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A review by augustrogue
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
This series is... very much a mixed bag for me, which makes it somewhat challenging to rate. It should probably be more like 3.5 stars.
Mistborn's worldbuilding and magic system continued to be excellent and original. However, Sanderson has a nasty habit of overexplaining and not trusting the reader to remember what is going on. Yes, we do remember that Vin is "wearing her usual trousers and shirt and carrying vials of metal with her to replenish her powers." We are hundreds of pages into the third book of the series at this point. All the references to Pushing and Pulling got really tedious, too. You wouldn't describe walking like "he put one foot down and pushed himself forward, then put the other foot down and pushed himself forward again" - but that is what this book often felt like it was doing, when describing Allomantic actions.
As with Book 2, there was often some contradictory morality that felt colored by the author's Mormon faith - perhaps understandable, but sometimes frustrating as a non-religious reader. There are overarching themes of empire and divine right to rule that create some shaky moral high-ground that isn't really challenged, which felt uncomfortable at times. *Why* does Elend have the right to have power over everyone else? And then there are moments like when Vin, our protagonist we're supposed to root for, is fine with killing Yomen's innocent servants if it would have gotten her free.
And then there is Sazed's storyline of dismissing every religion in the world as false, one by one, because they all have internal contradictions - until the big moment that he just... decides to believe in his own people's religion, for no other reason than "he wants to" and "faith isn't about logic, you simply must believe in it." Hmm, okay.
At any rate, it was slow going to get into this book, but it did get more exciting near the end. TenSoon's parts were especially interesting - I find the kandra culture absolutely fascinating. I don't regret reading the Mistborn series by any means, it had a lot of interesting ideas, but overall I found the experience to be an uneven and often frustrating one.
Mistborn's worldbuilding and magic system continued to be excellent and original. However, Sanderson has a nasty habit of overexplaining and not trusting the reader to remember what is going on. Yes, we do remember that Vin is "wearing her usual trousers and shirt and carrying vials of metal with her to replenish her powers." We are hundreds of pages into the third book of the series at this point. All the references to Pushing and Pulling got really tedious, too. You wouldn't describe walking like "he put one foot down and pushed himself forward, then put the other foot down and pushed himself forward again" - but that is what this book often felt like it was doing, when describing Allomantic actions.
As with Book 2, there was often some contradictory morality that felt colored by the author's Mormon faith - perhaps understandable, but sometimes frustrating as a non-religious reader. There are overarching themes of empire and divine right to rule that create some shaky moral high-ground that isn't really challenged, which felt uncomfortable at times. *Why* does Elend have the right to have power over everyone else? And then there are moments like when Vin, our protagonist we're supposed to root for, is fine with killing Yomen's innocent servants if it would have gotten her free.
And then there is Sazed's storyline of dismissing every religion in the world as false, one by one, because they all have internal contradictions - until the big moment that he just... decides to believe in his own people's religion, for no other reason than "he wants to" and "faith isn't about logic, you simply must believe in it." Hmm, okay.
At any rate, it was slow going to get into this book, but it did get more exciting near the end. TenSoon's parts were especially interesting - I find the kandra culture absolutely fascinating. I don't regret reading the Mistborn series by any means, it had a lot of interesting ideas, but overall I found the experience to be an uneven and often frustrating one.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Death of parent