Review: ‘The Hero of Ages’ by Brandon Sanderson

Tricked into releasing the evil spirit Ruin while attempting to close the Well of Ascension, new emperor Elend Venture and his wife, the assassin Vin, are now hard-pressed to save the world.This adventure brings the Mistborn epic fantasy trilogy to a dramatic and surprising climax as Sanderson’s saga offers complex characters and a compelling plot, asking hard questions about loyalty, faith and responsibility.

To all those people who told me Brandon Sanderson is a man who knows how to write a mind-boggling story: you were right and I owe you a coffee. I don’t think I’ve ever read a trilogy with such intricate world-building, with so many layers and plot twists, and bits of what turned out to be foreshadowing in the first book that are only explained in the third.

The amount of plotting Sanderson must do before he starts writing that first page truly blows my mind.

The Hero of Ages is the third book in the series, and it nicely wraps up the trilogy, giving me explanations for questions I hadn’t even realised I was asking — not really. For example, I remember thinking pretty early on in the series that it was strange that burning tin lets an allomancer see through the Mists. It turns out there’s a reason for that. There’s a reason for everything! There’s even a reason for Sazed’s frustrating naval-gazing and waffling on about dead religions (because, oh my god, I wanted to shake him so badly; those waffle-y bits are actually what made me love this book slightly less than the other two).

Given I’ve been fully immersed in this trilogy in the past month, I had enough depth and currency of understanding to see a lot of the plot twists coming this time around. However, I feel a bit like Vin and Elend must have, fighting an all-powerful god like Ruin: like I thought I knew what Sanderson was going to do, but he only let me feel that way so he could lull me into a false sense of security. Then BAM.

That last plot twist is a doozy. I have an epic book hangover, and a need to buy another Sanderson trilogy ASAP.

Review: ‘The Well of Ascension’ by Brandon Sanderson

The impossible has been accomplished. The Lord Ruler – the man who claimed to be god incarnate and brutally ruled the world for a thousand years – has been vanquished. But Kelsier, the hero who masterminded that triumph, is dead too, and now the awesome task of building a new world has been left to his young protégé, Vin, the former street urchin who is now the most powerful Mistborn in the land, and to the idealistic young nobleman she loves.

As Kelsier’s protégé and slayer of the Lord Ruler she is now venerated by a budding new religion, a distinction that makes her intensely uncomfortable. Even more worrying, the mists have begun behaving strangely since the Lord Ruler died, and seem to harbor a strange vaporous entity that haunts her.

Stopping assassins may keep Vin’s Mistborn skills sharp, but it’s the least of her problems. Luthadel, the largest city of the former empire, doesn’t run itself, and Vin and the other members of Kelsier’s crew, who lead the revolution, must learn a whole new set of practical and political skills to help. It certainly won’t get easier with three armies – one of them composed of ferocious giants – now vying to conquer the city, and no sign of the Lord Ruler’s hidden cache of atium, the rarest and most powerful allomantic metal.

As the siege of Luthadel tightens, an ancient legend seems to offer a glimmer of hope. But even if it really exists, no one knows where to find the Well of Ascension or what manner of power it bestows.

The Well of Ascension is book two in Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy, and I would strongly suggest not trying to read it as a stand-alone novel. I reviewed the first book here if you want to decide whether this series is for you. That review also largely holds true for book two. I’ve given this book 4.5 stars as well, though my niggles are different this time around. (I considered a 4-star rating instead for this one, but the plot twists deserved that extra half star!)

Still, let’s recap.

Things I loved

A little slice of a big  world. Despite the fact that almost the entire story is set in or immediately around Luthadel, there is a sense of a much bigger world out there, one that has an impact on Luthadel and the fate of the former empire. Still, I liked the narrower focus — sometimes, fantasy novels that involve army-scale warfare start to read like a book on military tactics. That is never the case here, which is — to me — a good thing.

A cast of characters who aren’t black and white. We gained a sense in the first book that even the Lord Ruler, the tyrant demigod who ruled for 1000 years, might not be 100% evil (maybe 90%? 85%?). On the other side of the coin, Kelsier, the supposed hero of the piece, had grand ideals but was just as brutal in his own way. That trend continues in the second book. Elend is sweet but idealistic to the point of foolishness, while Vin is highly competent but torn and indecisive. We get to see snippets from a much broader range of characters in The Well of Ascension, giving us a greater sense of what motivates them, why they think they are the good guy. My most unexpected favourite is Breeze, the lazy and manipulative soother who somehow turns out to be very sweet, in his own way.

