Book Report - Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson (Brando Sando to me)

Originally Published: Oct. 8, 2023, 3:19 a.m. Last updated: Oct. 8, 2023, 3:19 a.m.

Tags: books

Man, this one was a fucking ride. I loved this book. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series and to more of Brando Sando's work in general. Vin was a lovely protagonist to follow. Her mind made sense, her thoughts and actions made sense, and her hangups and emotions and strength made sense. I felt grounded, absorbed, and immersed while reading her story.

Mistborn takes place in a nearly apocalyptic world. Ash falls from the sky, monsters roam the land, the night is filled with dangerous mists, and a majority of people live in slavery conditions. A strict caste-styled heirarchy has been imposed on the world, with the immortal Lord Ruler at the top. Our main character is Vin, a young low-born street urchin that with powers beyond the limits of her own imagination. She is a Mistborn (title of the book): someone who can use all of the Allomantic metal powers. She finds herself part of a rebellious plot to overthrow the Lord Ruler, and she just might make this crazy dream a reality.

I want to talk about Allomancy first. I was at DragonCon recently and attended all kinds of events and panels on all kinds of topics. One of the events I attended was a panel talking about Magic in fantasy and especially the costs of magic in various stories. The panel had 5 published, decently popular fantasy authors each answering questions about their own stories and how they handled magic within them. I'll be honest, I found myself fairly disappointed by their answers. Most answers they gave either showed that they had their heads up their own asses or that they were just at the convention to promote their latest book. It was underwhelming and disappointing, and I don't plan to read a single book any of them publish. The questions themselves, on the other hand, were decently thought-provoking, and occasionally one of the authors would give an intereting answer instead of weird politician-level PR speak.

Regarding specifically the costs of magic, I loved Sanderson's Allomancy. The costs and restrictions of the system feel much more concrete and enjoyable to speculate about than anything the authors from the panel had to share.

Allomancy is metal-based magic. Specifially, some people are capable of eating bits of specific metals and temporarily getting specific magic abilities from those metals. Whether or not you can do this is essentially an inherited trait, and you can use either nothing, one of the metals, or all of them. One metal makes you a "Misting" and all of them makes you "Mistborn". Each metal has only one thing it does. Each metal has to be swallowed to be useable. Each metal is "burned' within you to make use of its power and therefore can run out. Each metal needs to be fully burned within a few hours or you risk gettting sick. These limitations, in addition to having to be able to make use of the extremely narrow array of powers each metal gives you, make for incredible narrative flexibility. As an example of restrictions, Iron lets you pull on metals near you, like a magnet. But only pull, and only directly towards you, and you are pulled proportionally back towards that metal. Steel, iron's counterpart, lets you Push on metals near you, with all of the same caveats. It's up to our Allomancer's skills and cleverness to make use of it in the most effective way.

The specifics of the material costs mean that if Vin has burned through her storage and is out of vials of metal to eat, she's out of power and defenseless. It means that there can be extra powerful and extra rare metals that serve an economic purpose in addition to the standard practical purpose. The specifics of the powers available shape the way that society itself is formed in this world. Iron-pulling and steel-pushing affect fashion and weaponry. There are obsidian and glass weapons, as well as wooden armor and shields becuase of the risk of having metal on you against Mistborn. Pouches of cheap coins are now incredibly important tools for our Misborn carry at all times. Sanderson clearly thought through the implications of the systems he's created, and I deeply appreciate it. If Mistborn was only about Allomancy and the world built around it, it would already be a great book, but there's a real story here as well. There was a specific idea I had about halfway through the book about a potential application of one of the powers, and when Vin figured out the same thing during the final battle I absolutely geeked the fuck out. I was uncontrollable giddy when she did the thing.

As Mistborn progresses, we're following a plot to start a rebellion in hopes of usurping and possibly killing The Lord Ruler, a 1000+ year old, incredibly powerful allomancer. He remains an ominous and mystical figure until the finale and is given the mystical role of a God-King. He is the empire he rules and has been for as long as anyone knows about, but our secondary main character is determined to bring him down. Speaking of which, I loved Kelsier, another Mistborn that serves as leader of the thieving crew that's behind this entire rebellion plot. He also serves as an Obi-Wan-style traditional older magician that teaches Vin the ropes of what it is to be Mistborn, but also what it is to trust and to love. He's great, he's fun, and his misdirection is incredible.

I think Mistborn is already among my favorite books I've ever read, and so I feel it necessary to share a bit of criticism. First, half-praise/half-criticism. Sanderson leaves about a dozen Chekov's guns throughout this narrative. A few of them I figured out, a few of them I didn't. But there wer lots of guns, and he fired them all in a satisfying way. My criticism here is that they were all fired within a few pages of each other. Instead of having a series of rolling waves in this regard, there was just a single tsunami and it was a bit too much to appreciate all at once.

As a second criticism, I'm very much a sucker for stories about young love, but Vin and her chosen boy falling for each other felt a bit rushed or skipped over. There was a point where we went from "we're ignoring each other" to "oh no I love him" with basically a montage. Vin's romance could have used a chapter or two to itself outside of court drama and scheming. I still enjoyed and believed it, but I feel like the relationship deserved more screen time.

As a final criticism, unrelated to the quality of the writing, I found it hard to get into Misborn at first because of how incredibly bleak and overwhelming the setting is. The actual real world is depressing enough right now, so I found it difficult to read more than a chapter or so at a time. It took me over a month to reach the 60% mark in the book, but once I got to that point I finally felt enough hope for the characters and their lives that I was able to just keep reading. I finished the rest of the book 2 days later. At no point was the book bad, and at no point did I want to walk away from the book, but I often felt too emotionally overwhelmed to continue at that time. I needed frequent breaks in order to gather my emotional strength between chapters. I don't know that there's something Sanderson could have done to address this, but if you're in a fragile state of mind going into this book, just be warned.

I'm looking forward to reading more.