies a great deal on detailed descriptions of Allomancy to fuel his actions scenes, and such a scene would have required too much detail in such an early scene. Such a description fits much better a little later in the novel.
Those are the pro’s, and the con’s are relatively few. Perhaps it is because I can’t imagine living without a certain level of trust in my life among the people about whom I care deeply. Maybe it’s because I’ve never imagined feeling any other way, but I feel that trust is essential. One of the man characters, perhaps the main character in the novel, Vin, is a little too…persistent in her distrust of people. It annoyed me at first, when the crew seemed so worth a great deal of trust. However, this is a large part of her character development, and as with everything in this novel, it’s done masterfully. Anything else? No, not really.
To close, I really enjoyed this novel, and am looking forward to the other two. I don’t want to give anything away, but not all is as it seems, and the characters of the novel end up with a good many of their assumptions challenged or shattered by the end. I’m eager to see what else Sanderson will reveal about his epic story in the next two books, and which of my own preconceptions and assumption he will shatter, with me as a willing participant in the process. I HIGHLY recommend this novel to anyone who likes fantasy, even a little, as a masterful telling of an excellent, engaging story.

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