"Mistborn" by Brandon Sanderson (2006)

"'We fought our way to the palace, but there were Inquisitors.  They chased us, and Kelsier fought --' She stopped, looking at Dockson, 'Kelsier?  Is he --'"

Brandon Sanderson is a fantasy writer living in Utah, where he teaches Creative Writing at Brigham Young University.  He's the creator of the Cosmere Universe, of which his Mistborn novels are a part.  

The book discussed here is also known as The Final Empire, the first book of the Mistborn Trilogy.  My copy of the book is simply titled "Mistborn," so I'm calling it that.  Hopefully the distinction doesn't confuse anybody.

Mistborn takes place in the Final Empire, a kingdom whose geography is only vaguely outlined in the book.  The Final Empire is controlled by the Lord Ruler, a shadowy figure only seen near the end of the novel.  The Lord Ruler rules over the Final Empire with a magical ability known as Allomancy, which involves the ingestion of different metals and the harnessing of the magical qualities of each.  Standing against the Lord Ruler is a rebellion led by Kelsier, a former slave with a longstanding grudge against him, and Vin, his young apprentice.

"Mistborn" in this context refers to someone able to harness more than one metal to perform magic feats.  Ranked beneath the Mistborn are Mistings, who are only able to harness one metal to perform more specific magic feats.  Ferochemists, also introduced in this book, use different metals to store and retrieve different physical abilities, and beneath the Ferochemist is ranked the Ferring, who, like the Misting, can only use one metal instead of several.

The world in which these Mistborn, Mistings, Ferochemists and Ferrings operate is very hierarchical.  As already stated the Lord Ruler sits at the top of the food chain, often playing one side off against the other.  Beneath him are the Obligators and the Inquisitors, a kind of magical secret police force which enforces his will.  Beneath the Obligators and the Inquisitors stand the noble houses, which run the mercantile side of things, and below the noble houses are the skaa, a race of slaves without rights or legal representation.

It's a lot to take in, but keep in mind that the author sets most of it up in a very lengthy novel, and the concepts introduced above are only partly explained in Mistborn.  They are further refined and expanded on in further books, and at the conclusion of Mistborn even Vin, the main character, questions a lot of what she knows about both Allomancy and Ferochemistry.

When reviewing any fantasy novel (especially any fantasy novel forming part of a series), I tend to focus on three components, these being a) story and characterization, b) world building and c) systems of magic.  When thinking along such lines I am to some extent comparing any fantasy novel to both Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, the two pillars of the genre and its two best-known series.

In terms of story and characterization I'd give Mistborn a passing grade.  Vin, the protagonist, is a fully realized character, but her mentor, Kelsier isn't.  Kelsier's other crew members are even less actualized, and seem to pop in and out of the narrative with little consequence.  Elend, the member of the nobility that Vin quickly falls in love with, is slightly more three-dimensional, but the Lord Ruler, the shadowy figure touching his family's life, remains an unsatisfying enigma.  The story that these characters inhabit isn't bad, but it's length is daunting and I'm still not sure if the economics (not to mention the climate) of the Final Empire makes sense.

World building?  Well, let's just say that Mistborn isn't either Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings.  At the outset we're invited into a world that resembles the plantation economy of the Old South, but this quickly gives place to a Medieval city which somehow functions on magic first and commerce second.  None of it quite hangs together properly, and the prehistory provided by the author doesn't go far toward fleshing out or explaining any of the events in the story.  We know that the Lord Ruler has been in power for a thousand years, but there's little sense of what happened before the present day or why.

The systems of magic presented in this book, however, are its real strong point.  These systems are, if magical in nature, well explained and relatively logical, and also open-ended.  These systems of magic make for some riveting fight scenes, and the moments when Vin or Kelsier use their Allomantic powers against various adversaries are far and away the best parts of the book.

I think this is/was a strong first novel that is probably improved upon in later books.  It has a few issues -- in places it seems cardboard-thin -- but it's an inventive story that does hit the right notes overall.  It's not Lord of the Rings, it's not Game of Thrones, but it is at least a creation unto itself.  I'd be glad to read the sequels if and when I come across them.

