Clockwork Reviews: The Mistborn Trilogy, by Brandon Sanderson

I hadn’t heard of – well more like read anything – by Brandon Sanderson until recently. A few of my friends discovered Sanderson, and his work, in the wake of Robert Jordon’s death. Sanderson was brought in to finish The Wheel of Time series, the last book due later this year. As such I only recently came across Sanderson’s work and was swayed into reading The Mistborn Trilogy on a recommendation from a friend and its premise: “What if the prophesied hero had failed to defeat the Dark Lord?”  Really though—who wouldn’t be intrigued by that?

One of the biggest things I loved about the series is that I virtually inhaled it in five days. That might not sound impressive, but each book in the Trilogy goes just over the 700 page mark. I bring up how long it took me to read because lately, although there have been a few good books in my hands, none have had me defy sleep to find out what happens next. It is classic “page turner” fantasy. I loved it.

The short version of the Trilogy goes something like this: there is a Dark Lord—although to be honest there’s always some dark/evil overlord figure right?—and yes he is creepy and old and not to forget: very, very powerful. There’s a race of people who have been enslaved for centuries, and if they just worked together things would change, but as usual there are countless reasons why that hasn’t worked. Yet, despite being all kinds of miserable, there is still that all important thing, HOPE [insert oooh aaah music here]. There is a mastermind – in this one criminal – and of course the ever present unlikely heroine: a street urchin. So far, sounds like your typical fantasy book, right?

The Trilogy tells the tale of what happens when the criminal mastermind,  and a street urchin band to together and bring down a government that has oppressed its people for 1000 years. It’s a gritty take on High Fantasy that is not seen enough. And of course there’s the oh-so-cool magic system that is exquisitely worked out and executed with brilliance. I often find magic systems in Fantasy to not click with my understanding of the world, or they’re all too similar to other works of fiction. In The Final Empire, and the following two books, Sanderson’s magic isn’t this careful balance, nor is it something very easily abused; it is rare and characters with the full complement of casting abilities are rarer still.

Five take-home points to The Mistborn Trilogy:

• There are enough plot twists to keep things well paced, and keep you from knowing just what is going to happen.
• Character development isn’t placed to the side for the sake of action.
• There is enough time given to each character to aid attachment. This is always a bonus for me, the attraction of serial fiction lies in being able to know what happens next to your new friends – well they seem like friends to me, hence the sadness when done with a book (or when they are killed mid-way in the story…).
• There are a few great laugh out loud moments too, mostly from social interactions related to the slight girl meets boy moments.
• Great scene and character descriptions without being long-winded or just there with no real purpose.

As an added bonus—there is a new novel set in the world 300 years later, The Alloy of Law, and there is a Mistborn RPG too! The new novel has a slight Western feel to it, but I’ll leave that for another time. In the meantime, get out there and borrow the Mistborn Trilogy from a friend—or better yet, buy it.

You can follow Brandon Sanderson at his blog to find out more about his upcoming novels in 2012 – like the grand finale to the Wheel of Time.

CLOCKWORK REVIEWS is a new, regular column on Nevermet Press covering the current books in genre fiction and table-top roleplaying games. It comes to you every week, on Thursdays – like clockwork!