Book Review - Mistborn

Mistborn: The Final Empire
Brandon Sanderson
Tor Books

Brandon Sanderson has had a pretty awesome past few years. His debut novel, Elantris, was well-received by critics and readers, and also caught the eye of Harriet Rigney, the widow of the prominent and bestselling Wheel of Time author, Robert Jordan. Based on his work, Sanderson was selected by Rigney and the editors at Tor to complete the Wheel of Time series, and has successfully published numerous original works as well. Not too shabby, if you ask me. Mistborn: The Final Empire, published in 2006, is the first volume in Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy.

Now that I've dumped all that information out there, let's get to the juicy stuff: Mistborn (I'm leaving out "The Final Empire" in the interest of space, laziness, and sounding less like a total nerd) highlights Sanderson's strengths as a writer, as well as a few of his weaknesses. Starting with the positive, though, the worldbuilding and way that magic works in the novel are both utterly compelling and fascinating. "Magic" in Mistborn comes in the form of Allomancy, where certain people have the ability to manipulate the world around them by ingesting specific kinds of metals (For example, someone can ingest tin and use it to enhance their hearing and other senses). It's a system that's fairly easy to comprehend, but also offers up a multitude of interesting and unexpected possibilities. The world of Mistborn is equally simple on the surface, but is inhabited by such captivating characters that it feels rich and lived-in.

Sanderson's writing is nothing exceptional; his style is efficient (lacking the penchant for over-description that fantasy authors like Robert Jordan are notorious for) but doesn't really stand out from the crowd. Mistborn compensates for this by having an engaging plot, building tension gradually and subtly drawing the reader in. Unfortunately, the novel suffers from one of Sanderson's frequently annoying pacing techniques, where an immense amount of the action takes place in a final short spurt. It doesn't spoil the experience here, as the lead-up to the climax is highly enjoyable, but I do wish that the ending had been given a bit more space to unfold.

Mistborn is a solid fantasy novel, and definitely functions to pique interest in the rest of the trilogy. While the ideas within the book aren't quite as complex and interesting as I get the impression they were supposed to be, the adventure elements are executed quite well, and at least it manages to successfully distance itself from the standard fantasy hero archetype in some ways (particularly in the fascinating character of Kelsier). There's nothing extremely remarkable about Mistborn, but it met all of my expectations as a fantasy fan and left me wanting more - again, not too shabby. (Speaking of wanting more, I just finished the second book in the trilogy, so look for a review soon. Spoilers - I thought it was pretty awesome.)

Grade: B