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"The Grace of Kings" by Ken Liu (2015)

"Darkchild" by Sydney J. Van Scyoc (1982)

"Black Legion of Callisto" by Lin Carter (1972)

"Ninth House" by Leigh Bardugo (2019)

"The Grace of Kings" by Ken Liu (2015)

"Queen Gin has always argued that if one goes to war, one should do all one can to win.  A knife is not malicious merely because it is sharp, and a plot is not evil merely because it is effective.  All depends on the wielder.  The grace of kings is not the same as the morals governing individuals."

Ken Liu's short story collection was reviewed here some time ago.  He's best known as the translator of Cixin Liu's (no relation) novels and short stories.  The Grace of Kings is the first book in his Dandelion Dynasty series, of which four books have been published so far.  He was born in China but grew up in Connecticut.

The Grace of Kings follows the exploits of Kuni Garu, a clever man who rises to a career in politics after the empire of Xana disintegrates.  As Kuni's legend grows, he is opposed by Mata Zyndu, an imposing figure bent on conquest.  Mata and Kuni's disagreements over the nature of honor and the value of tradition frame this saga of empires, with both men slowly coming to new understandings of how their collective history shapes their present day.

While reading this book three other works of fantasy came to mind, these being The Lord of the Rings, George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones and the type of Chinese wuxia novel Ken Liu was channeling when he wrote The Grace of Kings.

Tolkien's books are, like Game of Thrones, one of the pillars of the fantasy genre.  They are books heavily reliant on the Icelandic sagas which Tolkien studied before writing his famous trilogy, and more than anything they are products of language, of the fusion of modern English, Middle English, German and the shared pre-Christian history of northern Europe.  Tolkien wasn't just fascinated with these subjects, he was steeped in them, and these interests produced the lyrical, highly poetic work that has proved an inexhaustible source of inspiration to so many who followed in his wake.

The Grace of Kings, as you might imagine, dabbles in the same kind of linguistic myth-making, but to a far less satisfying degree.  I wouldn't, however, blame the author too much for this.  At this point in time it's just part of the genre.  His digressions into "classical Ano" fall short of the mark, but they can be ignored at the reader's discretion.

George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones, to the delight of readers and viewers alike, offered a morally ambiguous take on fantasy tropes.  In this respect Martin was imparting more Medieval history and less Medieval literature into his novels, and the results, dragons and zombies aside, feel a lot more immediate than what Tolkien was doing.  It's to some extent easier to see ourselves in Martin's novels, even if we're not always comfortable with what we're seeing.

The Grace of Kings embraces this same kind of moral ambiguity, but here the weakness of its attempts at characterization impair the reader's enjoyment of the moral dilemmas present in the story.  For all of the ambiguous moments to matter we have to care about the people experiencing them, and The Grace of Kings never really makes us do so.  Ken Liu does a decent job with the two "heroes" of his story, but despite the size and scope of his tale he never manages to give us a feeling of who the other people in this story are, and why they're doing what they're doing.

Which leads me to what is, I think, one of the more unfortunate choices in this book.  About halfway through two of the characters decide, almost completely out of the blue, to give polyamory a try, and this "modern," "enlightened" decision seems so out of step with the times in which they live that it takes you almost completely out of the book.  Likewise a woman sacrificing herself and her reputation for the sake of her people falls just as flat.  The sentiment she expresses in that moment, valid as it might be, seems out of step with both the times in which she lives and the person she's supposed to be, and claiming that a deity informed her choice only makes this choice less compelling.

Lastly, there is the Chinese wuxia genre to consider.  I haven't read much of this genre, but I am well enough acquainted with it to say that yes, wuxia is this book's direct ancestor.  The emphasis on naming weapons, feats of strength and military maneuvers are all there, right down to "Marshal Gin" learning strategy through a game that sounds a lot like Go.  Unfortunately The Grace of Kings shares another thing with wuxia novels, and that thing is its paper-thin characterization.  Western readers are probably going to find this aspect of Ken Liu's novel particularly hard to relate to, given the more personal, less objective type of fantasy many of us are used to.

