The Well of Ascension (Mistborn Series #2)
By: Brandon Sanderson
Write up:
Sanderson's entertaining second Mistborn novel begins after most fantasy series end, when the team of brave and cunning heroes find that holding on to power is even harder than overthrowing the previous tyrant. Elend Venture, the scholarly new Lord Ruler of Luthadel, clings to power while Luthadel's aristocrats and merchants grumble and two enemy armies-one led by Elend's father, Lord Straff-camp outside the city gates. Fortunately, Elend can rely on help from his lover and unofficial court assassin, the young allomancer Vin, but her magical metal-using ability makes her a target. An orphan of decidedly low origins, Vin is also having trouble adapting to her position as royal consort, especially since the underclass skaa, newly freed by Elend, look to her as their protector. Meanwhile, the ancient evil known as the Deepness is rising once again. This entertaining read will especially please those who always wanted to know what happened after the good guys won.
While the first book focused mostly action, fisticuffs, cool powers and then some character drama, the second installment focused a lot more on developing the characters. Don't get me wrong...it had all that other ass kicking stuff, but the main focus was on the growth of the main characters left from the previous books: how they are handling their new found power, how it changes them, etc, etc. Since I tend to appreciated character driven novels a bit more, this made me enjoy the book on a different level than the first.
There was more focus on the relationship between Vin and Elend. He was the son of a powerful noble, and Vin was a Skaa, the lowest of the low in their previous society. So how this relationship could work was explored. How could these two characters breach their difference, and conflicts to keep their life together? From the book we see that the problems they face are mainly internal. Elend feel powerless in the face of a woman he loved who could take down 100 men without blinking..and he can barely club someone in the head with his walking stick without tripping. He feels inadequate as a man and a King. Vin, is just insecure. She feels she is not good enough for a man of Elend's standing and goodness and she see that her power scares him. So we have a lot of scenes with them coming to terms with some of this. I read a lot of romance so I enjoy this, but I also get annoyed easily with it too...especially when the moping and self-pity, and bad decisions made out of love for the other person kicks in. I did want to smack Vin a couple times.
The books other main focus was the siege. Elend got raised as King rather hastily, and while he is a good man and a great mind...many of the people don't fully respect him. They see him as a boy, and just a placeholder until someone comes to take over the Central Dominance who is stronger. In that world stronger means anyone that can kill the most people, be the most ruthless and cunning. Poor Elend is many things...but not any of those things. With the Lord Ruler dead, various nobles start acting as warlords and declare themselves Kings of portions of the Final Kingdom. But they eye the Central Dominance, home of the Lord Ruler and rumored to have a store of precious Atium...that could finance any Kingdom and secure it's future. So Elend find himself surrounded by three armies set on killing him and taking over. One of those armies is led by his father. Inside his Kingdom, he is faced with an elected Assembly that views him as weak and is set on giving in to one of the armies to save themselves. So Elend spends most of the book fighting of sieges from inside his Kingdom and outside, and he loses many battles. But he changes after each one. The reader can see the man he is to become.
The rest of the book also continues it's mythology. Vin is left with the thought that killing the Lord Ruler was just the beginning. The Mist starts to act differently than it used to: comes out earlier, starts attacking people. She starts to feel that whatever the Lord Ruler did...he was in fact protecting them as he claimed. Perhaps the Deepness talked about in the book, that he defeated to rise to power, was real? And what if it was back now that the Lord Ruler was gone? What if it was never defeated to begin with? So along with the armies they have to fight, there is this ominous threat looming out there, waiting for something. As the book goes on, the reader gets a feeling that there is more to it than that, and a tangled web of lies and mystery starts to unveil. It is only towards the end of the book that some of it starts to be revealed and even the Lord Rulers decisions start to look different under the new information. It ends with Vin making a big mistake...because she is a good person and a noble person. Exactly what was needed to release the evil that waited for them. It was a satisfying, even though a bit depressing.
I like that the author seems to throw old fantasy cliques upside down and give you things you don't expect: an ordinary boy hero plucked from nowhere and on a quest to save the world from evil, but he fails. This leads to badness. The heroes quest is taken up again and this time bu someone even more brave and heroic and completed, but it is all a lie.... more badness. Very refreshing.
Overall grade: B+
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