panguitch's Full Review: Brandon Sanderson - Mistborn
Few things annoy me like a purist declaiming that hard science fiction is the only kind worth reading. To the contrary, I believe that even in the best science fiction the fiction is more important than the science. This is a nuance with which the fantasy genre has less difficulty—although the best fantasy has always been internally consistent, it rarely obsesses about precision the way hard science fiction does. But there is a growing strain of what can be called hard fantasy, books where a magic system is established explicitly, where the "rules" of that system are known and have impact on the action in much the same way that actual or speculative science impacts hard science fiction. If you want a taste of what I'm talking about, you can do no better than Brandon Sanderson's sophomore novel, Mistborn.
Mistborn: The Final Empire Brandon Sanderson, 2006
There are plenty of fantasy novels that depict an unassuming young hero's struggle against an evil godlike emperor. What makes Mistborn different is that the bad guy has already won and the world has suffered his dark rule for a thousand years. So instead of our unassuming young hero falling under the wing of a wise and benevolent mentor who shepherds him through the paths of destiny to a glorious victory in defense of all that's good and true, the hero, make that heroine, of Mistborn is a girl who falls under the wing of an arrogant, if charming, thief lord whose big plan boils down to robbing the imperial treasury.
Thankfully, this isn't a Gord the Rogue novel. Rather than your typical brand of fantasy thievery, Mistborn holds more in common with Ocean's Eleven. This is a heist, where a team of expert thieves, each with a specialty and a sharp tongue, come together for a big caper.
Kelsier, the leader, supplies the charisma. Ham provides the muscle. Dockson handles the logistics. Breeze adds style and a smokescreen. The crotchety Clubs provides the home base, and Spook is the gofer. There are others, and they all serve a purpose. And like most heist stories, their purpose largely defines their characters. It's a tribute to Sanderson that he keeps them from being trite.
Into their schemes lands Vin, a sixteen year old girl whose brother abandoned her in a den of thieves (a much lower-class gang than Kelsier's) where she's alternately neglected and exploited. She comes to Kelsier's attention accidentally, by using a magic she doesn't even realize she possesses. Vin is the bastard daughter of a Ministry official, and has inherited Allomancy, the powers of the nobility. What's more, while most Allomancers have only one ability Vin is a Mistborn—she has all of them: she can ingest and "burn" pewter to make herself stronger, tin to see better, zinc and brass to affect people's emotions, and so on. And like a Lurcher or a Coinshot she can burn iron and steel to push and pull on metals, flinging metallic objects away from her like bullets, or flinging herself through the air like an acrobat.
Kelsier and his crew help Vin find her sense of self worth. As she emerges from her shell she learns it is possible to trust, to have friends. And when Kelsier sends her as a mole to spy on the nobility she learns what it means to work a job where money isn't the only object.
Mistborn definitely works as a coming of age story. Vin is an excellent character, a surprisingly believable teenage girl written by a thirty year old man. She transforms from a misused and sympathetic foundling in need of shelter into a powerful heroine, willing to face her enemies and defy those she loves. Along the way she learns both that she matters and that she can think for herself.
Kelsier is also a fascinating character. A foster father or brother to Vin, his role as mentor is emphasized. Like most mentors, he suffers a certain myopia, and brindles when Vin sees things differently. Above all, Kelsier is good-natured and well-humored. But this is partly a mask, for underneath he hides suffering and an extreme bloodthirstiness. It's a complex character, and Sanderson balances Kelsier's extremes rather well.
The other characters are all interesting, though they play smaller roles as the heist motif recedes behind the mentor-student paradigm. Yet in keeping with the heist, there is no end to surprises, and several twists blindsided me completely, while still being fully fitting.
The world of Mistborn is utterly dreary, blanketed with frequent falls of volcanic ash and devoid of greenery. It is inhabited by serf-like Skaa and dominated by Luthadel, the emperor's capital. There his Ministry keeps tabs on the Great Houses and the Steel Inquisitors hunt rogue Mistborn. Mistborn actually shares several motifs with Sanderson's first novel, Elantris. Both are hard fantasies centered in dark cities, one in a putrefied world, the other in a mummified world. Kelsier's lighter side very much evokes Raoden's sunniness. At the same time Mistborn evidences significant development in Sanderson's craft. It is superior to Elantris in nearly every way. I would be very interested to see Sanderson try his hand at a different kind of book, but I am much more eager to read the two forthcoming volumes in the Mistborn trilogy.
Mistborn is the best hard fantasy I've read since David Farland's Runelords, which also features a magic system undergirding a caste system. The Allomancy of Mistborn lends itself to some exhilarating fight scenes. It's a wonderfully concrete magic, believable in its details (even if Sanderson sometimes seems to play fast and loose with the principle of inertia), balanced in its implementation, and thoroughly integrated in its world. It partakes of the rigorous consideration hard science fiction gives to science. It's the type of concept you wish you could find in a video game—you want to try it out. And as an encore Sanderson throws in a second, tangential magic system called Feruchemy, which uses metals to enhance a person's abilities in a very different way from Allomancy.
For all that, the magic in Mistborn is introduced at a gradual pace, keeping the characters and their problems at the focus. The combination of the hard fantasy elements, the dual-underworld atmosphere (part gloomy goth, part incorrigible heist), and the dynamic characters driving an innovative story results in a well-rounded novel that's a lot of fun and makes certain Sanderson's stake in the evolution of fantasy literature.
Brandon Sanderson, fantasy's newest master tale spinner, author of the acclaimed debut Elantris, dares to turn a genre on its head by asking a simple ...More at HotBookSale
From the author of the acclaimed Elantris comes the first novel in his Mistborn trilogy--a story which dares to turn a genre on its head by asking a s...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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