Book Review: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1)
Title: The Final Empire
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Pages: 643
What is says on the back: A thousand years ago evil came to the land and has ruled with an iron hand ever since. The sun shines fitfully under clouds of ash that float down endlessly from the constant eruption of volcanoes. A dark lord rules through the aristocratic families and ordinary folk are condemned to lives in servitude, sold as goods, labouring in the ash fields. But now a troublemaker has arrived and there is rumour of revolt. A revolt that depends on criminal that no-one can trust and a young girl who must master Allomancy - the magic that lies in all metals.
What I thought:
As a rule I thoroughly enjoy long fantasy novels (it had a Map \o/), that allow the reader to explore the world and characters created. (the map was kinda boring T.T) However, I nearly gave up on 'The Final Empire' due to its length and very slow pace at times. While the story and world uilding was interesting, I struggled to completely engage with the narrative.
However, the final section of the book certainly did not lack for engagement - oh no, it had welly and pace and just 'I have to read more!' I read until late to finish it as there was no good stopping point and well.. that's usually the sign of a good book in my mind. It was almost rushed... almost. But the finale climax was saved by the very narrative that had taken SO long to get there. I was hooked!
The concept the main plot of the story - the premise that a dark lord won and we are seeing the aftermath of that is extremely intriguing. The dim dismal world of the skaa and nobles yearns for relief and we as readers get that relief - that sense of working towards freedom, but by its very nature its a grim story with lots of sadness. Vin and Kelsier were well rounded, excellent characters, with flaws and strengths that drew the reader in. All of the characters were fantastic, and so many of them grew and progressed in the story
So what almost derailed the book for me? In a nutshell - the pace. It felt too laboured at times, too much build up and not enough real action. Yes, the resulting climax with the various twists and turns was marvelous and I felt rewarded for sticking it out. But I still feel that some careful editing would have helped the middle section of the book. The story left a lot of questions unanswered so one feels a desire to read the next books, but (and I never I'd say this) perhaps less 'setting the stage' would have helped. Or perhaps my impatience with a slow build is a sign of a increasing attention deficiet disorder.
As for the twists - I had a small suspicion about the nature of the Lord Ruler - or rather his true nature. A definite blip of 'Oooo, what if the Terrisman...?' flitted across my brain during the long dark misty chapters of the middle. I didn't see all of the twists coming in their entirety, but give a reader enough time to mull over a long book and... some of the surprises will be foreshadowed.
On the whole, I would give this book a 3.5 stars as I loved the end, but only 'liked' the rest.