Thursday, February 12, 2009

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson (review)



Title: Mistborn
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Illustrator: N/A
Pages: 654
Genre: Fiction
Dewey Decimal: N/A
ISBN: unknown
Cost: $0 (free PDF from TOR from 2008)

This was my first foray into Sanderson's work. I didn't really know what to expect beyond the guy must be good if he's finishing Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I think the hardest part for me, surprisingly, was the e-book format. I can see now why Kindles and Sony Readers are so popular for e-book fans. This book was hard to read since when I had the time was usually when I was off the computer. Which meant I'd have to lug a laptop out and deal with a hot lap if I wanted to finish.

Sanderson also had a bit of the typical "quest" and "political intrigue" as the MacGuffin in this book. But what appealed to me most was the magic system. So many times I've read about potions and spells and wand waving. Sanderson instead creates a world that has people that can "burn" metals they swallow. How ingenious.

The class-based society was also a bit cookie-cutter, as was their rebellion. But it was well balanced with the amount of thought that went into the planning and scheming by a main character. And the person that dies at the end? Wow. Didn't really expect that one. The second death? That one I did expect.

So, while I had personal issues with the e-book, I pushed through them. And after ten months, I finally got to the end of a very good story with an original magic system. Check it out if you can. Buy it if you can't.

2 comments:

ediFanoB said...

To be honest I alos own the pdf version. But I didn't like to read it on my laptop. I'm definitely a fan of real books. So I decided to buy the book in April 2009 according to my 2009 to buy list.

Neil Richard said...

I'm still torn between printed books and e-books. I like both for different reasons and I think if I had something like the Kindle, I'd read more e-books. But I'm not shelling out that much money to get one.

As for Sanderson's series, I've already picked up the next book, just haven't read it yet.