Is The Grace of Kings bad?  I wouldn't say so.  It is in fact the most thoroughly OK fantasy novel I've ever read.  This said, it's also extremely forgettable, and aside from a well-paced scene near the end involving Mata Zyndu there's just not much in The Grace of Kings for those who enjoyed Tolkien's or Martin's more famous works.

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"Black Legion of Callisto" by Lin Carter (1972)

“'And what are they?' Arkola growled.  'I confess I can see no other choice but to either pay the price the Zanadarians ask, or refuse to pay it and face a battle.'"

Didn't I recently state that I wouldn't be bothering with any of Lin Carter's fantasy novels?  That I did, but unbeknownst to me at the time, I'd already purchased one of these fantasy novels within a larger assortment of science fiction paperbacks by various authors.

Black Legion of Callisto is probably best described as "John Carter on One of Jupiter's Moons."  It's more professionally written than Time War, another book by the same author reviewed here recently, but it borrows a lot from both Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard.  In the midst of the Vietnam War an agent of the U.S. government finds himself stranded on an alien world, and after a series of adventures detailed in a previous novel he enlists in the titular Black Legion.

Some of the story points in this novel don't make a great deal of sense, but it does seem like the kind of book I would have loved in my early teens.  I was obsessed with both Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft at that age, and Black Legion of Callisto ticks off many of those boxes.  Is it good?  No, not really.  Is it corny?  Yes it is.  Is it entertaining?  Eh, it's OK.  You're not likely to remember much of the plot after finishing it, but I didn't find it especially hard to get through.

One part of this book that hasn't aged well, however, is the introduction, in which the author describes the terrestrial career of his hero.  This introduction, saluting "our brave boys in Vietnam" and wishing them the best of luck in their endeavors, doesn't sit well today, and considering that the "final boss" of this book is something of a Fu Manchu/Asian stereotype, it's pro-American interventionist stance is even harder to swallow.

Black Legion of Callisto is the second of eight in Carter's Callisto series.  I'd like to say that I won't read the others, but who knows?  I might just find myself with another pile of science fiction/fantasy paperbacks at some point, and another entry in this series might be found within it.  At any rate I definitely won't seek them out.

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"A Feast for Crows" by George R.R. Martin

"A Feast for Crows" is the fourth novel in George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire."  The title could refer to the brothers of the Night Watch, who are rescued by King Stannis at the beginning of the book, or it could refer to actual crows, who feast on the numerous corpses that populate this novel.

If you haven't read this or any of the other five published volumes in this series, you need to go out and read them NOW.  Believe me, you will not regret it.  I am just now starting the most recently published book, "A Dance with Dragons," and I am eagerly anticipating the sequel to that one.

"A Feast for Crows" is a lot more gruesome than the other novels, and there were many violent moments in those books as well.  Only half of the characters from the previous novel, "A Storm of Swords" make an appearance, and the absent characters are to be found in "A Dance with Dragons."  Danaerys in not to be found in this one, nor is Tyrion.  Davos is mentioned in passing, but his fate remains uncertain.  Some people might find this split between two books a cause for complaint, but I found it to be a nice change from the first three novels.

Much of "A Feast for Crows" is narrated from Cersei and Jaime Lannister's points of view, and while this is slightly off-putting at first, the misfortune that befalls Cersei before the end of the novel more than justifies this approach to the story.

In "A Feast for Crows" Cersei more closely resembles the despot she so desperately wants to become.  Her estrangement from her twin brother Jaime also continues, and we learn more of what happened to Sansa and Arya Stark.  My one complaint is Samwell Tarly.  He can be - at times - a difficult character to relate to.

Fan's of Martin's "Ice and Fire" often complain over how long he takes to write his novels.  Given the complexity of what he is writing, however, I can't see how they have cause for complaint.  If you want fantasy books written faster, I direct you to the remainder of the fantasy aisle.  If you want fantasy books that challenge you, then you, like me, will be waiting patiently for the book after "A Dance with Dragons."  Books like "A Feast for Crows" don't come out so often, but they are well worth the wait.