Mistborn: The Final Empire – A Brandon Sanderson Book Review
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Part of Sanderson’s expansive Cosmere universe, Mistborn: The Final Empire kicks off an epic fantasy tale with a whole lot of staying power.
Brandon Sanderson – The Author
Brandon Sanderson is an author who almost needs no introduction these days, standing out as one of the most prolific and well known fantasy authors of our time. This is in part due to the sheer volume of content he creates, but there’s a lot to be said for his original and unique settings and his characteristic approach to creating magic system after magic system, all of which feel fresh.
Seemingly a machine designed to write stories, Sanderson is most well known for his sweeping, expansive connected universe called The Cosmere. Brandon Sanderson has also published a good number of other novels completely unrelated to his major work – including recent Secret Project novel, The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook to Surviving Medieval England.
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Sanderson was also chosen to complete the beloved Wheel of Time series using Robert Jordan’s notes, winning him a whole host of new fans. Sanderson’s stories range from high fantasy to science fiction and even modern fantasy, with many stories set in the same world. With a focus on massive fantasy tomes, Sanderson has also written content such as Dawnshard and a few other novellas to go along with existing Cosmere short fiction.
Mistborn: The Final Empire – A Heist Story Like No Other
No Spoiler Review
The Mistborn Trilogy is a trilogy beginning with Mistborn: The Final Empire. Set in a world with a much harsher life than our own, Mistborn: The Final Empire blends a lot of different influences to create a compelling and unique setting.
Mistborn’s starting conceit is that it’s set in a fantasy world where the bad guy won. Ruled by the all-powerful and tyrannical Lord Ruler, the ultimate terror wielding absolute power over a downtrodden people. The Final Empire is a world plagued by falling ash, one where green grass – and not even its memory – are nowhere to be found.
This is a really great backdrop for the story, one which shows off the much harsher life of its key protagonists, Vin and Kelsier. Mistborn: The Final Empire is the story of a ragged girl named Vin, the best criminal crew ever assembled, and the ultimate long shot as they assemble to complete just the greatest heist in the history of their world.
All of the pieces are in place for a fantastic tale: Vin, a half Skaa orphan girl with strange powers; Kelsier, a brilliant thief with an ultimate dream who can help Vin master powers she never dreamed of; and a criminal crew ready to embark on the ultimate caper. There’s no doubt this is a high stakes challenge, and Mistborn: The Final Empire delivers a wonderful take on the epic fantasy genre with pleasing twists and turns and a cast of impressive characters.
Mistborn: The Final Empire was my introduction to Brandon Sanderson and the Cosmere, a book I first read quite a while ago but have returned to again and again. This is a book that isn’t quite as polished as Sanderson’s later outings, but that’s to be expected from one of his earlier works. But the world building is impeccable, and the Lord Ruler’s world feels equal parts dismal and fantastic.
Mistborn: The Final Empire is one of those adult fantasy novels which both adult readers enjoy and young readers can read without too many problems. Expect betrayal, absolute power wielded by a divine despot and genuinely the best criminal crew in this high stakes challenge.
No Spoiler Verdict
A fantastic entry point to Sanderson’s Cosmere, an adult fantasy book which YA readers enjoy too. The perfect opening for the Mistborn saga. A story of how the best criminal crew takes the ultimate long shot, a tale of absolute power and ultimate terror in a visually distinct world full of twists and turns, high stakes challenge, and the greatest heist the world has ever seen.
Mistborn: The Final Empire – The Ragged Girl and the Ultimate Long Shot
There are spoilers past this point!
That Mistborn: The Final Empire is the story of a ragged girl named Vin puts it in good company in the fantasy genre, as Vin is almost the typical sort of character found in epic fantasy: an orphan with a much harsher life than the normal, Vin’s strange power she calls Luck brings her to the attention of people with much grander dreams and ambitions – one Kelsier, brilliant thief, Mistborn, and a man with a plan.
This is of course where Vin becomes introduced to the Underworld’s elite, literally the best criminal crew that could be assembled in the Lord Ruler’s dystopian world, and becomes part of Kel’s plan to pull off the just the greatest heist their world has ever seen. Naturally, Kelsier and his assembled criminal crew have everything they need to help Vin master powers she’d only ever dreamed of.
A high stakes challenge indeed, but more so for a half Skaa orphan, a ragged girl without friends or family to her name in a world of towering personalities and more than one ultimate terror.
Mistborn: The Final Empire is the story of Vin as she matures, yanked from a much harsher life and dropped into a world of fabulous fabrics, political machinations, and forbidden knowledge in the Lord Ruler’s playground for the rich and well connected.
