Book one: The Mistborn
Book two: The Well of Asscention
Book three: Hero of Ages
It took my friend Pat years of whispering in my ear for me to finally sit down and read this trilogy. I don't like fantasy, which is why it took me a long time to read these books. But I must admit I started reading Sanderson with this Stormlight Archives books - which is easily some of the best fantasy books I've read in a long time. By starting there I figured out how he writes so I know that made it easier to get into this series. I had started it once but lost interest as it started following the normal framing of a fantasy series: chosen one, ultimate evil, destruction of the word, and chosen one sent to save the world. Those framing devices are all here in this story but Sanderson doesn't stick to the normal workings of a fantasy story. He does play around with them in some interesting ways.
I read through all three books in about a month as I found them on Amazon Kindle in a bundle price of $5, no matter how you look at that, it's a steal. 3 books for $5, over a thousand pages to read, bargain deal. Even though I hadn't like the story initially I took it by good faith of Pat that the story was good. So I bought them and spent a month in the world of a Mistborn. I will admit it was some good time spent.
If you like fantasy, you've got to give these books a try. They are a very good read.
Some random thoughts on the trilogy without giving away too many spoilers.
Magic: Sanderson continues to stroke the imagination with some wildly creative uses of magic. Metal magic dealing with ingestion, piercing, and stored power, is truly some of the most awesome magic I've read about ever. How he plays around with it is crazy, cool, and rewarding in all kinds of ways. Also Sanderson isn't afraid to reveal things, while there are so many people out there seem that keeping things hidden seems to deepen a story line. Not so with Sanderson. He knows that revealing things only strengthens the reader's relationship with the book. He did this with Stormlight Archive and he does it here with Mistborn and I must admit it was quite refreshing to find this in a writer. The Steel Inquisitors were by far my favorite characters in the story, even though they were bad guys I found them immensely intriguing. They would use spikes to piece their bodies and eye sockets to give them the power of metals instead of ingesting the metals to burn the power from them. I just found their presence and history completely fascinating. I don't know why I'm attracted to the villains of stories like I am but I always find them much more fascinating than anything the heroes normally have. Personally, over they years, I've come to like the Sith over the Jedi.
Fight scenes: Sanderson does write some of the best fight scenes dealing with his magic that I've read. He doesn't get to descriptive but says just enough to what is going on that there is little confusion. His confidence in what is going on with the fight scenes is what really helps to stabilize the moves and actions of the characters. Writers who get over descriptive in a fight scene seem more unsure of themselves - Sanderson is not that way. I also like how when he wants to go completely crazy with a fight, he goes completely crazy and it's extremely cool when he does as he just lets the magic of his world take over a fight scene. When he does this, I can honestly say, I want to be a Mistborn using those powers because they just seem like it would be so much fun. Fun is a good word to describe a lot of this book.
Marriage: Sanderson does something not found in fantasy, hell not found in many books, he creates a loving relationship between a man and woman and then does the unthinkable - he has them get married. That really shocked me and when Pat told me about that part of the story, that was the one part that intrigued me the most of the story. Not the magic part but the relationship between the man and the woman because I don't read many stories that explore that kind of relationship. Normally it's all about the build up the relationship then the story ends. Sanderson chose to go beyond that and explore the relationship after the build up. I found that exploration one of the greatest aspects of this story as it expanded on the two characters in some glorious ways, helping them become two characters with such depth not found in many stories. There were moments in this book where Sanderson used some of Jane Austen's witty conversation techniques and use of mannerisms and etiquette to explore not just characters but a world and society he was building. I applaud him for being brave enough to do this, not too many writers of sci-fi or fantasy would have added those sequences into a their story. One good thing about Sanderson is that he understands that characters move a story and he builds some great characters throughout this story.
World building: easily one of the best world building I've read. What continually amazes me with Sanderson is that he does it so many books. He creates a world and then starts putting the blocks in place one piece at a time until the world he's created is completely believable and populated with some great characters. Like I said above Sanderson isn't afraid to reveal things about anything in the story and by the stories end there won't be too many threads left hanging.
Perspective: Sanderson continued at different points in this story to reshape my perspective of things that happened either earlier or later in the story. I won't go into further detail on this but I will just say that he has a complete command on the story he's telling. When a twist or some more information is giving as a shock - they don't feel cheap. They feel completely planned out and when further thought about they fit in with either things that happened before or things that will happen later.
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