The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

I have been severely avoiding writing reviews. I have three drafts made of partial reviews that I plan to get up sometime in July. I’ve been reading a few different books and have had trouble finding one that catches my attention enough to sit down and read it. Game of Thrones has caused me to fall asleep multiple times this week. So, I’m hoping it picks up soon. Even Harry Potter could barely hold my attention — I have almost given up on my annual summer read, but we’ll see! Anyways, on with the review!

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The Hero of Ages is the third and final book in the Mistborn trilogy. It is a 748 page fantasy novel. Just a warning — if you haven’t read the first two of the series, you are probably going to be confused and things are going to be spoiled for you. If you’ve read them, or don’t plan to, read on!

The main plot of this book centers around Elend trying to save his kingdom from the deadly mists that are blocking sunlight, killing crops, and now even killing people. He also has to convince major cities that his rule is best, and that they should join his kingdom. Another important plot focus is Vin and her struggle against Ruin, the force that wishes to destroy the world. Through their struggles, you get to learn a lot more about the Lord Ruler, which I find fascinating. A smaller point in the plot was Spook, the Tineye. He really rose up from being a passable character to someone who mattered and someone I cared about. I really enjoyed how his character grew throughout the series.

Though those points are excellent and the writing for them also wonderful, my favorite focus was that of Sazed. His struggle after the horrible event he faces in The Well of Ascension causes him to doubt his faith and from there, doubt that he should be preaching his 300+ dead religions to others. He ends up looking through each religion trying to find which one is true, and fails miserably. I really connected with him in his struggle, and how he spirals downward into doubt. How his part ended in the book was absolutely amazing — it was easily my favorite part in the whole series.

Sanderson is an absolute genius with foreshadowing — the things that come to pass in the end of the novel are so clearly the things that HAD to happen that it blew my mind. I won’t say that it ends “happily ever after” as I don’t believe a world with this much strife SHOULD end that way. Well, I don’t wish to give anything away, so I suppose I’ll just suggest you go read this series. If you like fantasy, sci-fi, magic, strategy, or anything like that, I’m positive you will love these books just as much as I did. So what are you waiting for? Go read them!

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

This is the second book in the Mistborn series; it’s a 763 page fantasy novel. I will warn you now that if you haven’t read the first one (and plan to) you might not want to read this review. I was going to try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but there is so much that I might accidentally give away, it’s not worth trying.

This story starts off with Elend Venture as king of the New Empire faced with his father, Straff Venture’s approaching army. Straff’s larger force is threatening to take control of Luthadel. The entire novel deals with the threat of Straff’s army (and a couple other interesting threats) against Luthadel, and how the crew deals with them. Vin is now put on guard duty for Elend — she really explores her power, and learns what it is to be ruthless. Vin has become more confident and Elend is now the one working his way into being confident in his role as king.

We are introduced to a new character in this book — the Watcher. I’ll give a little bit of a spoiler and say the Watcher is Zane, a mistborn who hides and watches Vin and Elend, making Vin extremely anxious. Zane is one of my favorite characters in this book, and although Sanderson did use his POV sometimes, I could have used even more. Zane is supposedly insane, and I really enjoyed his inner conflicts when in the presence of other people. Sanderson explores not only characters outside of the original crew, but other species, as well. Learning about koloss and kandra (mostly kandra, I’ll admit), was fascinating. Drawing it out through dialogue, rather than narrative worked really well. Again, I was pleasantly surprised at Sanderson’s world building expertise.

I was so relieved that this novel was very different from Mistborn. Rather than just continuing the story, Sanderson expands on the world and increases our knowledge of it. It was also interesting to read from the many, many different view points. We get to see things from both sides of the struggles surrounding Luthadel, and some perspectives away from the city. I thought this was an excellent way to keep things interesting, and to break up the monotony of the siege in Luthadel.

Through a few characters’ POV, we see a lot of study surrounding the Deepness.  I love the little excerpts from journals at the beginning of each chapter that had to do with the Deepness (and Alendi and Rashek). Another part of the book I enjoyed was seen through Sazed’s POV (he is one of the people studying the Deepness). His area of study is that of religion, and he has over 300 religions recorded that the Lord Ruler stamped out in order to form the Steel Ministry. Though not much is known of his own religion (Terris), he manages to uncover a lot of things that mention it, which is where we get the story of the Well of Ascension and the Hero of Ages. The Terris (or religious, I suppose) aspects of this novel are amazing — I was dumbfounded at the end of the novel when everything came together (huzzah foreshadowing!).

Just like Mistborn, I was interested in the first couple hundred pages, but not riveted. However, once I got in the tw0- and three-hundred pages, it was a struggle to put the book down. I finished about the last 350 pages in one day. If you enjoyed Mistborn, you can’t not read this. If you haven’t read Mistborn, get on it! It is so worth your time. And trust me, I really haven’t given that many spoilers — nothing you couldn’t get from reading the blurb of the second book… and don’t read the blurb of the third book if you plan to read the series! Anyway, I want to say this book also comes highly recommended. I will be starting The Hero of Ages shortly, and hope to finish it before break is over and I have to go to class again.