Saturday, 31 March 2018 11:24 pm
Book Review: Mistborn: The Final Empire
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deckardcanineCuriously, this edition is simply labeled Mistborn on the outside but has the subtitle inside. I hadn't noticed until after reading the whole thing and looking on Wikipedia. Well, it is the first entry in Brandon Sanderson's series.
I guess the setting is best described as pseudo-medieval, albeit on the late end. There are pocket watches but no signs of gunpowder. And believe me, many characters would use gunpowder if they could.
The main fantasy premise involves allomancy, in which gifted individuals can consume certain metals and somehow "burn" them for temporary superpowers. Steel, for instance, allows one to sense and telekinetically push against any metal, which can mean shooting coins as weapons or levitating off them. People who can burn exactly one metal are called Mistings; the rarer bunch who can use all of them are the Mistborn. (Their exact connection to the mists remains incompletely explained at the end of volume 1.) Eventually, I memorized the allomantic properties of each metal and knew right away what a character was doing with it.
Alas, allomancy has had an unsavory role in shaping the culture of the known world. The more socially powerful you are, the more magically powerful you're likely to be. Legend has it that a millennium ago, a man saved the world and thereby gained the magic and legitimacy to rule as he saw fit. Now known only as the Lord Ruler, he seems more like a force of nature, if not God himself, than a man. All other modern allomancers are descendants of his original helpers, most of them living as nobles. Frankly, I wouldn't care to be even one of them under the watchful tyranny of the Final Empire, but it could be much worse: Most members of the skaa race live as slaves, even more miserably than those of 19th-century America. Of course, every once in a while, a noble rapes a slave and doesn't prevent offspring, thereby enabling allomancy among the oppressed.
Hence the protagonist, a teenage skaa girl named Vin. She has never lived as a slave, only a street urchin, having fallen into a gang of thieves by the start of the novel. The only family she ever knew was an older brother, who physically abused her but did what it took to keep her alive -- until the day he disappeared from her life. Now she's internalized his lesson not to trust anyone.
That lesson is put to the test when she meets the deuteragonist, Kelsier, a.k.a. Kell, a Mistborn thief around age 40. He observes evidence that she has been using minor allomancy by instinct, which indicates that she's unusually strong in it, especially for a waif. He soon inducts her into his own gang of mostly Mistings, who can teach her to master all the metals.
Kell is no ordinary thief; he was the only person ever known to escape an infamous prison alive. And his past suffering and mad skills have inspired him to organize a revolution. Almost nobody thinks the plan stands a chance, but he's so incongruously cheerful and charismatic that many go along with it. If nothing else, they can have a Spartacus-style doomed rebellion with the satisfaction of inconveniencing the elite. Part of the fun lies in seeing the complex plot in action, alternating between headway and major setbacks.
Vin soon finds herself in the role of spy -- disguised as a noble debutante, Valette. (Skaa actually don't look much different; in fact, all the differences, such as relative smallness, could be chalked up to oppression.) She takes to the role far more smoothly than Eliza Doolittle, but it yields a bit of an identity crisis. Which life is more her, and what will she do after the mission, assuming survival?
The plot thickens when "Valette" meets a young nobleman with a fairly rebellious, compassionate streak. Her feelings vacillate between annoyance and a crush. Other gang members, especially Kell, remain unconvinced that he'd make a worthy ally. Indeed, arguably Kell's main fault is in maintaining that nobles are universally bad. Ironic that the girl who thought that people were universally bad starts to change his mind.
When I described allomancy to my mom, she thought it sounded ripe for a video game, which is A-OK in my book. Indeed, there used to be a plan for one until the project got cancelled. Meanwhile, the Mistborn tabletop role-playing game became a reality. There are also plans for a film and a board game, tho I won't hold my breath for either.
Cool action and intrigue are not the only pluses herein. There's something to be said for a dismal atmosphere with a parade of tragedies that fails to snuff out hope. It makes every victory that much sweeter. I plan to see how well the pattern holds into the second volume. (Oddly enough, the excerpt at the end of this book is from part 3. It doesn't give away too much.)
