[Tarcanus]

I just grabbed the MMPB Hero of Ages, but it's one of many in my to-read pile, but I've read the first two.

My only criticism, and it actually started to detract from the reading experience in the second book, was how Sanderson's characterization is terribly obvious. As I'm reading(not even with a writer's eye) I'm able to see when he's building this thought string in Vin, or that insecurity in Elend, etc. I think it's because too much of his characterization was done through the internalized thoughts of the characters and every character plotted their thoughts for the reader as if to lead us along a bold white line to the destination.


The best part are his magic systems, but I've yet to uncover more of the secrets of the third magic(not naming it to keep spoilers, even of a tame sort, away).

[Eddie Dean]

brandonsanderson.com/blog/784/Another-Long-Winded-Explanation-of-Various-Things

Apparantly, Sanderson is going to work on another fantasy series although on a more epic scale.

[Zhuangzi]

I love Brandon Sanderson's blog! So much detail in it about what it takes to be a writer.

Love Mistborn, thought it was one of the better fantasy series since... Robin Hobb's Farseer Saga. Or the original Riftwar. These are books that will stick with me for a long time, ones that I recommend to everyone that asks me for a recommendation.

[QuickTidal]

So, I finally got a chance to sit down and finish Mistborn, which got put on hold twice for other things, and now I wish I'd have read it in one sitting, because about 200 pages from the end it went from good, to superbadass!

Spoiler

So, Kelsier taking on the steel inquisitor with all the skaa watching, the Lord Ruler showing up and killing him....great scene! Even better, when Vin finally confronts the Lord Ruler and finds out that it isn't the man from the logbook, but is instead the Terrisman packman Rashek! Wow, I don't know if I am dumb or not, but I never saw that coming!! Great revelation!

GREAT book, and I have already started reading The Well Of Ascension now (and it is my book of choice to travel with to the UK tomorrow!).

Sanderson impressed me with Elantris, and REALLY impressed me with Mistborn!

[QuickTidal]

So, I just finished Well Of Ascension and oh...my...god...was I bored by it. 700 pages (MMP) to say what could have been said in 100. Sweet jiggety jeebus. I thought Mistborn was so amazin and original, that Well Of Ascension just dissapointed me on all levels. Even the revelations at the end are boring. The characterization is lackluster at best (as mentioned by others).

Maybe Sanderson is a one book at a time standalone kind of gent...who knows, I just think that he should have made the series a duology with the second book (comprising the important bits from WOA and HOA) clocking in at the same length as Mistborn....just very sad that the second book was so boring.

[Nakorite]

Just finished the 3rd book in the series.

The middle of the book is a bit like the 2nd book, he gets a bit bogged down in the details, but the guy is a master for endings, there is always a twist which works very very well.

The only character i think really under used is Marsh.

[alt146]

QuickTidal, on Jul 17 2009, 05:32 AM, said:

So, I just finished Well Of Ascension and oh...my...god...was I bored by it. 700 pages (MMP) to say what could have been said in 100. Sweet jiggety jeebus. I thought Mistborn was so amazin and original, that Well Of Ascension just dissapointed me on all levels. Even the revelations at the end are boring. The characterization is lackluster at best (as mentioned by others).

Maybe Sanderson is a one book at a time standalone kind of gent...who knows, I just think that he should have made the series a duology with the second book (comprising the important bits from WOA and HOA) clocking in at the same length as Mistborn....just very sad that the second book was so boring.

I felt the same way, but the third one is way better. Not quite as good as the first, but the way in which he ended it was very good - it tied up everything and was very well thought out.

[kmgrey]

I'm definitely odd man out- Well of Ascension was my favorite of the trilogy and I found Hero of Ages to be a big disappointment.

[RangerSG]

I love the way Sanderson keeps people involved in his craft and his dedication to it. But...I really enjoyed the first book, and maybe it would've been better if the series had been standalone. Because nothing in either of the second books even came close to what I felt or thought of the first one. I do think a lot of that is how much he wrapped up in Kelsier's character. None of the other character's were really more than stock in Book 1. And he was aware of that, I think. That's why he spends so much time trying to punch them out of their previous cubbyholes. I wanted to like the series. But neither of the other books worked to me.

This post has been edited by RangerSG: 17 July 2009 - 10:02 PM

[End of Disc One]

I haven't started the second book yet, but I'm not expecting it to be as good. The first book was just so...perfect. And from the blurb on the back cover of Well of Ascension, it looks like an aftermath book that naturally can't be as good. Oh well I'm still looking forward to it, but I'm going to read Elantris first.

