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

The Magician's Tattoo, Chapter 1 - Purple

A purple light flashed past Nathan’s car. He slowed his descent of the slope leading to the seventh floor of the multi-storey car park. Another light whizzed by causing him to slow further. Typical teenagers and their laser pointers.

He looked around for the mirrors the lasers would be reflected off but found none.

Continuing down to what he assumed was the sixth floor, he was surprised at the amount of new graffiti. Guns and curse words were normal, but rabbits were certainly different. He chuckled to himself as a third light zoomed past. Whoever was shining the lasers probably went to the college he taught at and likely had a detention with him in the past.

A fourth light stopped in front of the car. Worrying for his, and the student’s safety, he stopped the car.

Ten purple lights circled the car - each glistening in puddles of rain water accumulated over the last few hours of near horizontal rain. A solo saxophone played a smooth jazz tune from somewhere unidentifiable, the lights pulsated to the swing rhythm.

He instantly recognised the song as Deluge. A student had recently performed this in a college recital. Nathan remembered the student’s face when he learnt a music professor from Cambridge had been listening and was able to award a scholarship. But, he knew it couldn’t be that student as they were on holiday.

Then it stopped. The lights vanished and the saxophone finished on a final big note. Silence.

He got out of the car and clapped the performer.

“I liked what you did with the ending.”

There was no response. They were probably worried he was going to tell them off for the lasers.

He got back in the car and looked at his watch, 7:05 p.m.. He had promised his girlfriend, Claire he’d be home in time for dinner. She wouldn’t be suspicious if he was late but that night he wanted her to say yes. He continued down the slope and laughed when he saw that all the floors had had their numbers changed to 8.

Something hit the car roof with a loud bang. Nathan lost control and swerved violently He tried to slam on the brakes, but missed hitting the accelerator. He managed to successfully bring his foot to the brake as the edge of the car park quickly approached. The car crashed through the barrier and stuck out over the ledge.

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.

Contemporary Fantasy

Definition: The story must contain magical/fantastical elements within the real world, but these magical/fantastical elements must remain unknown to the majority of the world’s population. (Paraphrased from: Fantasy Book Review)

Often, people consider Contemporary Fantasy the same as Urban Fantasy. Urban Fantasy requires that the story take place in a city; Contemporary can take place anywhere on the real Earth.

The Percy Jackson and Artemis Fowl series’ are both examples of the Contemporary sub-genre, since both are set in the real world with fantastical elements added in.

This article isn’t just to tell you what the Contemporary sub-genre is; I hope to help you with writing it. In order to do this, I will be using my experience in the genre. I have written a few short stories and am writing a novel in this sub-genre, and have tried many different ways of using it.

The first thing you need to decide is what fantastical element you are going to introduce to the world. As a rule of thumb, you should introduce no more than 5, preferably no more than 3. The reason for this is that you need your reader to believe it is happening in reality on Earth they know.

You could add, as I did in The Greater Grater, fantasy creatures (element 1) and a hidden fantasy world accessible only by a select few (element 2). The creatures gave the story a definite fantasy feel and by adding the hidden world I stretched the reader’s imagination as to what reality can hold to its limit. I also pushed the definition of Contemporary to its absolute limits; having a hidden world perhaps doesn’t strictly count as Earth. Though the characters and entrance were on Earth, so it still can count as Contemporary.

A more subtle fantasy element could be angels. Angels can define the culture in your story through their association with religion. Angels don’t have to be good; you could, as I did in Trick or Treat, make them evil. The fantasy element goes deeper when the angels affect your main character directly. If the chosen element changes the protagonist, then you are showing the reader how the element affects reality.

Of course, the most-known element for you to add is magic, which I have used in most of my work including The Magician’s Tattoo. Now, I’m not blowing my own trumpet, but I think the magical system I have is unique. Excess magic is urinated out or converted into grey hair. The magic is stored in ear wax, and if this is eaten by another it is transferred to them. All of this occurs in a world where ‘magic doesn’t exist’. Normal people like you or me don’t see this magic – this is because the magicians have measures in place and humans are just plain ignorant. A line that I plan to write for one of my characters goes something like this:

“The majority of humans are ignorant and unobservant. If they saw bright purple lights consistently fly past, they would say it was a charity event; if they saw a person disappear, they would say they never saw a person there at all; if a whole car changed colour, they would think someone’s a really fast painter. That is why we can hide in plain sight.”

Remember, magic has been done to death over hundreds of years of literature. Before using magic, stop and think whether what you have in your head is creative and unique. If it isn’t, you have three options:

1. Don’t use magic
2. Make your system unique
3. Keep the system, but use it uniquely.

Of course, common systems can still work, but you need to be sure that your story has other unique elements to make up for it.

The key lesson in this article is that Contemporary is a wide sub-genre and there are almost limitless things you can do with it. The only reason it isn’t unlimited is because physics dictates there are not enough particles in the universe to allow limitless options!


The article can also be found here:  Contemporary Fantasy on WDC

Thanks
Matt B