The plot twists and turns (like a twisty turny thing). I thought I had a pretty good idea of where the second book might go, and in some ways I was right, but in others … yeah, there were some massive reveals in The Well of Ascension that I did not see coming. I love it when that happens! 😀

The ending struck a balance between completion and dun-dun-DUN. Writing a series with a meta-plot over three books can be tricky. But there is enough of a resolution in The Well of Ascension to make me happy, while there is also enough left unresolved (and we’re talking big ticket items here) to keep me reading. I expect I’d be less sanguine if I’d found this series back when it was first released, though. Knowing I have the third book sitting here, ready to go, really helps.

Things I was less fond of

I wanted to shake some of the characters. One plot device that sets my teeth on edge is when there’s a disconnect between characters that could easily be resolved if the two of them would just say what they are thinking. I know people aren’t always 100% honest in real life, and I can see how the misunderstandings came about in the book … but at the same time, gah! I wanted to shake both Vin and Elend until their teeth rattled. (But mainly Vin. Though she’d kill me in a messy fashion if I tried.)

I wanted to give some of the characters advice. There were times when I could see potential solutions to problems that the characters didn’t even seem to consider. For example, early on in the book, Vin and Elend discover there’s a potential shape-changing infiltrator in the palace, leaking information to one of their enemies. Vin discovers that said shape-changer is immune to emotional allomancy (magic); she also knows due to circumstance that Breeze, the best emotional allomancer in the city and probably in the world, absolutely cannot be the imposter. Why not tell Breeze about the issue, set him to testing people’s reactions? Even if it wouldn’t have helped in the end, it would have made the characters seem slightly less ineffectual at times. (Of course, maybe the goal was for them to seem ineffectual, in which case, good job, Sanderson!)

Final comments

The fight scenes are truly brutal, but if this were a romance you’d describe the heat level as “sweet”. I gather that could be said of all of Sanderson’s books, so if that’s what you look for in a fantasy novel — as well as an intricate world that focuses on people rather than large-scale politics — then you should definitely read this series.

Review: “Mistborn: The Final Empire” by Brandon Sanderson

In a world where ash falls from the sky, and mist dominates the night, an evil cloaks the land and stifles all life. The future of the empire rests on the shoulders of a troublemaker and his young apprentice. Together, can they fill the world with color once more?

In Brandon Sanderson’s intriguing tale of love, loss, despair and hope, a new kind of magic enters the stage — Allomancy, a magic of the metals.

After devouring and enjoying Elantris, I decided to pick up the first book in what may be Brandon Sanderson’s most famous series: Mistborn. And I can see why so many people recommended it to me. Holy wow.

Things I loved

The unique world-building. Instead of traditional wizardly magic, or magic that takes a formless power and shapes it via one mechanism or another, Sanderson based the magic in his world on the idea that some people can consume or “burn” certain metals and alloys to achieve defined effects. I’d love a glimpse into Sanderson’s mind, that he was able to come up with something like this! But I’m not sure you could convince me to swallow a lump of iron, no matter what the supernatural outcome…

A variety of characters that I grew to love. Despite what the blurb suggests, Kelsier and Vin aren’t trying to save the world alone — they are part of a crew of thieves contracted to do a “job”: overthrow the government. Even though some of the crew were crazy-impulsive (Kelsier), others were vain (Breeze), others were surly (Marsh), and some made cynicism an art (Vin), I loved all of the main cast to one degree or another. The fact that these characters — all of these characters — have flaws makes them seem more real.

Of all of them, Vin is the one that experiences the most character growth, probably followed by Kelsier and the nobleman Elend. This are the book’s three main characters (each sharing the POV at one point or another), so that’s to be expected.

The sense of a larger story. Because this is the first book in a trilogy, there are a lot of things left unresolved, most of them in the backstory. It gives the world a sense of depth and makes me eager for the next instalment. For example (note: very light spoilers follow), what happened to the Lord Ruler at the Well of Ascension? What’s the go with the ancient, apparently amorphous bad guy known as “the Deepness”? How is said amorphous, gloomy bad guy connected to the amorphous, gloomy mists that shroud everything come nightfall? Are the ash mounds really volcanoes that will erupt and kill us all?!

The plot twist. It’s one of those ones where you feel like you should have seen it coming afterwards, but that isn’t blindingly obvious beforehand. (At least, it wasn’t to me.) Nuff said.

Things I struggled with a little (especially at first)

The talking. A lot of time, the characters are talking, plotting and scheming. Sometimes they are confiding or manipulating too. This was often levied with humour or with emotion, but early on in the book I found some of the crew’s planning sessions a bit of a slog.

The metal magic. Once Kelsier explained how the metals work to Vin, I was fine. But there’s one scene from his point of view before that, where he’s doing all sorts of things with different metals, and I got really, really lost.

