Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn parts 1 and 2

I have a love-hate relationship with series. Not just book series, but series in general. There's a whole scale in my head, going from love to hate. There are three main types.

First, it’s the Twilight type. This happens when I don’t even like the first book in the series, but I still force myself to read the rest. Just because I either still hope that the sequels will be better or because I just don’t want to give up in the middle. I do the same with candy: even when I’m not really hungry and don’t even like the taste of it, I’m damn sure gonna finish it.

Second it’s the hunger games reason. This means that the series starts off fantastically and it makes me fall in love with it and go on a fishing trip with it and convince it to create a steam account so that then we will never be far apart. But then at some point, things change. In the case of hunger games that point was book three. It let me down, betrayed my trust and we had to break up. It looked a little something like this:

Me: You were the chosen one! You were to bring balance to me, not leave me in darkness.
HG: [shouts] I hate you!
Me: You were my brother, HG. I loved you. 

And then there was that whole lava business. It was not pretty.

The third reason is the Harry Potter reason. This type is similar to the second one, except without the betrayal. That occurs when the series is perfect from the start to the end. And even when it screws up sometimes, it doesn’t really matter. These are the series that stay with me, the ones that are just pure love. But when they end, I guess these are the ones that really break my heart.

So when I start reading a new series I'm always a bit nervous that it'll end up being the second type. Me and Brandon Sanderson's the Final Empire (Mistborn #1) hit it off like in a dream. It wasn't as good as the Way of Kings, but it was still better than a lot o fantasy I've recently read.

Here’s a quick overview: We’re in a world that is ruled by in immortal god called the Lord Ruler. He is thousands of years old, has god-like powers and is, naturally, an oppressor. And there are some people who want him dead. But how do you kill a god? Good question. A man called Kelsier might have an answer to that, but you’ll have to read the book yourselves to find out.

 

The good thing about this particular series is that it's already finished, so as soon as I've read the first part I dived into the second one (the Well of Ascension). And well. Ugh.  First there’s Vin. I wasn’t a big fan of Vin in the first book, but in the second one she really got on my nerves. The constant whining and the inability to talk to her boyfriend really annoyed me. I’m not worthy of him, he should be with someone more suitable to his position, he’s a nobleman, I’m not, I shouldn’t be with him, but he loves me, I love him, but I’ve never been in love before so how do I know this is love  and yadayadayada. Girl, there’s a war going on. Focus. Second, the pace is slow, too slow. It was wonderful in the first book, fast and exiting, but in the second one I felt it just came to a sudden stop. With the exception of a few parts there was very little action, save for the last 200 pages all the tings happen.

Third, the characters that aren’t exactly main are not very well created. I know there are Breeze, Ham, Dockson, Clubs and Marsh, but they’re all mixed in my mind, I have no idea which one is which, despite the fact that a portion of the book is narrated by them. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me.

All in all, I was disappointed, and I’m not sure what to expect from the third book. Some have said that they hated it; others said that the third one is the best of the three. I guess I’ll just have to read and see. Yet the fact that I was disappointed doesn't mean that the series isn't worth reading. Despite all the flaws I would still say that it's pretty decent. It just let me down, so I'm a bit bitter.

The Final Empire

The Well of Ascension