Oh and also Kelsier is one of the coolest characters I've ever read of. I didn't want to like him at first because he seemed like such a cliche cool, suave guy. But I came around. That guy rocks.

This post has been edited by End of Disc One: 24 July 2009 - 02:49 PM

[Morgoth]

the brilliant thing about the third book though, is how well planned the plot turns out to be. Every little detail and twist is tied up to some little thing mentioned in one of the earlier books. As much as i love SE's books, it was very pleasant to read a trilogy where it was clear that the entire thing had been planend out to the detail in advance.

[Use Of Weapons]

Read Warbreaker at the weekend. Can't find Elantris or Mistborn for love nor money. Will have to go to Amazon. But, based on Warbreaker, am looking forward to seeing what he does with WoT.

[Slow Ben]

@jitsukerr I know your in the UK so i dont know about the shipping, but Sanderson was selling most of his books signed for about $25 on his website.

[Roland_85]

From my blog:

Quote

...

The Well of Ascension is a solid read that, unfortunately, suffers from the Middle Part syndrome. Too much time is spent standing in one place and moving in circles. The book is relatively long, and yet most of it is dedicated to just building up tension. However, there is a lot going on outside of the main story. The addition of Elend as a main character seems to be problematic for a lot of readers, but I liked him quite a lot. Unfortunately, Sanderson was a bit ham-handed while describing his growth, and in the beginning the young king is really annoying with his pointed uncertainty and lack of authority while his idealistic ideas never stop grating on the nerves. The same applies to Vin's own feelings of insecurity and fear of betrayal. She has grown a lot since the beginning of The Final Empire, but still spends most of the book unsure of what she is and where her place in the world is. And yet, both characters grow into their own, and both turn out very, very well. Unfortunately, this comes at a price - mostly all the others from Kelsier's crew remain so much in the background as to be just names and the sporadic line in a conversation. The one exception is the Terris Keeper Sazed, who is the third major PoV in the book, and turns out to be a really interesting - if not overly original - character.

What The Well of Ascension lacks in speed, it more than compensates in its many action sequences. At the very beginning of the book Vin is presented with a new Allomantic metal - Duralumin, the alloy of the metal-destroying Aluminum that she was introduced to in The Final Empire. When she finds out what it does, the ante is raised to an even higher level of awesome than it was with Kelsier's acrobatics in the first book. However, the true gem of The Well of Ascension is the extensive descriptions of this world's other magic - the Terris Keepers' art of Feruchemy. Through Sazed's PoV we get to understand a lot more about Feruchemists and their Metalminds, as well as see the many differences between the two systems.

Still, the book is a step back from the brilliance of The Final Empire. It doesn't have an engaging enough story of its own, as its main purpose is to get its characters not from point A to point B, but from condition A to condition B. And grow they do, there's no denying that. Plus, there are a lot of really great revelations concerning the Hero of Ages, the Terris prophesies, the nature of the Deepness, and the actual events that transpired in the Well of Ascension a thousand years ago, when the youth Rashek stole the power for himself, remade the world and became the dreaded Lord Ruler.

And yet, when the entire book is dedicated to ancient secrets and character development, with the actual plot taking up no more than the final three hundred or so pages, The Well of Ascension feels a bit like cheating. Don't get me wrong, it is a pretty good book, and well deserving the time it takes to read, but it could have been either a lot shorter, or a lot more dynamic. Still, considering the sudden shift in direction caused by the final plot-twist, I expect a lot from The Hero of Ages - the final installment of the trilogy. I am not entirely certain I liked that plot-development, but I am certain that Sanderson will pull it off and deliver the ending this series deserves.

7.5/10

[Thalraxal]

@Roland_85: Have to agree with you 100%. With Mistborn: The Final Empire, once I picked it up I could not put it down, but I didn't have that with The Well Ascension until much closer to the end. Mind you, part of that could just be the series shifting from "How do we overthrow the God Emperor?" to "Let's defend our city from a bunch of perfectly ordinary people!". Still, it feels like Sanderson's main goal in Well was to set things up for The Hero of Ages.

That said though, the ending was awesome, Sanderson deserves a trophey for that twist, and I can't wait to sink my teeth into the last book.

[Roland_85]

I am not sure about the ending. It sort of cheapened the concept of the world for me...

[Thalraxal]

Roland_85, on 08 September 2010 - 04:57 AM, said:

I am not sure about the ending. It sort of cheapened the concept of the world for me...

Really? How so?

Spoiler

I felt that the presense of the thing in the well was hinted at quite abit throughout the book, or at the very least that they were missing a big piece of the puzzle when it came to the Well of Ascension.