Other observations

There is no sex (there’s barely even a kiss); however, there is quite a bit of violence and some fairly grisly corpses. I wasn’t bothered but YMMV.

Review: ‘Elantris’ by Brandon Sanderson

Elantris was the capital of Arelon: gigantic, beautiful, literally radiant, filled with benevolent beings who used their powerful magical abilities for the benefit of all. Yet each of these demigods was once an ordinary person until touched by the mysterious transforming power of the Shaod. Ten years ago, without warning, the magic failed. Elantrians became wizened, leper-like, powerless creatures, and Elantris itself dark, filthy, and crumbling.

Arelon’s new capital, Kae, crouches in the shadow of Elantris. Princess Sarene of Teod arrives for a marriage of state with Crown Prince Raoden, hoping — based on their correspondence — to also find love. She finds instead that Raoden has died and she is considered his widow. Both Teod and Arelon are under threat as the last remaining holdouts against the imperial ambitions of the ruthless religious fanatics of Fjordell. So Sarene decides to use her new status to counter the machinations of Hrathen, a Fjordell high priest who has come to Kae to convert Arelon and claim it for his emperor and his god.

But neither Sarene nor Hrathen suspect the truth about Prince Raoden. Stricken by the same curse that ruined Elantris, Raoden was secretly exiled by his father to the dark city. His struggle to help the wretches trapped there begins a series of events that will bring hope to Arelon, and perhaps reveal the secret of Elantris itself.

My high fantasy audiobook kick continues with Elantris. After I finished Patrick Rothfuss’s two books, I tweeted that I was after something similar: non-political high fantasy that isn’t too grim (ie not Game of Thrones). Pretty much every tweet recommended Brandon Sanderson. The friend who’d gotten me onto Rothfuss in the first place suggested I start with Sanderson’s debut. Since it’s that rare beast — a stand-alone epic fantasy novel — I figured, why not?

And I LOVED Elantris.

It’s a rare example of a split POV book that works — and there aren’t just two but three points of view, those of Raoden, Sarene and Hrathen. The chapters rotate between the three — in that order, something I admired from a craft point of view. Keeping the pacing going and making each thread interesting enough that you always have something to say with each character is hard, and Sanderson did an admirable job. I actually didn’t mind when it switched to a new character, where other multiple-POV books have lost me in the past. I also really liked the way he interwove the various plot threads and foreshadowing, with elements sprinkled through each character’s scenes.

As far as the characters go, Raoden is a sweetheart — a genuinely kind and positive person, something that serves him well when he gets to Elantris. Sarene is a strong-willed diplomat who is just looking for somewhere to belong. And Hrathen is the bad guy. Only actually not. In high fantasy, usually the villain is truly evil, and after Sarene’s introduction you expect Hrathen to be that sort of person. But he’s actually quite sympathetic, and his motivations are (despite the emphasis on world conquest) coming from a good place.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t villains in Elantris, just that Hrathen isn’t necessarily one of them. 😉

I also really enjoyed the magical system, which wasn’t your traditional spellbook memorisation. It’s a bit closer to the Will and the Word that Eddings used (way back when), but the word is written and precision is critical to the process.

I downloaded the tenth-anniversary edition audiobook and there was some extra content, including a deleted storyline and some discussion of the craft. I found Sanderson’s reflections on the book quite interesting. Sanderson commented that his craft has advanced since he wrote Elantris, and I can see the elements of the story that he’d probably fix if he re-did it now (such as Hrathen’s info dumps or some of the repetitive description — I lost track of the number of times we’re told that Sarene’s uncle has a scratchy voice). Still, the craft that went into Elantris is still admirable, and if he gets better in his future works, I’m definitely keen to read them next.

Review: ‘The Wise Man’s Fear’ by Patrick Rothfuss

“There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.”

My name is Kvothe.

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trehon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me.

So begins the tale of a hero told from his own point of view — a story unequaled in fantasy literature. Now in The Wise Man’s Fear, an escalating rivalry with a powerful member of the nobility forces Kvothe to leave the University and seek his fortune abroad. Adrift, penniless, and alone, he travels to Vintas, where he quickly becomes entangled in the politics of courtly society. While attempting to curry favor with a powerful noble, Kvothe uncovers an assassination attempt, comes into conflict with a rival arcanist, and leads a group of mercenaries into the wild, in an attempt to solve the mystery of who (or what) is waylaying travelers on the King’s Road.

All the while, Kvothe searches for answers, attempting to uncover the truth about the mysterious Amyr, the Chandrian, and the death of his parents. Along the way, Kvothe is put on trial by the legendary Adem mercenaries, is forced to reclaim the honor of the Edema Ruh, and travels into the Fae realm. There he meets Felurian, the faerie woman no man can resist, and who no man has ever survived…until Kvothe.

