Many people know about Brandon Sanderson because he’s finishing up the Wheel of Time series, but I had sadly never heard of him before last year. Thankfully, a friend remedied this by loaning me the first in the Mistborn trilogy, and now I’m definitely addicted to Sanderson. He actually was at a convention in my area last year and I’m so upset with myself that I didn’t know about him and therefore was not motivated to go!
Title: The series is Mistborn trilogy, and the first book is also called Mistborn
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Length: Trilogy, each book is about 650 pages (paperback)
Strengths:
- Unexpected but totally fitting plot twists
- The first book stands alone wonderfully, and only at the end do you realize how much more there is to know about this world
- Completely new (as far as I’m aware) magic systems! Metal is used as a fuel/storage for eight (to begin with) super human powers. Physics is also taken into account :D
- Completely new and interesting cultures and races that are definitely not traditional fantasy.
- Amazing battle scenes, wow can Sanderson write!
- The characters are entertaining, and they get much better developed later on
Weaknesses:
- I didn’t get as attached to the characters as I do with some books, Sanderson is clearly a plot writer
- The first book focuses a lot on political stuff as they work to bring down a dictatorship, and I had trouble keeping with it at first.
- There is a lot of death and Sanderson does not always spare the details
- Sanderson really wants you to fear and despise his bad guys, so he plays upon modern day fears with his Inquisitors (they have spikes through their eyes, gross)
Summary: Really, really amazing books that I highly recommend, as long as you have the stomach for it. Sometimes they are scary, often they are a bit gory, but it’s totally worth it for the amazing world that Sanderson has come up with.
PS: That friend that lent me the first book also worked with me on a programming project that we used Mistborn as inspiration for :D.
-A
About The Story 
Yay! I adore these books too, and I completely agree with your assessment of Brandon Sanderson’s writing (that he’s awesome and ridiculously good at intricate worldbuilding and magical systems). Also, his plot twists are incredible. I actually noticed that the legends were changing the first time one of them was misquoted, and I still had no idea why until the very end.
As to Zane . . . wow. I LOVE well-done crazy characters, so he fascinates me. And I was blown away by the way Sanderson introduced his mental issues. I mean, who starts a chapter with: ” ‘Kill him,’ God whispered”?!?! Nobody. That’s who. Ultimately, I think we were supposed to sympathize with him a bit, but not to the point where we forgive his crimes. We’re supposed to sympathize just enough to care that he may not have been crazy. And as to that, I personally think it’s the Deepness, but I may be completely off the mark.
So yeah. We should both read the last book and then squee about it (and Buffy!) together. Because I’m expecting something spectacular.
Love the review! And I miss you.
Yeah, it’s that last comment that “God” says “Of course I didn’t tell you to kill her” or something like that, that I was like huh… well which super naturally things do we know that needed Vin but nothing else…. well… I can list one >.> lol!
Oh! So did you notice a discrepancy between what Sazed was reading and the beginning of each chapter? Or two things that Sazed read? God, that’s just so awesomely clever of Sanderson and so subtle! He really gives his readers a lot of credit for their ability to pick up on things >.> lol
Miss you toooooo!
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