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It felt false, and, even worse, pointless.So, home-run in his first at-bat, flaming strikeout in his second, how was Sanderson to fare with his third (and final) attempt. Elend, in particular, regressed from a confident paramour to a self-doubting child thrust into a position of rule. We finally see Sazed come into his own, as he struggles with inner demons. He wanted to avoid infodumps in the text, but, you know. Instead of delivering on the promises of the first novel, Sanderson left his characters at a stalemate, giving them time to evolve, sure, but grinding the plot and world development to a halt. The plot twists are strong, the characters well-realized and the action is frenetic, but the politicking is wearying, the love stories are forced and the pacing is, at times, scattered and slow as watching grass grow. It brought me back to my roots, reminded me of when I first discovered the genre through the likes of Terry Brooks, Raymond E. In an age where Fantasy series often fall off the tracks, hit double-digits in number of volumes and putter out towards the end, Sanderson manages to tie off a compelling story in only three volumes.
The final 200 pages of the novel fly by as Sanderson brings the series to a satisfying, shocking conclusion. Maybe not for everyone, in the age of Joe Abercrombies and Hal Duncans, but an accessible novel that left me wanting more.Sanderson followed that up with The Well of Ascension, which turned out to be a massive disappointment. The Final Empire, the first volume of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy kicked my ass (in a good way). Let's call it a ground-rule-double. And, hell, he leaves a body count of major players that would make even George R.R.
Salvatore. Seemingly small elements from the early pages of The Final Empire fall into place and have cataclysmic effects on the outcome of the series. The Hero of Ages succeeds, but doesn't quite hit it out of the park like the first volume.Sanderson's an exhaustive outliner, so it's frustrating to wade through so much useless plot (the Siege of Luthadel in The Well of Ascension, the stale retread of bringing down a corrupt leader (two, actually) in The Hero of Ages) and self-indulgent character development at the cost of telling a fast, interesting story. A great blend of original ideas, charming characters a nicely self-contained story (no real cliffhangers to speak of), and good ol' fashioned '80's style fantasy.
These short snippets of text (a sentence to a couple of paragraphs long) were always a highlight, something I was constantly eager to get to, for they held many secrets, but also seemed like a bit of a cop-out. And TenSoon gives a unique perspective of the events, as well as being a key to many of the series secrets. He also paints his characters with a rather modern brush, and it doesn't always work.In all, Hero of Ages is a marked improvement on The Well of Ascension, but can't quite live up to the promises made by The Final Empire. Martin blush.Despite my grumblings about Sanderson spending so many of the early pages on philosophical/religious/political ramblings and theories, it was nice to see him using these to expand the roles of some of the minor characters from earlier in the series. It may have been unnecessary, but that constant internal monologuing of all the Point-of-View characters certainly leaves the series with a strong, memorable cast of characters.Sanderson tries to avoid the dreaded infodump by doling out a lot of information and history through the `epigraphs' before each chapter.
Sanderson is known for his breakneck endings (and Hero of Ages is no exception), but one has to wonder how the series could have succeeded if he had simply taken the plotting, action and revelations from the second and third volumes and worked it into one novel, cutting out all the fat that bloats down the first half of each.Still, Sanderson should be lauded for his endings, and his labyrinthine plotting. It's serviceable, and his description is never too much, but often feels mechanical and over-polished, like Sanderson's forcing the pieces together to make a point, rather than letting it all fall into place naturally. it's just too bad he couldn't have done it in two. `A rose called by any other name is still a rose.'Sanderson's prose and dialogue continues along the same course set by the first two volumes. Feist and R.A.
Marsh continues to kick ass and treads the thin line between villain and saviour, with the reader never quite knowing which side he is truly on. Once the revelations start rolling in, it's clear that Sanderson had things under control from the very beginning. Gone were most of the most interesting elements of The Final Empire (the forbidding Steel Inquisitors, most notably) and in their place were insipid, weak characters dealing with politics and love stories that I just didn't give a damn about. It's somewhat fitting that Sanderson was chosen to finish Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, considering how strongly the Mistborn `trilogy' screams to be a duology.
Prose:------The writing style is very effective and enjoyable. The classic battle between good and evil is switched to a battle between Preservation and Ruin/chaos. Most of the main characters do not survive which just feels right considering the world is just about to be destroyed. It is a good point played out very well.
