posted
Brandon Sanderson's second novel, Mistborn is now out. It's amazing.
The general plot is that there's this evil guy, the Lord Ruler, who has ruled everything for a thousand years. He's immortal and extremely powerful, so even when people have tried to overthrow him, they fail.
Most people are in the caste called skaa and are worse off than slaves. The only people who appear to benefit from the situation are the nobles, some of whom have magical powers. They are descended from the Lord Ruler's friends when he came to power.
Meanwhile, a halfblood skaa named Kelsier who runs a thieving band decides he's going to pull the ultimate heist: overthrow the nobility, rob the Lord Ruler, and free the skaa. He also happens to be mistborn, which means that he is the most powerful kind of magician but also skaa, which makes him about one in a million.
He recruits a guttersnipe girl named Vin who also has mysterious abilities and a lot of emotional and trust issues. Their odds are extremely high against them, and yet they decide to try.
This book has it all: awesome duel scenes, politics, mystery, interesting characters, Austenesque balls (for the ladies), a great magic system, surprises, unputdownable tension, conflicts that aren't black and white, comedy, tragedy, and a fascinating villain.
Mistborn is the first book in a trilogy. Apparently Sanderson wrote all three books before selling any of them, so I hope that means the sequels will come out next year and the year after that. The nice thing about Mistborn is that it has an ending, and it is as satisfying as if it were a stand-alone novel. Things are wrapped up. There is still an unresolved conflict, but there is nothing like a cliffhanger. I respect Sanderson for managing to put together such a satisfying ending.
It's made it onto my top ten books list. I can't recommend it enough. It isn't perfect, but I have yet to read a book that is.
If you liked Elantris, you'll love Mistborn. It has all of Elantris's strengths and very few of its weaknesses. If you meant to read Elantris after OSC's review but never got around to it, I'd skip right to Mistborn first (and then read Elantris).
Is that a positive enough review for you? Good. Go buy the book and read it. Then come talk to me about it. I'm dying to talk spoilers.
Posts: 1903 | Registered: Sep 2003
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mild rant - please note I've never read the books - but why does every fantasy writer think their hero has to be a halfblood something?
I know Tolkien's purpose in making Elrond part human, so that the choice was available to his family, but I swear I wish he hadn't, it's as if the meme of the halfblood-anything has infected every person who sits down to write a story.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Well, it's kind of important that Kelsier be halfblood. If he were pure skaa, he wouldn't have the powers he does. If he were pure noble, he wouldn't be in a position where he wanted to overthrow the Lord Ruler.
Tom, that depends. What didn't you like about Elantris?
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Okay, since you haven't seen my post, I'll try to put together a better answer.
In my opinion, Elantris was really, really good in plotting and innovation and not so great in depth of ideas or characters (with the exception of Hrathen). He oversimplified things when it came to politics and human motivation. Raoden and Sarene were ultimately forgettable characters. The world was kind of one dimensional and poorly developed. Also, it was poorly edited, so Sanderson's writing was sometimes clunky. I still couldn't put the book down when I was reading it, but I do acknowledge that it had flaws.
In Mistborn, Sanderson seems to play to his strengths more. The plot is even more intricately developed than Elantris's was, but it is also more realistic (autistic counting kid plot device, anyone?). He loves writing fight scenes, so he includes some extremely cool ones. His magic system struck me as something he'd have gotten excited about too—like the one in Elantris, it's something you've never seen before, and Sanderson explores all the ramifications.
But he also avoids his weaknesses: the entire novel takes place in one city and its outskirts, so he avoids having to put together a world that isn't relevant or believable. He also seems to have worked harder to blur the lines between black and white in his protagonists, the conflict, and the villain. Basically, everything is a bit more like what Hrathen was in Elantris.
Finally, it appears Tor paid for a good editor now that Sanderson is more established. The whole book read more smoothly (with the exception of a line about someone's ample brow) and with almost no grammatical errors. Elantris, on the other hand, drove me crazy in this regard.
Mistborn still isn't terribly deep, but it's more genuine and more interesting. Think . . . Serenity. Interesting conflict, likeable characters, cool fight scenes. Overall, just a whole lot of fun.
Posts: 1903 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:He oversimplified things when it came to politics and human motivation. Raoden and Sarene were ultimately forgettable characters. The world was kind of one dimensional and poorly developed. Also, it was poorly edited, so Sanderson's writing was sometimes clunky.
I can't believe a book had all these things and you still recommend it. I mean, what about it is really worth reading? That makes it sound as if I shouldn't waste my money on the first one.
quote:Well, it's kind of important that Kelsier be halfblood. If he were pure skaa, he wouldn't have the powers he does. If he were pure noble, he wouldn't be in a position where he wanted to overthrow the Lord Ruler.
Are they the same race of people? In other words, is the only difference between skaa and the nobles their position of birth or are they actually different races? If it's just birth, then sure, I get it. If they're different races, I call foul. Seems to ignore basic biology for one thing when other races interbreed, and like I said, it's an overly used and contrived plot device.
The story would be much more interesting if he were pure skaa, no powers, and still managed to find a way to overthrow the bad guys. It sounds as if the writer wanted some cool magic fights so gave his hero some of the same powers. Maybe now, I acknowledge I might be completely unfair in my criticism. It's just that the whole halfblood thing seems like an easy way out most of the time.
Sorry to jump on your thread and criticize, it's just that you hit a pet peeve of mine. No offense intended to either you or the writer.
