Mistborn Series

I was away for the weekend enjoying the beach, in the middle of September...this is one thing living in the South is good for. I turned another year old on Thursday, and to make it less depressing, I packed up some reading and drove to the coast of SC and sat around doing nothing but eating, swimming and reading for 3 days. During this period I finished one of the many books on my to-be-read pile. This one was not a swift read, but not because it was bad. In fact I enjoyed this a lot and will be getting the next two in the trilogy today.


Mistborn(Mistborn Series #1)
By: Brandon Sanderson

Write up:

Brandon Sanderson, fantasy’s newest master tale spinner, author of the acclaimed debut Elantris, dares to turn a genre on its head by asking a simple question: What if the hero of prophecy fails? What kind of world results when the Dark Lord is in charge? The answer will be found in the Mistborn Trilogy, a saga of surprises and magical martial-arts action that begins in Mistborn.

For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the “Sliver of Infinity,” reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler’s most hellish prison. Kelsier “snapped” and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark.

Kelsier recruited the underworld’s elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Only then does he reveal his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot.

But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel’s plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she’s a half-Skaa orphan, but she’s lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets, and gotten it. She will have to learn to trust, if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.

This book was very interesting, and caught my attention from the very beginning. The world created can only come from a very scary, imaginative mind. We are thrown into this world right away and the picture is built of a world where dark ash falls from the sky, at night the world is covered in a mysterious mist that the locals fear, the world is ruled by someone called the Lord Rule who controls everything and everyone with fear and brutality and is immortal...and the majority of the population are slaves. The Skaa are treated as less than animals. They slave and work the land for the Nobles, people whose families supported the Lord Ruler in this establishment of the Final Empire, and their lives can be taken from them at any point. Those that don't work on the plantations, live in the cities working the mines, or living in slums in poverty and crime. The Nobles control all of the power and money in the Empire and the Lord Ruler controls the Nobles.

The Nobles also have special abilities, given to them by the Lord Ruler as mythology goes. These power comes through the manipulation of metals. The metal is ingested and then 'burned' to access the power it gives you. But not all Nobles have this power, and no Skaa is allowed to have any of this power. Any Noble that beds a Skaa, by law has kill the woman to insure she births no children, because those kids could gain access to these powers...something the Lord Ruler works hard to make sure doesn't happen. Some Nobles with these powers are more powerful than others; some are born with access to all 10 sources of power...they are called Mistborn. Vin, who we meet as a Skaa thief is a half-bred Skaa with access to these powers. Her life is a life of constant beatings and fear of being discovered by the Empire's inquisitors. But as part of her role in a thieving band, she is found out and meets Kel, who saves her. Through him she discovers she is Mistborn...a Skaa Mistborn, which there has only been one other in all the centuries of the Final Empire: the being Kel. She joins him in his plans to overthrow the Final Empire...something she is convinced is crazy and is bound to fail.

Each chapter of the book is started by a narration from a boy, the Hero of Ages. It seems they are his journal entries from centuries before, kept as he details his journey to save the world from the threat called "The Deepness." From what we start seeing with these entries, and from the hints thrown about who this boy is as the book progresses, we see that something went terribly wrong with his quest. All through the book as Vin grows from street urchin to noble spy woman in disguise; and Kel's plans start to take form even through many failures and urgings from others to quit....we see that this boy and the tale he is telling is the key to destroying the Lord Ruler in the end. And what an ending it was, with a nice twist (though some might guessed it before the reveal) that is both satisfying and sad...with hints of more trouble to come. It was a great read, and a great adventure. Can't wait for more.

Grade: A