“Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope.”- Brandon Sanderson. Mistborn, The final Empire.
The Final Empire is the first book in the trilogy written by Brandon Sanderson, a writer known to have finished the book series, Wheel of Time. This is his original work though and I would be so bold to say that this one is what he will be remembered for.
I had been skeptical when this one was suggested to me as I had not been that fond of the Wheel of Time but I had been offered by a friend to listened to this one on Graphic Audio and fell in love to the point that I bought it in Swedish. This book is one of the few fantasy books that I truly felt had a unique element to it that I haven’t experienced in a long time in the Fantasy genre.
The plot itself is not that new as it depicts a fantasy world filled with gloom and injustice. Ash falls constantly from the sky, an entire people, the Skaa, is enslaved to serve the nobles who have an unique ability of Allomancy. The ability to “burn” minerals in their body to gain special abilities. A gift given to them by the tyrannical ruler. The story follows a group suffering under the rule who decides to stage a revolution.
It has a base in gritty realism and feels more like a historical novel because of it. Similar to Game of Thrones, the main focus lies in the society and its people rather than magic though Allomancy has a large part in the plot.
The characters are amazingly developed. The story focus on the female main character, Vin, and her mentor, Kelsier. Vin is a thief recruited by Kelsier to go undercover among the nobles while teacher her about Allomancy. Kelsier himself is a renowned rebel who is the only one able to flee from the Lord Rulers prison. Both have distinct personality which works of each other well. Kelsier truly feel like a father to the young girl and their story did pull some heart strings.
Even the supporting cast, such as the crew and Vin’s noble love interest had distinct personality. They felt human and whether you like or dislike them it was not because of any bad writing. You just disliked or liked their personality.
If I were to critic a book I actually felt was near perfect, it would be that it had some tropes such as the main character being a thief. Kelsier is the savior who has to free slaves, and we have a tyrant with no face or personality. He is just bad. Neither of these need to be something negative though as all of these are used well in the story and leave no bad taste I my mouth at least.
Another nitpick could be the lengthy descriptions of Allomancy, it felt a lot like info dumps but as this is an entirely new magical system, we will need to learn it. Even here I think the author has done it well as we learn about Allomancy along with Vin, which make us as reader feel more a part of the world.
I also like that the story felt finished. It can stand on its own without a continuation. Not that it wasn’t hinted that it would come one, but the book set a goal and achieves it. A common thing among Fantasy series is constant loose ends that will continue onto for several books which makes the reader feel like they need to continue reading the second book just to get an ending. In the Final Empire you will get your ending making it according to me a stronger story.
I must give it 10 out of 10. Probably one of the few books I can do so with. I strongly recommend this one for both fantasy lovers and those who doesn’t like fantasy. The language is fluent making it easy to read, the story is well structured, the worldbuilding is spectacular and the characters are harrowingly realistic. This one left a mark on me and I do hope that it did the same with you.
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