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posted
I'm tending towards Belle here. The half-breed angle does seem like a cop-out, especially if his power is all biological, and he is the most powerful individual.
quote:The story would be much more interesting if he were pure skaa, no powers, and still managed to find a way to overthrow the bad guys.
Or it could be spun that he is a skaa, but through some accident or crime, gets raised as a Highborn. He gets thrown out, but he still has his highborn connections and friends and now has first hand knowledge of the injustice of his world. Either way would be a more compelling story than just the story of a half-breed who flat out has more power than anyone else.
But it's not often that you recommend a book, Brinestone, and I'm sure that's a great read just the way it's written.
posted
I'm reading Mistborn now. I'm sorta hemming and hawing about it. At first I loved it then I sorta felt a little off. I have a prerelease version I got through a friend, so it may be further edited from what I have. I'm waiting to see what happens, as I am half way through, before I make any judgements. I figure it has the potential to be interesting and exciting. Or it has the potential to be just like everything I've read before.
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Actually I think Brinestone might be right. It does have fun characters and fun action. I think what I'm personally missing is the "deep" so to speak.
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I wrote a long post in response to Belle's, and when I hit Submit, I got a "Could Not Find Server" error. Gah! I'll try to remember what I said.
First I'll start off defending Elantris. I stated its problems, but I guess I wasn't clear enough that all the problems are sometimes and somewhat. The writing isn't clunky; it's sometimes a little clunky. J.K. Rowling's is too. The characters were pretty forgettable, but they were likeable. The problem was that they weren't unique enough or really flawed enough to stick with me the way, say, Hamlet was. That's okay. A book can be fun without awesome characters. I would say Harry Potter is an ultimately forgettable character, but I still like the series.
As for the world, it didn't bother me at all. After all, it wasn't the point. It wasn't a milieu story, as OSC would put it. But Jon Boy likes intricate layers of detail about a world in a fantasy novel, and the lack thereof bothered him. Also, Sanderson isn't a linguist, so Jon Boy found the language aspects of the novel to lack integrity. Then again, he's Jon Boy. I was just trying to think of the book from the point of view of someone who didn't like it.
Did you read OSC's review of this book? He ranted and raved about it, calling it the "finest novel of fantasy to be written in years." If it were all that bad, I think our illustrious host wouldn't have even bothered writing a review about it.
Okay, so on to Mistborn. Keep in mind that I have no idea what's so wrong about the whole halfblood thing. I swear I've only seen halfbloods show up in LotR and Harry Potter (Hermione), and they serve vastly different purposes in each. If I had to name one thing I like most about Sanderson, it is that he breaks the fantasy mold. He avoids most of the cliches that are so tired. This novel doesn't take place in an unplaceable medieval time. The wizard isn't an old, gray-bearded wise man. It's more like Ocean's Eleven than anything else I've read or seen, and even that is quite a bit different.
quote:Or it could be spun that he is a skaa, but through some accident or crime, gets raised as a Highborn. He gets thrown out, but he still has his highborn connections and friends and now has first hand knowledge of the injustice of his world.
See, I think this sounds more cliche than what Sanderson did. I can't really explain why Kelsier has to be halfblood without using some mild spoilers, so if you need to know, you've been warned.
*spoilers*
Okay. When I said skaa were worse off than slaves, that's what I meant. Basically, they are slaves that anybody can kill at any time for any reason. Not only that, there are laws stating that if a nobleman sleeps with a skaa woman, he must kill her afterward to prevent her having a child. Skaa are sometimes executed randomly just to serve as a lesson to the others. This has been going on for a thousand years, so the skaa basically have lost all hope and do not so much as think of rebelling. The nobility has all the money, all the weapons, all the military training, and all the magic. Even if the skaa all revolted together, they could probably be defeated.
Okay, so Kelsier's father didn't know his mother was skaa, so he let her live long enough to have Kelsier and his brother before finding out and killing her. Kelsier became a thief, not knowing he had any powers. Later, he discovered them and decided to put them to good use.
He is far from being the most powerful wizard. He is Mistborn, but having powers doesn't mean you're good at using them. As a skaa, he more or less had to train himself to use his powers, whereas noble Mistborn go through training. The Lord Ruler is Mistborn, but he is so much more powerful than any others that it's hardly a good word for what he is. And then there are Steel Inquisitors that are basically Mistborn in powers but also more or less immortal (they can be killed, but no one knows how).
In a world like that, do you see that no skaa would stand a chance against a well-established and powerful nobility, let alone the Lord Ruler or the Steel Inquisitors? Even with Kelsier's powers, he's just one man, so it takes some pretty intense planning to make his idea work. The planning part is what's the most fun to watch, just like it is in Ocean's Eleven.
(I guess I didn't answer your question about whether they are different races or what. Skaa and nobility are both human, alike except for the fact that the nobility have the magical genes that sometimes surface.)
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I really liked Elantris. I didn't become invested in the world, but I enjoyed his writing style and I thought the plot, characterizations, and dialogue were well done. That's enough for me to approve of a book. I'm too poor right now to buy the sequel, but maybe my library has it. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I've already got the new one on reserve, just waiting for my turn. I didn't get the impression from Brinestone's posts that it's a sequel, though... just in case that makes a difference.
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I'm normally not a fantasy person, but I loved Elantris. I just got Mistborn yesterday, and I finished the whole thing in a night. It's really that good.
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