The Mistborn Trilogy

Brandon Sanderson

This trilogy includes The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages. Since I basically read them straight through, I will just give you one review of the entire trilogy. The basic premise for this world is that there is a battle between good and evil (duh!), here named Ruin and Preservation. Certain humans have been granted allomantic powers. That is, power to ingest and burn metals, giving them special abilities. For example, burning iron allows you to pull on metals from a distance. Burning its alloy steel allows you to push on metals. There are 16 allomantic metal/alloy combinations and a rare few people are "Mistborn", with the ability to burn all metals. Others are just "Mistings" and can only burn one. In this world, Vin is a young street thief who gets caught up with a set of high level thieves with a plan to overthrough the Lord Ruler, who has ruled the empire for 1000 years. She (of course) discovers that she is mistborn, and develops her talents as the true heroine of the trilogy. We have battles, creatures, mysteries, political intrigue, rebellion, heroism, and the occasional twist or two in how we should think about the world. This is an extremely well written fantasy series that takes full advantage of the created world. For 4/5 of the series, I was enthralled, entertained and often surprised. I suppose one shouldn't bash an ending unless one has a better idea (which I don't) but the ending left me disappointed. It seemed to easy. In fact, reminded me of the ending of The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman, which I also loved, but left me flat. In this case, it looks like Sanderson has some follow-on trilogies to extend the world he has created. Curious about whether it helps or hurts...

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