Monday, August 31, 2015

Book Review: The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

The Hero of Ages (Mistborn, #3)The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The world is dying and everyone is looking for "The Hero of Ages" to save it and them in the conclusion of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy.  As Vin and Elend attempt to save as many people as possible, they also are racing to find answers left behind by Rashek, the Lord Ruler, to battle the god Ruin and preserve their world as best they can, the rest of the survivors of Kelsier's crew do their best to help throughout the Final Empire.

A year after Vin released Ruin from the Well of Ascension, Elend and she race around the Empire in search of cache's left by the Lord Ruler in the event of his failure to keep Ruin imprisoned.  While besieging Fadrex City, Vin gets captured by it's obligator-king only to find herself also confronting Ruin himself and learning her place in his 'plans'.  Meanwhile Spook, Breeze, and Sazed attempt to gain control of another cache in Urteau ruled by a Church of the Survivor zealot as both Spook and Sazed deal with major psychological conflicts that has a profound impact on the world itself.  And interweaving is the struggle of Kelsier's brother turned Inquistor Marsh, the chief pawn of the god Ruin who alternatively desires the destruction of the world and himself.

"The Hero of Ages" successes in getting all the interwoven story arcs, of both the book itself and the trilogy as a whole, to a successful conclusion at the end of the book unlike it's predecessor "The Well of Ascension" which struggled with it's internal story arcs at the end.  The complexity and brilliance of the system-of-magic created by Sanderson is in full display as well as the fantastic battle scenes using it.  Sanderson also successes in writing a classic misdirection of prophetic fulfillment that doesn't taking away from the whole of the trilogy, but fits perfectly together at the end when looking back over everything in hindsight.  If there is one flaw, it is the unfortunate rehashing of events numerous times usually in internal monologue.  While a certain character's internal monologue of rehashing events or things, it was unnecessary to be done by others on a repeated basis.

While some of the internal monologues are drag in the middle of the book, it can not take too much away from a fantastically written conclusion to the Mistborn trilogy.  "The Hero of Ages" brings culmination to a series of events to the Mistborn world not just over a five year period, but of a thousand and of an infinity of length.  This book and the series as a whole is highly recommended.


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