Summary:--------The Hero of Ages is a satisfying conclusion to the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. The only issue is that the amount of writing could be condensed without sacraficing anything. The author respects the scale of destruction/chaos very well. The battle between Preservation and Ruin come to a very dramatic conclusion and a very interesting beginning for what will hopefully be a new series.The novel wraps up all the lose ends but it takes a long time to get there.
Characters:-----------The characters are well developed and make for very enjoyable reading. The descriptions are quite affective. My only issue with the novel is that it could have been editted down by 150 to 200 pages without losing anything in the condensation.World Setting:--------------The world is very well developed with some very interesting concepts. Creation is not possible without some part Preservation and Ruin which is the crux of the conflict.
On its own merits, I would rate "The Hero of Ages" a solid 4 to 4 1/2 stars. If he'd spent less time on the internal workings of characters' minds, the reader may have not been as primed for a few of the revelations that occur, and the revelations are well worth the time spent.The back of the book refers to an 'audacious' ending, and I've seen similar comments made. There are a few minor missteps along the way, or perhaps more items that I find distracting. This is actually a pretty necessary part of the book, but he does tread the same ground over and over again.
And there's one mystery that remains so when the book ends, but it's not really fundamental to the story itself so I was able to accept that the answer just wasn't going to be given (it sounds likely that the world of Mistborn will be revisited in the future, so this puzzle may yet be explained).Once again, Sanderson weaves a parallel narrative (brief italicized paragraphs at the start of each chapter) which ties into the main story. I'm not sure I would go that far, but it _was_ satisfying. This is one of the very few series that hasn't disappointed.I will point out that if you like every single thing neatly wrapped up and explained, no loose ends, you probably will be a bit upset. I mentioned in "The Well of Ascension" that that book made the revelation in "The Final Empire" even better. There are at least a couple of things that appear as though they'll be important and then they just kind of disappear without later reference. The characterizations that are Sanderson's strong suit in this series continue to impress.
Too often, writers don't seem to know how to end their books in a way that satisfies the story and the reader. Well, "The Hero of Ages" makes the first two books even better still and forces you to reassess your opinion of the villains and heroes in the previous stories.I haven't gone too much into the plot here, because I think the unraveling of the overall story and the puzzles within should be as unspoiled as possible, it really is done exceptionally well. Once again, he focuses a great deal on the internal monologues (sometimes dialogues) of his characters' minds. As I mentioned in my previous reviews, he never does it in a way that's too annoying, but I did sometimes think to myself, "Yeah yeah, I got it already." That said, I think that he had to tread a fine line there and he pulled it off.
The story has many astonishing (yet logical) twists. WOW). The plot goes smoothly, and connects amazingly throughout the whole trilogy.
I am an emotional person, but still. I recommend this book to any true reader; there is action, politics (not much, though), romance, and everything that makes a wonderful book. for a book to invoke those feelings.
The Mistborn trilogy is perhaps the best tale I have ever heard or read. (Yes, SOBBING. Easy 5 out of 5.
The characters each become a personal friend or enemy to the reader, and the details make the reader feel like they are actually there, in the book. Each book left me ecstatic, and the last book left me sobbing tears of happiness and sorrow.
I'm not sure I found TenSoon's little romance with the newer generation "girl" kandra believable. And why can't we ever find out what the last 2 allomantic metals are. Instead, I felt like reading through the book had a lot of simply getting by pages to understand what is going on, rather than solve whatever it is that needed to be solved.Randomly selecting a few things that I found problematic: Sazed's religious crisis is a stretch, and didn't seem in-character. Oh, and it also doesn't make sense that he killed OreSeur, seeming to be one of higher moral integrity (I know thats from book 2).And I wish that the book was a little less dark. Also, SPOILER: what happens to Marsh. If I could choose, I'd perhaps rate this close to 3.5 stars.
At this point in the series, I feel as though most of the mysteries regarding how stuff works in the universe should probably be revealed, and the book should focus more on narrating an exciting adventure. We never find out what makes a boy or girl kandra. As a whole, the entire Mistborn series is probably a 4.25 to me. I'd like to see some resolution here. (Not a reason to rate it lower, just a preference) This is because the first book and the universe that it creates is outstanding--Sanderson has borders on genius with his realm creation, and does pretty good with a lot in the series.However, the last two books have been rather unsatisfying.I kind of felt like there was too much of "stumbling through" the plot.
While there was some interesting insight in it (realizations regarding hope, trust), it was mostly smothered in the less enjoyable stuff.
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