So, a friend from college lent me Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn this last semester, and I read it in early summer (back before the reading slump, when I was reading new books faster than I could review them).
I always read the cover blurb before I read a book – this one especially intrigued me:
“Once, a hero arose to save the world. A young man with a mysterious heritage courageously challenged the darkness that strangled the land.
He failed.”
I’ll admit, those first two sentences almost caused me to put the book down – generic fantasy much? But then I got to that little third sentence and I went “ooOOoohh!” and opened it up.
I quite enjoyed this book! It has the traditional story of a small band of rebels rising up against an evil overlord, but with several twists. The first is that the story takes place a thousand years after those first few sentences on the back cover, so the evil overlord is the hero who failed. The second is that the rebellion is planned very much like a heist (a la Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job, or Inception). Both of these make for an out-of-the-ordinary reading experience.
The magic system is also unique. Mages, called “mistborn” or “allomancers”, have a set of skills that can be accessed by “burning” metals inside of themselves. Pewter would bring out one power, bronze another, iron another, and so forth. These powers are surprisingly limited while being very effective and fun (both for the characters to use and for readers to watch).
And, on top of the coolness of the plot, the characters are likable and interesting! Bonus!
Anyways, I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the Fantasy genre, heist movies, and dystopian fiction. I hear it’s the first in a trilogy, which I’ll probably check out.
July 25, 2012
Golden Bookwyrm
3 responses to “Bimonthly Book Review – “Mistborn” by Brandon Sanderson”
stevebetz
July 26th, 2012 at 14:27
I actually LIKED the blurb for turning the traditional fantasy arc on its head by starting out in the aftermath of the hero losing. It’s like if the Empire had won in Star Wars.
I liked this book pretty well — it was fairly standard fantasy fare, but I liked the characters and the setting well enough. I thought the alchemy of the magic-power got a little clunky — “he burned copper and then burned iron and then burned…” but it was fun enough.
That said, I’ve had the other books, but haven’t quite picked them up to continue the story.
Golden Bookwyrm
July 26th, 2012 at 17:02
The “He failed.” sentence is what got me to read the book – I was like, “Oooh, didn’t see that coming!” It made me want to read the story.
I’ve read the blurbs on the backs of the other books in the series; they don’t draw me in quite like this one did, but I’ll get them from my library at some point. Maybe that’s another good thing about “Mistborn” – it can stand on its own.
stevebetz
July 27th, 2012 at 07:16
That’s a good point– I do think it stands pretty well on its own.