The Hero of Ages
The third Mistborn novel, The Hero of Ages, is a mostly
fantastic book with one glaring error that I can't really get over.
I'll start with my complaint so I can end this on a positive note.
The world in Mistborn is ruled by two opposing god-like forces, Preservation and Ruin. The choices of these two gods makes thematic sense in the first two books. The evil emperor, the Lord Ruler, took his power from Preservation and then ruled over a society that was largely stagnant for a millenium. There were virtually no advancements made in technology, architecture, government, even fashion. And this was done largely to quench though and allow the Lord Ruler to maintain control. All in all, it makes sense that his power is a product of Preservation.
But in the third book Sanderson digs into these gods a bit more and things start to fall apart. Mostly because, at least as far as I'm concerned, Ruin and Preservation don't actually balance each other out. If you start with a paradise, then these two forces ensure that you'll eventually end up with an apocalyptic wasteland. Things can stay the same, or they can get worse, but there's no way for them to get better, because there isn't a creative force in the picture. Sanderson handwaves this away by claiming that the two forces were able to work together to create, but that's a bit like saying 0 and -1 add up to 1, which simply isn't true.
I spent most of the book waiting for a third force to show up and balance out the other two. Or wishing that Ruin had been written as Chaos instead, a force that could create and destroy in equal measure and needed to be reined in. Sadly, neither of these scenarios came about and I'm left frustrated by a universe that simply doesn't work.
Setting aside the gods and their effects on magic (Feruchemy sounds much more like a power of Preservation than Allomancy does, since Feruchemy is about storing energy for use later and Allomancy is all about amplifying energy), the rest of the book was really well-written. There were enough clues dropped along the way that I was able to figure a lot of things out, but I never felt frustrated that the characters were one step behind me. From an omniscient point of view, it was incredibly obvious that the visions of Kelsier Spook was seeing were actually Ruin, but there was no way he would have figured that out with the information he had.
There were also a few reveals that surprised me, but that became glaringly obvious in hindsight. I kicked myself when the connection between Vin's earring and Ruin's power over her was made clear. And it took me until the very end of the book to realize that the chapter headings were written by Sazed.
All in all, this trilogy was excellent and definitely worth reading. Especially if you like puzzling your way through mysteries and trying to put all the pieces together. I'll definitely be reading the next trilogy set in this world. Once I've given myself a few months to get over Sanderson's mishandling of the gods.
The world in Mistborn is ruled by two opposing god-like forces, Preservation and Ruin. The choices of these two gods makes thematic sense in the first two books. The evil emperor, the Lord Ruler, took his power from Preservation and then ruled over a society that was largely stagnant for a millenium. There were virtually no advancements made in technology, architecture, government, even fashion. And this was done largely to quench though and allow the Lord Ruler to maintain control. All in all, it makes sense that his power is a product of Preservation.
But in the third book Sanderson digs into these gods a bit more and things start to fall apart. Mostly because, at least as far as I'm concerned, Ruin and Preservation don't actually balance each other out. If you start with a paradise, then these two forces ensure that you'll eventually end up with an apocalyptic wasteland. Things can stay the same, or they can get worse, but there's no way for them to get better, because there isn't a creative force in the picture. Sanderson handwaves this away by claiming that the two forces were able to work together to create, but that's a bit like saying 0 and -1 add up to 1, which simply isn't true.
I spent most of the book waiting for a third force to show up and balance out the other two. Or wishing that Ruin had been written as Chaos instead, a force that could create and destroy in equal measure and needed to be reined in. Sadly, neither of these scenarios came about and I'm left frustrated by a universe that simply doesn't work.
Setting aside the gods and their effects on magic (Feruchemy sounds much more like a power of Preservation than Allomancy does, since Feruchemy is about storing energy for use later and Allomancy is all about amplifying energy), the rest of the book was really well-written. There were enough clues dropped along the way that I was able to figure a lot of things out, but I never felt frustrated that the characters were one step behind me. From an omniscient point of view, it was incredibly obvious that the visions of Kelsier Spook was seeing were actually Ruin, but there was no way he would have figured that out with the information he had.
There were also a few reveals that surprised me, but that became glaringly obvious in hindsight. I kicked myself when the connection between Vin's earring and Ruin's power over her was made clear. And it took me until the very end of the book to realize that the chapter headings were written by Sazed.
All in all, this trilogy was excellent and definitely worth reading. Especially if you like puzzling your way through mysteries and trying to put all the pieces together. I'll definitely be reading the next trilogy set in this world. Once I've given myself a few months to get over Sanderson's mishandling of the gods.
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