Review of: The Well of Ascension (Mistborn book 2) by Brandon Sanderson

The Well of Ascension cover art

This review is long overdue. I actually finished reading the book a few days before Christmas, but exams and such prevented me from writing this review.

This review may contain spoilers of the previous book, but I endeavour not to spoil any of this book.

As in The Final Empire, Brandon Sanderson has done an excellent job on pretty much all fronts with this book. The characters are very well developed, and despite the relatively large cast, I felt enough time was devoted to each one to warrant an emotional attachment. Character is, in my opinion, the overwhelming theme of the books so far. Each character changes throughout the book and a lot of the changes shocked me.

I don't want to give anything away in this review, but for the majority of the book I had no idea who the traitor was. I had inklings, but all were wrong. Only in the chapter where the traitor was revealed did I actually guess correctly. Looking back I realise Sanderson had littered the entire book with hints about the traitor. By revealing little bits of character information for all the characters and making sure some of these were contradictory, he manges to maintain suspense and make the process of working out the traitor very effective.

The book very usefully has a summary of book 1 in the back. As I left a couple of weeks between ending book 1 and starting book 2 I found this very helpful in getting back up to speed. There are also useful charts for all the allomantic and feruchemical metals featured in the book. Additionally there is a glossary of some of

Review of: The Final Empire (Mistborn book 1) by Brandon Sanderson

The best book I have ever read. That is no exaggeration. The book is a polished, intense masterpiece of epic fantasy.

The characters are fantastic. The plot is intricate. The world is suitably epic.


The premise of the book is simple:  'What if the Dark Lord won?' From that Sanderson has crafted a unique, engaging story full of intrigue, treachery, deception, and politics.

This book is my first in the Epic Fantasy genre. I have read a lot of fantasy but none in the Epic sub-genre. If you can't tell already, I am thrilled to have entered the sub-genre with this book.

Sanderson is perhaps best known for is complex magic systems with rules that determine how the whole thing works. The magic system used is known as Allomancy; users burn metals, and their alloys, to produce different affects.

For example burning Iron allows one to Pull on nearby metals. Burning Steel, an alloy of Iron, allows one to Push on nearby metals. The affect of this pushing and pulling allows them to send metal flying around the room making for the best fight sequence I have ever seen. I say 'seen' intentionally - the fight sequences are so well written it feels like you have just watched it live with the addition of feeling the emotion of the character.

Every metal either pushes or pulls on something and is either internal or external. A pure metal (Iron, Tin, Zinc, or Copper) Pulls and the metal's alloy Pushes. An internal metal affects the user and an external metal affects something outside of the user. In the example above Iron Pulls, Steel pushes and they are both external metals.