Mistborn: The Final Empire
Fantasy, High Fantasy
Brandon Sanderson
Mistborn, The Cosmere, Book # 1
Tor Teen
July 17th 2006
Paperback
672
English
October 7, 2019 October 17, 2019
Following on the heels of Sanderson’s successful launch into the YA market with the New York Times bestselling Rithmatist comes Mistborn, now repackaged for the teen audience
Once, a hero rose to save the world. He failed.
For a thousand years since, the world has been a wasteland of ash and mist ruled by the immortal emperor known as the Lord Ruler. Every revolt has failed miserably.
Yet somehow, hope survives. Hope that dares to dream of ending the empire and defeating the Lord Ruler. A new kind of uprising is being planned—one that depends on the cunning of a brilliant criminal mastermind and the determination of an unlikely heroine: a teenage street urchin named Vin.
Once, a hero rose to save the world and failed. This time, can a young heroine succeed?
About the book
This book is set in a particular fantasy world, called The Last Empire. The sun is read, ash falls down from the sky and dense fogs fall down during the night, fogs of which humans, called skaa, are scared of. At the beginning it may seems a world full of pain and darkness, but it isn’t really like that. Through the characters we are “distracted” from the darkness and with them we can see the positiveness in the Last Empire.
In this world, there is a distinction between nobility and skaa, people who count less than nothing and who must serve the nobles. Everyone is ruled by the Lord Ruler, a mystical figure who is more than 1000 years old and who defeated the Deepness, of which no one knows what it is. The Lord Ruler is compared to a divinity and for this reason he may be immortal.
Some of the nobles have powers and those come from burning some metals inside their body. This is called allomancy and who has the allomancy is called Allomancer. Usually only one metal is burned by an allomancer to have only one power and this person is called Misting, but there are people that can burn all the metals and can have multiple powers. These people are called Mistborn. Nobles can kidnap women skaa, do whatever they please with them and then kill them. In fact the Lord Ruler forbids that a child with noble blood is born by a skaa, so the skaa must be killed. But not all the nobles kill the women after using them and this means that some Mistings and Mistborns are skaa, too. Just like our main characters.
Then there are the Feruchemists who use the same metals of allomancy but they wear them to use as storage and they can store knowledge, youth, strength, velocity etc. These people are also particular and they all come from Terris.
We follow the adventure of two Mistborns, some mistings and a Ferruchemist who are skaa, who want to overthrown the Lord Ruler because they believe him to be a tyrant and one who uses his powers to keep nobility in check and submit the skaa.
The main character is Vin, a 16 year old girl who doesn’t know she is a Mistborn and at the beginning she is helping a band of thieves in the capital. Vin is found out by Kelsier, another main character, who helps her develop her abilities. Vin is reserved and shy, she doesn’t trust easily and she’s used to live in the shadow and always sleeps with one eye opened, but with Kelsier and his band she learn to trust. And it is thanks to Kelsier that we know that there is more than darkness in this world. Kelsier is a character so well developed that I can’t compare him to any other character that I read about to date. He draws the mission, he pulls the story and he saves Vin from a life without hope.
Other than our heroes there is a noble who we follow, , Elend and who will be crucial for our story.
Iron, steel, pewter, bronze, copper, brass and zinc. The chemist in me, reading about pewter, brass, bronze and steel as metals make me really mad (because they are metal alloys, not pure metals). But I understand that we are in a fantasy world and that even the characters know that they are alloys (or at least Vin knows, or so she says).
I like that each chapter starts with a few words taken from another tale and that there is a mystery about who is telling these words. The Lord Ruler? Kelsier? Sazed? At the beginning I thought they were Vin’s brother’s.
I can’t believe I’ve never read this book. I love this genre and with all my fixations, I’ve never been able to go beyond the “crime” genre. Now I wonder, why?? There is all that I like in this book. A master figure who teaches a young adept, strong female character who was born in a desperate situation. Love story which doesn’t have betrayal or the famous “one step forward, fifty steps back”, even if the love story is just mentioned and it is just at the beginning (and it’s maybe 1% of the book) but moreover a character born to be different, the chosen one.
The book has an ending even if it’s a trilogy and I wouldn’t go on reading because I like how it ended and I don’t want the next books to ruin this good ending. You may read this without the rest. But I’m not ready to say goodbye to this world. I want to read more about Vin and Elend, I want other adventure about the band. For this reason I will go on with the series, even if I’m a little scared that the rest will ruin this world for me (I hope not!!)
Chapters are a bit long and my version wan’t well curated, but that isn’t because of the author or about the plot. It’s because the publisher wasn’t good enough.
The world is well built and the allomancy is well explained. At the end there is even a glossary with all the technical terms and each property of the metals or alloys. Brandon was really good in creating this world. Some times the book is a little slow, but it is a right pace because the author needs to explain this new world, what allomancy means and that allomancers are. So slowness isn’t boring.
Even if I said that I don’t want to keep reading (bit only because I don’t want the ending of this book ruined) I’ve already began the second book and I can’t wait to read more about Vin and her adventures and see where the ending leads. If you still haven’t read this series and you love fantasy, what are you waiting for? Don’t make my mistake and wait!