I found the twists and turns of Vin’s journey through the tumultuous and complex world of Luthadel to be a very compelling one. For a young girl like Vin, being dropped into a world full of luxurious clothes, music, and dancing is like the ultimate dream, so it’s easy to see why she gets a little distracted from Kel’s plan. Almost everyone would prefer the glitzy, almost dreamlike world of the nobles to the much harsher life lived by the skaa, and that’s part of what makes Kelsier’s plan such a high stakes challenge: for a girl like Vin, the temptation is almost too much.
But as heroes in stories such as this one usually do, Vin overcomes the temptation of her ultimate dream, the temptation of a forbidden love, learns to master powers she could never have expected, and becomes wrapped up entirely in the plan of a brilliant thief.
Kel’s plan is a good one: destabilise the noble houses and cause a civil war, and then using a skaa army to invade and control the Final Empire. Once control in control, Kelsier hoped to take ownership of the Lord Ruler’s hoard of atium, a fantastical metal with divine power whose supply is controlled by the Lord Ruler.
In true Sanderson style, however, the best laid plans of Kelsier, brilliant thief and Mistborn extraordinaire and his criminal crew go horribly wrong. Fresh from their first success, a band of soldiers turned to Kelsier’s cause attacked an unimportant Final Empire garrison in the belief that Kelsier, who had started to spread rumours of his own divinity, would protect them.
They were unsuccessful. This caused an explosive chain reaction during which time everything appeared to be completely lost for the heroes: their benefactor, Lord Renoux, was imprisoned by the Lord Ruler; their army had been destroyed; Kelsier’s own brother, Marsh, is seemingly killed by Steel Inquisitors. Of course, in any story it’s expected that events get worse before they get better, so perhaps it isn’t surprising that things look quite so difficult for the heroes of Mistborn: The Final Empire at this point in the tale. But Sanderson manages to sell it well, despite The Final Empire being one of his earlier published novels, and the fear and despair feel real.
And naturally, Kelsier and his criminal crew manage to rescue at least some of their co-conspirators and even kill an Inquisitor for their troubles. But this is precisely where Sanderson shines, because fresh from the rescue Kelsier and his crew come up against the absolute power, the ultimate terror, of the divine despot, the Lord Ruler himself.
And then Kelsier dies.
Readers have come to expect betrayal from authors especially when it comes to mentor figures dying over the course of a book, but the death of Kelsier feels like a real blow, and not just to his plan. I personally didn’t think Kelsier was going to die at this point in the story, so when he did, I really felt it.
And then it’s revealed that that was the entire point! Kel’s plan was to become a martyr for the cause, a rallying cry for the skaa. And it worked. Far from being the unravelling of Kelsier’s plan and the death of hope, Kelsier’s death was the spark that ignited the flames of revolution in the downtrodden skaa and which would change the world of Scadrial forever.
Still, Kelsier’s death caught his ragtag band of misfits unaware, and left them scrambling to react. For her part, Vin takes up the mantle and assumes her role as the Mistborn, looking into the mystery of the Eleventh Metal as Kelsier had been before his death. Woven throughout Mistborn: The Final Empire is the tale of the Hero of Ages, and of prophecies and ordained destiny. At first, the tale of the Hero of Ages seems like a bit of world building, part of the impeccable world Sanderson realizes throughout the Mistborn Saga and his writing generally. But it soon becomes clear that it’s so much more than that, and that the story unfolding is almost a retelling of an ancient tale which resulted in the ascension of the Lord Ruler himself.
Vin of course charges off, intent on destroying the Lord Ruler once and for all. Predictably, she fails, and is placed into a hellish prison with seemingly no chance of escape. But Vin is saved, first by Sazed, a friend of Kelsier, and later by the mysterious mists themselves. The combination of her own grit and perseverance, the machinations of forces beyond her control, and a bit of luck brings Vin success: she succeeds in killing the Lord Ruler in a climactic and satisfying show-down.
Unfortunately for Vin, however, Mistborn: The Final Empire is the first book in the Mistborn Saga, a story which will span three trilogies into the Third Era of Scadrial, as well as a volume called Arcanum Unbounded. So the story doesn’t quite end there: with his dying words, the Lord Ruler states that Vin has doomed the world.
I found the ending to Mistborn: The Final Empire compelling. Satisfying, but with enough hint of further mysteries to arouse interest. In many ways the book ends where many full sagas do: with the death of an ultimate evil, the liberation of a people. But this difference is part of what makes Mistborn stand out.
Verdict
Fun, engaging, and well worth a read, Brandon Sanderson is rightfully well known for his world building and exciting narratives. Featuring the half skaa orphan girl Vin and the terribly scarred, flawed hero Kelsier, Mistborn: The Final Empire is a story that has legs strong enough to carry an entire saga.
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