The Mistborn Trilogy
21 Mar 2022
I recently finished the Mistborn trilogy following a recommendation from a friend. Here’s my thoughts.
As some of you may know, I’m somewhat of a bookworm and occasionally recommend books to read on here. This is another recommendation, especially if you’re into fantasy novels.
Don’t worry, this post DOES NOT contain any spoilers!
The Mistborn premise
The Mistborn trilogy is based in a dystopian land called The Final Empire, which has a single ruler called The Lord Ruler.
There are people with special abilities where they can swallow fragments of metal and ‘burn’ them in order to grant temporary powers. Not everyone has these powers
Some — known as Mistings — can burn a single metal and be granted a single power. But there are also the Mistborn, who are much rarer and can burn multiple metals that grant multiple powers.
The Lord Ruler is the original Mistborn and is extremely powerful. The books follow and a group of thieves that attempt to overthrow him and take The Final Empire for themselves.
I won’t go any further than that for fear of providing spoilers. If you want to know more about the Mistborn story, you can find much more information about it on Wikipedia.
Brandon’s writing style
One of my gripes with a lot of fantasy/sci-fi writing is that the naming conventions tend to be overly complicated. I’ve always assumed this is to add an air of exoticism to the writing.
Brandon Sanderson doesn’t really subscribe to that ilk. Instead, he writes in a very straightforward and engaging manner. From the minute I picked up the first book, I was hooked and actually rifled through the first two in less than 10 days.
The characters are extremely well written, each with their own engaging storyline which quickly become a web of sub-plots that are fascinating to follow.
Final thoughts
Read these books now! They’re up there with the best books I’ve ever read – they’re fantastic.
I personally enjoyed the 3rd book, The Hero of Ages, the most as it has some enthralling twists and turns. But you need to have read the other 2 in order to understand what’s going on. That’s not a bad thing though, as all 3 are great books. I just enjoyed #3 the most.
There are other books in this series, which I’ll probably read at some point. But for now, I want to enjoy the core story for what it is.
I’ve since started reading another of Sanderson’s book, Steelheart, and so far I’m enjoying this one almost as much as Mistborn.
If you have read the Mistborn books and can recommend something similar which I may like, please fire your recommendations over using the reply button below.