Here is an admission: I have never before read anything by Brandon Sanderson. Nothing at all. Nada. Nowt. But I had heard lots and lots about how good his work was. Hell’s bells – he was even chosen to finish Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.
So, with a sense of anticipation, I spent a whole Tenner on The Final Empire, book one of the Mistborn trilogy (the first trilogy, I’m informed). And then I got home and opened it up and…
Well, actually, I have some gripes.
Gripe One – Skaa and Grammar
On the blurb of the book, Skaa is correctly capitalised. Skaa are a class or ethnic group of people. If they were from China, they’d be called the Chinese. That is fine and dandy. However, in the book, every single instance of the word Skaa is written in lower case. This is wrong – and each time I saw it, it dragged me out of the story to grumble and grouse.
I’m not a grammar nazi but I do spend hours teaching children the basic rules. Sorry Mr Sanderson, I found this really annoying.
Gripe Two – A World Defined a Thousand Years Ago
Brandon Sanderson’s world-building – in the literary sense – is great. But his entire world is based on a single event that happened a thousand years ago. This is a bit hard to swallow. It would be like saying 1066 was the last word about British Monarchy, disregarding all that has come since in terms reform and restoration, ignoring the Magna Carta, the beheading of Charles the I, abdications, civil wars (two!) and all the rest. People’s loves aren’t defined except in the broadest terms by events in the past that far distant.
Okay, I know it is a fantasy story but there is a focus on realism within the tale, even alongside the fantastic elements. It felt a little forced is all.
Gripe Three – The Ending
Arrrgh! Why?! No spoilers here, but damn I was annoyed at the ending of the story. Not for the way it happened, not the climax, not the drama or the build-up to a resolution, but the last few paragraphs. Why would the Skaa do that, I had to wonder.
BUT
I think the best indicator of how I felt about the book is that I went out and bought the other books in the series to read and enjoy. Because it isn’t perfect, but it is very, very good.
I wasn’t that invested in the main character, Vin, in the beginning. But it took about a hundred and fifty pages, and I couldn’t put the book down.
I think, perhaps my tweets can illustrate how good the books is…
What do you think of the Final Empire? Did my gripes annoy you or did you nod along with them? Let me know in the comments. Please like and follow.
Imagine Erratically 