Now to return to C.S. Lewis with Till We Have Faces. I didn't expect feminine first-person narration from him.
I guess the setting is best described as pseudo-medieval, albeit on the late end. There are pocket watches but no signs of gunpowder. And believe me, many characters would use gunpowder if they could.
The main fantasy premise involves allomancy, in which gifted individuals can consume certain metals and somehow "burn" them for temporary superpowers. Steel, for instance, allows one to sense and telekinetically push against any metal, which can mean shooting coins as weapons or levitating off them. People who can burn exactly one metal are called Mistings; the rarer bunch who can use all of them are the Mistborn. (Their exact connection to the mists remains incompletely explained at the end of volume 1.) Eventually, I memorized the allomantic properties of each metal and knew right away what a character was doing with it.
Alas, allomancy has had an unsavory role in shaping the culture of the known world. The more socially powerful you are, the more magically powerful you're likely to be. Legend has it that a millennium ago, a man saved the world and thereby gained the magic and legitimacy to rule as he saw fit. Now known only as the Lord Ruler, he seems more like a force of nature, if not God himself, than a man. All other modern allomancers are descendants of his original helpers, most of them living as nobles. Frankly, I wouldn't care to be even one of them under the watchful tyranny of the Final Empire, but it could be much worse: Most members of the skaa race live as slaves, even more miserably than those of 19th-century America. Of course, every once in a while, a noble rapes a slave and doesn't prevent offspring, thereby enabling allomancy among the oppressed.
Hence the protagonist, a teenage skaa girl named Vin. She has never lived as a slave, only a street urchin, having fallen into a gang of thieves by the start of the novel. The only family she ever knew was an older brother, who physically abused her but did what it took to keep her alive -- until the day he disappeared from her life. Now she's internalized his lesson not to trust anyone.
That lesson is put to the test when she meets the deuteragonist, Kelsier, a.k.a. Kell, a Mistborn thief around age 40. He observes evidence that she has been using minor allomancy by instinct, which indicates that she's unusually strong in it, especially for a waif. He soon inducts her into his own gang of mostly Mistings, who can teach her to master all the metals.
Kell is no ordinary thief; he was the only person ever known to escape an infamous prison alive. And his past suffering and mad skills have inspired him to organize a revolution. Almost nobody thinks the plan stands a chance, but he's so incongruously cheerful and charismatic that many go along with it. If nothing else, they can have a Spartacus-style doomed rebellion with the satisfaction of inconveniencing the elite. Part of the fun lies in seeing the complex plot in action, alternating between headway and major setbacks.
Vin soon finds herself in the role of spy -- disguised as a noble debutante, Valette. (Skaa actually don't look much different; in fact, all the differences, such as relative smallness, could be chalked up to oppression.) She takes to the role far more smoothly than Eliza Doolittle, but it yields a bit of an identity crisis. Which life is more her, and what will she do after the mission, assuming survival?
The plot thickens when "Valette" meets a young nobleman with a fairly rebellious, compassionate streak. Her feelings vacillate between annoyance and a crush. Other gang members, especially Kell, remain unconvinced that he'd make a worthy ally. Indeed, arguably Kell's main fault is in maintaining that nobles are universally bad. Ironic that the girl who thought that people were universally bad starts to change his mind.
When I described allomancy to my mom, she thought it sounded ripe for a video game, which is A-OK in my book. Indeed, there used to be a plan for one until the project got cancelled. Meanwhile, the Mistborn tabletop role-playing game became a reality. There are also plans for a film and a board game, tho I won't hold my breath for either.
Cool action and intrigue are not the only pluses herein. There's something to be said for a dismal atmosphere with a parade of tragedies that fails to snuff out hope. It makes every victory that much sweeter. I plan to see how well the pattern holds into the second volume. (Oddly enough, the excerpt at the end of this book is from part 3. It doesn't give away too much.)
Now to return to C.S. Lewis with Till We Have Faces. I didn't expect feminine first-person narration from him.