In The Wise Man’s Fear, Kvothe takes his first steps on the path of the hero and learns how difficult life can be when a man becomes a legend in his own time.

The Wise Man’s Fear is the second in The Kingkiller Chronicle. If you haven’t read the first book, then this isn’t the place to start; they need to be read in order. This book continues Kvothe’s retelling of his life to date, picking up where the first book leaves off. It is now day two of Kvothe telling the story and, again, the book jumps between Kvothe’s tale and events in the inn where he is telling it.

I adore the foreshadowing that Rothfuss is able to do by virtue of glimpses of “current” events. One non-spoilery example is the fact that Kvothe at some point killed a king. I’ve been getting a kick out of building my own little theory as to who that might be and why, and will be very interested to see how the story unfolds. Likewise, the fate of Denna has a question mark over it. Regardless of what I think of her (I have mixed feelings), she is definitely past-Kvothe’s love, and her marked absence from present-Kvothe’s life (and his obvious depression) suggests she meets some kind of sticky end.

I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS, YOU GUYS.

There are elements of this book that I didn’t enjoy as much as the first book, although I suppose they are inevitable given the story is about the development of a hero (who must at some point have learned magic and how to fight). They mostly revolve around loose threads. I get really frustrated when characters seem to put one (quite important) thing on hold to chase up another. I’m not talking about Kvothe taking a break from university — I think that was a good idea to mix up the story — but when he decided to take a several month (several hundred page) detour before reporting back to Alveron, I got a bit twitchy. Especially with the Felurian episode … although why that was important became clear by the end of the book.

Still, even the more tangential bits of history are interspersed with action set in the present, and there are little mysteries unfolding there too. For example, what is going on with his student, Bast (a character I really enjoy)?

Overall I’ve given The Wise Man’s Fear 4.5 stars. It was very good, but the first book in the series was very, very good. Regardless, I will definitely be going back for book three, Doors of Stone, when it comes out … which will hopefully be some time this decade. *sniff*

Review: ‘The Name of the Wind’ by Patrick Rothfuss

Told in Kvothe’s own voice, this is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen. The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the murder of a king form a gripping coming-of-age story unrivaled in recent literature. A high-action story written with a poet’s hand, The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece that will transport readers into the body and mind of a wizard.

I used to read a lot of epic fantasy in my teens and 20s. Eventually I lost the endurance for it — for the sort of weighty tomes that give you a concussion if you fall asleep reading them in bed. Also, I discovered YA and urban fantasy (both of which don’t run that long, as a rule).

Just over a week ago, I was lamenting to friends that I had finished my current audiobook series (The Hollows by Kim Harrison). These friends are all book nerds who didn’t give up on epic fantasy, and all of them recommended Patrick Rothfuss.

They were right.

It took me a chapter or two to get into The Name of the Wind. The whole “three silences” thing at the start threw me — although that sort of epic, bardlike introduction to a fantasy novel isn’t unusual, like I said, it’s been a while. Still, since I’d paid for the audiobook already I persisted, and it was so worth it.

The flashback-style mechanism of Kvothe telling his story to a scribe means that we get to jump between his detailing his childhood misadventures and the present. Because most of the story is the former, the latter serves as excellent foreshadowing of tragedy to come. Interestingly, the latter also contains foreshadowing for events that presumably happen later in the series, once the retelling is complete. (At least, that’s my read of things.) I admire the level of craft that has gone into that.

Kvothe himself is an interesting character, and by maybe halfway through the book I’d fallen a little bit in love with him (present Kvothe, not the 15-year-old whose tale comprises the bulk of the book, because That Would Be Wrong). He’s the kind of character that is brilliant but not Mary Stu-ish; he’s rather cocky and arrogant, and gets himself into all kinds of trouble.

But I think my favourite thing about him is that he sees the beauty in things. For example, I’d noticed that all the girls he met he described as beautiful, and at first I wondered if this was a sort of wish fulfilment thing on the part of the author — but then one of the other present-day characters pulled him up on one of his descriptions, pointing out the flaws in one girl’s appearance. That made it clear to me that Kvothe (at least young Kvothe) just had rose-coloured glasses on. I thought that was sweet. 🙂

The world-building is excellent, masterfully handled; the bulk of Kvothe’s story covers his time in the university, which means we get to learn the mechanics of magic as he does.

My biggest bugbear about this book is that Goodreads tells me this came out in 2007, and the one and only sequel came out in 2011. That means I’m going to be in the market for a new audiobook series very soon, because I doubt the third book will be out any time soon…

Maybe I’ll look for another epic fantasy audiobook after this. At least audiobooks have a much smaller risk of causing concussion.