Mistborn: The Final Empire, by Brandon Sanderson

“Mistborn: Final Empire” is a trilogy, but I’m going to split the review into two parts: the first book “Mistborn”, and then the second and third books “The Well of Ascension” and “The Hero of Ages”. Part of this is because it’s impossible to discuss the final two books without spoiling the first, and because the first book can actually stand on its own as a complete story, which is a rare thing in a trilogy.

First, “Mistborn” itself. It’s the first epic fantasy I’ve enjoyed in a while.

There’s the usual elements. A Dark Lord, calling himself the “Lord Ruler”, ruling over a “Final Empire” of groaning slaves, fanatic bureaucrat-priests who worship the Lord Ruler as a god, and corrupt aristocrats. A band of plucky heroes dedicated to the Lord Ruler’s overthrow. But they’re not planning to seek out the one sword that can slay the Lord Ruler, or the one ring that is the source of the Lord Ruler power.

No, they’re planning to swindle the Dark Lord out of his dark throne in the style of “Ocean’s Eleven”.

See, the Lord Ruler’s economic power is based upon control of a single rare mineral, called “atium”, and if our plucky heroes can snatch away his stockpile of atium, the Lord Ruler loses the ability to pay his soldiers and control his nobility, and the Final Empire collapses ingloriously.

It’s as if Gandalf and Frodo decided to defeat Sauron not by destroying the One Ring, but by manipulating the Minas Tirith Stock Exchange until Mordor’s economy collapses, driving Sauron to bankruptcy and causing the uncounted legions of orcs to quit when Sauron can’t make payroll that month. Mordor collapses into insolvency, and to cover his debts Sauron has to sell the Dark Tower to the Chinese, who rename it the Spire of Harmonious Prosperity and hang a giant portrait of Mao from the Window of the Eye.

It’s quite an interesting take, and the magical system is elegantly logical and well-planned. It’s been said that the point of speculative fiction is to speculate, and “Mistborn” does a superb job of speculating just what would happen if Allomancy, the book’s magic system, was in fact a real thing.

“Mistborn” stands alone as its own story, and I recommend it.

Now, “Mistborn: Final Empire” considered as a trilogy.

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILERS FOLLOW! STOP READING NOW!

At the end of “Mistborn”, the heroes succeed in killing the Lord Ruler and freeing the land, which leads the obvious question: now what? Because it turns out of if you kill an immortal dictator and end his thousand-year reign, you don’t get freedom. You get anarchy, civil war, and chaos. For that matter, it seems that the Lord Ruler, though evil himself, held an even darker and crueler force at bay – a force now free to act as it will.

The final two books of “Mistborn: Final Empire” are an excellent story, but also wrestle manfully with questions of politics and religions. After overthrowing an immortal tyrant, just how do you go about forming a new government? The Lord Ruler might have been an immortal tyrant – but no one went hungry, the trash got picked up on time, and evil forces that wanted to destroy the world were kept at bay.

For that matter, the books deal with religion quite well. The approach many works of fantasy fiction take towards religion is usually simplistic; religion is either shown as superstitious nonsense, or simply disregarded altogether. (There are a great many oddly secular Standard Fantasy Worlds based upon Catholic medieval Europe.) Most of the main characters go through compelling personal crises over faith and religion, and every aspect of faith is shown – from fanaticism to sincere belief.

So I would recommend the entire “Mistborn” trilogy. It’s quite deep, and the writer has a knack for laying long plot threads that pay off quite dramatically in the end.

-JM