"'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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