In Mistborn: The Final Empire, the prophesied hero has failed and instead of saving the world, he has become its tyrant, enslaving the world for a thousand years. That fallen hero, known as the Lord Ruler, has imposed his will on the land, empowering the nobility while enslaving the common folk, known as the skaa. Ash rains from the skies and the land is bereft of color. From this beaten-down world, two heroes emerge: Kelsier, a former thief turned would-be savior who survived the Lord Ruler’s brutal slave camp, and Vin, a street urchin abandoned by everyone in her life. Kelsier, Vin and an Ocean’s Eleven assortment of crew members ban together to take down the Lord Ruler and his Final Empire.
To do so, they’ll use Allomancy, a magic system that involves ingesting and then “burning” different metals, which grants a person a wide variety of powers, such as the ability to push and pull metals (a la the Force) or increase a person’s strength and senses. Each member in the crew can use a specific metal (and corresponding power), which corresponds to their role in the plan. Kelsier and Vin, however, are Mistborn, and can use all of the Allomantic metals. Sanderson spends many, many pages explaining the details of Allomancy and its limits, through battles/sparring matches and didactic scenes in which Vin usually takes a long walk with one of the crew members as he explains the subtleties behind a particular metal. One can appreciate the level of detail Sanderson has put into this magic system (and the system only grows in the subsequent books), but at times it becomes too much. Two thirds in, Vin is still going around trying to learn about the different metals, and battles often devolve in a frenzy of Allomantic “Pushing” and “Pulling” on different metals.
Once the team is assembled, Kelsier has them brainstorm (via a chalkboard) a way to overthrow the Lord Ruler (who, keep in mind, is immortal and supposed to a living God). This scene felt a bit too breezy for the task actually at hand, and this disconnect continues as the plan takes shape over many months. Part of the plan is for Vin to infiltrate the nobility and so unexpectedly, there are a great number of scenes of Vin attending fancy costume balls hosted by various lords. Frequently, Vin would return from a ball and the rest of the crew would fill her in on significant events that happened elsewhere. Because Sanderson has limited his point of view characters to Vin and Kelsier (although Vin is really the main character), I understand why a lot of the action was pushed offscreen, but it comes off at times as too much telling, not enough showing.
At the beginning of each chapter are short epigraphs from an unknown source. These epigraphs loosely tie in to the overall plot and themes and at times they were more interesting than what was happening in the actual chapter.
Once all the setups are finished, the book finally speeds towards its frenetic climax, which provides a satisfying ending for the story of this book while at the same time leaving just enough crumbs to get me to read the next book. I was seriously considering just reading the plot summaries of books 2 and 3 on Wikipedia instead, but because this book (and the remaining books as well) are fast reads, I decided to march onward.
