Little Things Count the Most

As this is my first post here, I feel this post merits an introduction. I’m Condor (although that was probably already apparent). I’m a friend of Bookchomper’s/Jaion’s/Gavin’s. I’ve been reading this blog for a while, and decided that I’d like to post here sometimes too. I read voraciously too (although that was probably evident too). Speaking of which, I have a habit of stating the obvious (and using parentheticals, but you can probably ignore those two features of myself). I like to think of myself as multifaceted – many sides, many features. I think quoting Bookchomper here would help; “bubbly in  a boy way” is her memorable  description.

Now that we’ve got that done, we can move on to the review:

Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson, which some of you might remember from Bookchomper’s post “What Happens When Authors Get Bored” (although I personally think that the quoted passage is classic Breeze).

At first glance, you might think this book is simply another generic hero/tyrant fantasy in disguise. Evil tyrant rules world, hero grows up on the streets, hero discovers own bravery, hero defeats tyrant, etc. Mistborn is so much more than that.

One of the reasons Mistborn so good is that Brandon Sanderson’s writing. He is writing a fantasy novel; if there wasn’t anything mystical in it, it wouldn’t be a fantasy. However, his ideas for the mystical aspect of his books is totally and wholly different from anything else I’ve ever read. When coming up with his ideas for the premises of the “magical” powers that some of the characters have, he didn’t take the easy way out, and use the whole “point your hand/wand, say the magic word, have something happen” routine. These powers have very definite rules, limitations, advantages, and disadvantages (compared to other powers – there are a total of three, although the third is an extension of the other two). In addition, he sets up these abilities as to work them into the text in an astounding way. When did Harry Potter ever use his own body to pivot his enemies into each other? When did Eragon ever attack a foe with someone else’s sword and arms? When did any wizard ever see into the future?

Another reason that Mistborn is such a great book is the characters. The people that make up the criminal band that the main character soon finds herself in are perfectly conceived – one serious and mirthless (Marsh), another a joker, but with charisma, and a painful past (Kelsier), a third a light-hearted giant (Ham). These easily distinctive personalities blend and mix better than paint on a canvas, and Brandon Sanderson does a brilliant job of developing them over the course of the plot. Issues of friendship, belief, and power are all brought up as the main character slowly learns to trust.

However, Brandon Sanderson’s uniqueness in writing his books does not contribute to the excellence to his writing as much as his attention to detail does. This is the main thing I love about Brandon Sanderson’s writing is how small, seemingly unimportant things come back to eerily affect the story in the sequels (Mistborn is the first in a trilogy – technically all the books are called Mistborn, then have an individual title after them, but the first one is generally referred to as simply “Mistborn”). I can’t say too much here without spoiling said revelations, but even trying to look for small things to remember them later, you wouldn’t find anything crucial. Part of this is the size of the book; in audiobook form, the first Mistborn is over 24 hours long; the next one is over 30. In such a huge book, important plot points hide nice and snug between information that won’t be useful next chapter (for example, one of the major things happens in a 3-sentence paragraph where the main character packs up her belonging; no joke). Little tidbits of information said in a seemingly unimportant conversation, tests conducted, then quickly dismissed, apparent slips of the tongue – all of them have meaning.

To summarize: Mistborn is one of, if not the best book I have ever read (I think that the only thing that outranks it in my set of favorite books is the third book in that trilogy). Brandon Sanderson sets up a totally unique world, fills it with incredibly realistic and well-written characters, and hides important plot twists in tiny details here and there. For example; slowly, over the course of the entire first book, the story of the man who rules the world is told, piece by tiny piece. Then, when he is finally confronted, we get a plot twist so huge, so monumental, so unthinkably game-changing (for lack of a better word), that the entire premise of the book is affected.

If you haven’t already read Mistborn and all of its sequels, I would go out and buy them right now. It is one of the best books you will every buy (I don’t mean to sound like one of those book critics on the back jacket of whatever book it is you’ve picked up in the bookstore, but it’s true).

Like, really. Go buy those books right now.

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