I'm not sure how I feel about Elend becoming a Mistborn though. I really liked the non-action guy/action girl dynamic between him and Vin. I'll have to see how Sanderson handles it in The Hero of Ages. It has let Elend particpate more in the action scenes though and be less of a load, which is kind of nice. I'm sad he skipped out on Elend's Mistborn training. I really enjoyed those scenes with Kelsier and Vin in Mistborn, so it would have been nice to see Vin in mentor role here.

The only thing that really annoyed me in The Well of Ascension though was that Vin never considered using The Eleventh Metal to try and track down the spy. Just find out who's got the misshappened blob monster as their past-shadow and there ya go. Not that it would have helped her at all, mind you.

[Terez]

The only thing that really annoyed me about Mistborn was that

Spoiler

I was all excited about a female Chosen One and she ended up not being the Chosen One after all. I suspected that pretty early on, but I was thinking he was going for Elend. I liked the ending from a plotting perspective, but there was still a bit of disappointment.

[Roland_85]

The Hero of Ages

Quote

...

The Hero of Ages is the conclusion to the Mistborn trilogy, and it is a truly apocalyptic novel. The world is ending so badly, that it is a miracle that anyone survives at all. Elend and Vin's battles seem more and more inconsequential when the sky itself is black with ash, and the mists leave only a few hours of unobscured light. It is a book of revelations and ancient secrets resurfacing through Ruin's lies and the Lord Ruler's misdirections. An interesting detail in that regard is that for a time the reader knows more than the characters about the forces of the world, due to the little snippets of information at the beginning of each chapter. In The Final Empire those were excerpts from the journal of Alendi - the original Hero of Ages whom Rashek killed to become the Lord Ruler. In The Well of Ascension they were parts of the final letter written by the Worldbringer Kwaan - the one to initially discover Alendi only to later realize that the prophecies have been manipulated. Here though the excerpts are omniscient. They are written from cosmic perspective and deal with the changes Rashek made with his godlike power, as well as the nature of Ruin, Preservation, Allomancy, Pheruchemy and the new third metal art - Ruin's own Hemalurgy which steals powers and transfers them to another host through the application of carefully places spikes.

The Hero of Ages suffers from the same flaw that The Well of Ascension had - it is too long, and not dense enough plot-wise. Just like the second part, it plays the stalling game, by dealing with two major story-lines and a few minor ones, and switching between those fast enough that not much progression can happen in any one chapter. Of course, the book's redeeming quality is that it is chock-full of revelations, and although those are often highly implausible leaps of logic, they are still very cool - the nature of the mists, the truth about Vin's ability to pierce copperclouds, Ruin's machinations, what Rashek did to the world, and more, and more besides. In truth, the ending of the series is epic in the purest sense of the word, and I was flying through the las fifty pages with the speed of true ecstasy.

In terms of style, Sanderson doesn't always deliver with even quality. There are moments of brilliance, but there are also places where the emotional impact just isn't happening, and unfortunately the final battle is one of those. It works, because it's cool and awesome, but the sacrifices and losses somehow don't connect the way they should. Still, characterization is vastly improved. Vin and Elend are no longer the insecure creatures of The Well of Ascension, while Spook is given a lot more personality than he ever possessed in the series. He effectively becomes an almost main character in The Hero of Ages, and the result is surprisingly good. Unfortunately, the insecurity and constant whining have not been removed, but only transfered, like hemalurgic spikes, and implanted into Sazed. The Terrisman has become annoyingly faithless and apathetic, but at the same time obsessed with telling us how faithless and apathetic he has become. And there is way too much of him in the book to be healthy.

...

8/10

[Thalraxal]

@Roland_85: I gotta disagree with you this time, I didn't feel that The Hero of Ages had the slow moving plot problems The Well of Ascension suffered from at all. If anything, I think Sanderson could have afforded to make the novel longer. However, I do think your theory of the Hemalurgical Spike of Whininess to be awesome.

That said though, I loved how all the different plots and schemes of all the various parties involved came together, and all the revelations on the nature of the world and magic systems. Spook's storyline was completely unexpected and also awesome. I really didn't find Sazed's depression to be that annoying, possibly because I found his method of trying to deal with it to be kind of interesting (plus having him bring up his religions again before the end was important).

My concern regarding Elend's fate at the end of The Well of Ascension turned out to be unwarrented. As I hoped, Sanderson was able handle the changes to the Vin/Elend relation after that quite well. Although I really did enjoy the old dynamic between them, the New and Improved Elend was awesome and I think it might have been worth it for the ball in Fadrex.