Title: Mistborn: The Final Empire (The Mistborn Saga #1)
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: July 17, 2006
Format: Paperback
Length:  541 pages

Read if you like: found family, epic fantasy, metals as magic, political scheming, fake aristocrats, abundant foreshadowing  

Rating: 

Mistborn was my first-ever Brandon Sanderson novel, and even though I’m late to the party, I can now honestly say that I get the hype. I wasn’t sure what to expect from an author who so many in the fantasy reader community revere, but I wasn’t disappointed.

Mistborn was beautifully complex, with heartfelt characters, a dense universe and magic system, and fantastic political maneuvering. It did take me a little longer than usual to get into (about half the book), which I’m attributing to the density of the world-building and magic system. Still, the clever characters and perfect execution of found family held it all together for me and by the time I crossed the halfway point, I was hooked. 

This might have been my first Sanderson novel, but it won’t be my last. I’m already keen to see where the Mistborn story goes from here.

The Book Synopsis: Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the “Sliver of Infinity,” reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler’s most hellish prison. Kelsier “snapped” and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark.

Kelsier recruited the underworld’s elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Then Kelsier reveals his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot.

But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel’s plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she’s a half-Skaa orphan, but she’s lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets. She will have to learn trust if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.

The Review

What a phenomenal book. 

The universe and the magic felt truly unique, but as with all unique epic fantasy, the world-building did feel dense at times. The political structure and turmoil were straight forward but the magic system was complex and intricate, and it took me a fair bit of time to wrap my head around the concept of the metals. I’m not one to refer regularly to glossaries in fantasy novels, but I did have to make use of the one in Mistborn several times to keep the metals straight. It took more than half the book before I started to feel a real investment in the story, but if you’re also new to Sanderson, and, like me, don’t read a huge amount of epic fantasy, all that I can say is try to be patient. If you can make it through the front half of the book, it’s 100% worth it for the rest. 

In terms of the story, there was so much to love, but I particularly enjoyed the cast. I loved the execution of found family and the constant incorporation of hope even in desperate situations. Sometimes, when the stakes are as high as they were in Mistborn, you lose any sense of optimism or possibility and it just becomes unrelentingly depressing. In this book though, even among some really terrible scenarios and exceptionally difficult circumstances, I felt like the characters had a lot of strength and perseverance. It was so well done that it didn’t feel like it oversimplified the characters and what their reactions should be, it made sense and strengthened the investment I had in the plot. 

The political aspects of this book were fascinating, and I enjoyed seeing the various aspects of the Final Empire’s society come together through the perspective of its most reviled citizens. I particularly enjoyed Vin’s role and her experience at both of the most extreme ends of the spectrum. You see the absolute worst that can come from the society in which they live through her eyes, but you also see how it’s transpired, and why it’s tolerated and ignored at the same time. Much of the oppression, while in a fantasy realm, feels familiar because it has all the trademark aspects of oppressed peoples. You see familiar justifications for the dehumanization of the oppressed, and it’s no less enraging that it’s in a fictional universe. 

Without any specific spoilers, I also LOVED the twist at the end and how everything came together. The historical references and entries that started each chapter initially just added to my confusion, but in the end, it felt like everything snapped perfectly into place as soon as it was explained. At that point, I was able to better appreciate the depth and foreshadowing that those chapter primers provided and it left me flipping back through pages to reconsider some of the foreshadowing that I had missed.

This one took me quite a while to get through, but I’ll definitely come back to the series. Once I was invested, I couldn’t put this book down, and I can’t wait to see where the Mistborn go from here.