nicanical
Brian Sanderson really bottled lightning with this one.
Mistborn: The Final Empire opens with Kelsier, a half-Skaa thief and Allomancer. With a fixed grin and bottomless optimism, Kelsier spearheads a plan that's part heist and part Skaa rebellion. Along the way Kelsier rescues Vin, a beat-down street rat with much more in common with him than he realizes. After tucking away the story's first third or so, Kelsier and Vin share the topline, with Vin joining the plan as an inside man.
The story's pacing is impeccable and the timing of story beats is just right. Events and scenes all serve a purpose like stars in a constellation. There are lots of pleasing twists, organically-crafted and foreshadowed so they don't come off like ass-pulls when they're revealed. Meanwhile, the rebellion looms heavy in the background like a mistwraith. As my pages left ticked down, I worried Sanderson would pull a Hyperion and close with a cliffhanger. He doesn't. You get a full ending here that respects the time you spend with the book.
Here're some complaints though:
First, the writing could have been tightened up. It's dusty with filter words and other things: heard this, saw that, looked like, and then the characters are always only ever rolling their eyes at each other. It's the heist crew of the googly eyes over here.
Second, some of Vin's parts read a bit like YA fiction. She's given a Cindarella persona that gawks at balls and loves dresses and perfumed baths. She has flaws typical of YA fiction: distrust of authority, and fear of intimacy (hedgehog's dilemma). These parts didn't fit well, and I didn't like them. Vin's mental scars and psychological damage should have been portrayed more viscerally instead of having her merely ruminate over big bro's sociopathic aphorisms.
Lastly, the explicit push and pull in combat overstays by the middle of the book. The story's magic system—Allomancy—is wonderful, grounded, and made more interesting with limitations for the characters to juggle. Allomantic abilities have two opposed effects—a pull effect and a push effect. Both are used in combat, sometimes together or in rapid succession. Sanderson always states which effect is used, which is nice early on while getting used to Allomancy, but later it's just clutter and sandbags the velocity of the action.
Brian Sanderson really bottled lightning with this one.
Mistborn: The Final Empire opens with Kelsier, a half-Skaa thief and Allomancer. With a fixed grin and bottomless optimism, Kelsier spearheads a plan that's part heist and part Skaa rebellion. Along the way Kelsier rescues Vin, a beat-down street rat with much more in common with him than he realizes. After tucking away the story's first third or so, Kelsier and Vin share the topline, with Vin joining the plan as an inside man.
The story's pacing is impeccable and the timing of story beats is just right. Events and scenes all serve a purpose like stars in a constellation. There are lots of pleasing twists, organically-crafted and foreshadowed so they don't come off like ass-pulls when they're revealed. Meanwhile, the rebellion looms heavy in the background like a mistwraith. As my pages left ticked down, I worried Sanderson would pull a Hyperion and close with a cliffhanger. He doesn't. You get a full ending here that respects the time you spend with the book.
Here're some complaints though:
First, the writing could have been tightened up. It's dusty with filter words and other things: heard this, saw that, looked like, and then the characters are always only ever rolling their eyes at each other. It's the heist crew of the googly eyes over here.
Second, some of Vin's parts read a bit like YA fiction. She's given a Cindarella persona that gawks at balls and loves dresses and perfumed baths. She has flaws typical of YA fiction: distrust of authority, and fear of intimacy (hedgehog's dilemma). These parts didn't fit well, and I didn't like them. Vin's mental scars and psychological damage should have been portrayed more viscerally instead of having her merely ruminate over big bro's sociopathic aphorisms.
Lastly, the explicit push and pull in combat overstays by the middle of the book. The story's magic system—Allomancy—is wonderful, grounded, and made more interesting with limitations for the characters to juggle. Allomantic abilities have two opposed effects—a pull effect and a push effect. Both are used in combat, sometimes together or in rapid succession. Sanderson always states which effect is used, which is nice early on while getting used to Allomancy, but later it's just clutter and sandbags the velocity of the action.