Mistborn: The Final Empire

Today, I'm going to discuss the book I just finished reading. I do not intend this to be an "official" review or anything of that nature. I'm just going to give some basic information about the book and you can decide if you actually want to read it. As a learning writer, I feel this will help me by looking at other writers' processes.

First of all, the book is written by Brandon Sanderson. Brandon Sanderson is a well-known fantasy writer. In addition to his own titles, he is also the author who finished the Wheel of Time series after the untimely passing of Robert Jordan. This is how he first came to may attention. I am a huge fan of the Wheel of Time series and was very sad when I learned of Robert Jordan's death and the possibility the series would never be finished.

When the news was announced that Brandon Sanderson would be finishing the series, I was skeptical at first. At the time, he was unknown to me, and I could only hope he would not ruin this series I had come to love. As it turns out, my fears were for naught. Brandon Sanderson is an excellent writer. In my opinion, he did a fantastic job of wrapping up the epic series that is Wheel of Time, and, since then, I have come to enjoy a couple of his own works.

The first work I read by him was actually one of his most recent: The Rithmatist. It is a very interesting book. The setting of the book is an alternate version of the United States where Rithmatists are people who have the ability to give power to chalk drawings. I found it to be a very unique system of "magic" and I don't recall having seen anything similar in the past. I was drawn to the book because of the title, thinking it would be math related in some point. I enjoy math quite a bit in all its forms, and it is very crucial to game design, which, as you know, is another field I'm in which I'm interested. I was not let down because the system of magic has its roots in geometry and trigonometry. Today's post is not about The Rithmatist, so I will just leave it at that, though.

After The Rithmatist, I looked for another Sanderson novel to read next. In talking with friends about Sanderson finishing the Wheel of Time series, several of them suggested Mistborn. I decided to try it next. It is a trilogy consisting of The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages. He has started work on another series in the same world, but it is not complete yet.

The Final Empire is set in a world ruled by a tyrant. Many of the people are beaten down and work as slaves or serfs for the nobility. The plot of the book revolves around a rebellion against the Lord Ruler, the immortal leader of the Final Empire, as it is called.

One of the more interesting aspects of the book to me is the character of the Lord Ruler. As I mentioned above, the Lord Ruler is immortal and has ruled the Final Empire for 1,000 years. What made him stick out to me was the fact that he had been a hero in the past, before becoming a tyrant. He was a world-saving hero similar to what you might read about in other epic fantasy series. In my first post, I mentioned how I always wondered what happened to the characters after a series ended. This is sort of a window into that idea, showing that the hero of the story became corrupted and turned into a tyrant, thus spawning another story.

I also found the "magic" system in this series fascinating. It is called Allomancy and is based on burning metals ingested by the user. Different metals bestow different powers to the user. Sanderson goes into excellent detail explaining the uses of the metals and the ways they are linked with each other. I also find it better when the magic system used in an epic fantasy series is clearly defined and Sanderson does an excellent job of doing that.

My goal is to read the next book in the series soon. However, I have found I may have to take a break from serious reading. I have a lot of projects I'm focusing on this year, and reading my take away time I could be spending on those other projects. I doubt I will be able to stop reading for too long, though. It is too much a part of who I am. However, hopefully, I can stop just long enough to get some work down on those other projects.

Eddie