The Final Empire
Author : Brandon Sanderson
Series : Mistborn
Genres : Fantasy, dystopia
Publication : October 1st 2009 by Gollancz (first published July 25th 2006 by Tor Books)
Goodreads’ synopsis : In a world where ash falls from the sky, and mist dominates the night, an evil cloaks the land and stifles all life. The future of the empire rests on the shoulders of a troublemaker and his young apprentice. Together, can they fill the world with colour once more?
In Brandon Sanderson’s intriguing tale of love, loss, despair and hope, a new kind of magic enters the stage – Allomancy, a magic of the metals.
I was afraid to start this book because it’s a chunky one. But the story is so great that now I wish it had been longer haha.
The Final Empire is the first book in the Mistborn series.
The final empire is ruled by the well named Lord Ruler. He is the hero who saved the world one thousand years before and now rules it as a true tyrant. The population is divided in two : the noblemen, living mostly in Luthadel, and the skaa.
It’s a realm covered by ashes, all in shades of grey and brown. In this book we’ve got a dual point of view.
First, Kelsier. Prior to the beginning of the book, he escaped the infamous pits of Hathsin. He first appears as a lonely traveler. He came to a skaa plantation and tried to educate them.
The second point of view is Vin’s. She is a teenage skaa thief. She is working of a thief crew. Kell finds out that Vin is, like him, a mistborn.
My behavior is nonetheless, deplorable. Unfortunately, I’m quite prone to such bouts of deplorability–take for instance, my fondness for reading books at the dinner table.
That’s something I liked about this book : the allomancy. It’s the magic of metals, if I can say. Allomancers draw their forces from some metals.
The mistings (the most common allomancers) are limited in their power : they can only use one metal. Mistborn aren’t. They can use the ten metals. It’s such an original magic ! It fascinated me.
Vin joins Kelsier’s crew and starts her training. Her role in the crew is crucial : she will play the role of Lady Valette, a noblewoman. She will spy the noblemen. She got the attention of Elend Venture, heir of house Venture, the most powerful house.
Kell’s plan is a suicidal one. He plans to overthrow the Lord Ruler and the noblemen. It’s a crazy, unrealistic plan. But all his former coworkers (and friends) accept.
He is also helped by Sazed, a powerful Terrisman.
I strive for nothing if not consistency.
There’s a lot of characters’ development in this book, especially for Vin. She has been told all her life not to trust anyone, to save her own skin, no matter what. That she was worthless, a burden.
Well, Kell’s crew changed her vision. She slowly opens up and finds comfort in her allomancy powers.
Kelsier has some things to learn from her, too. She teaches him that not all noblemen are evil.
But you can’t kill me, Lord Tyrant. I represent that one thing you’ve never been able to kill, no matter how hard you try. I am hope.
One of my favorite characters is Sazed. Discreet at the beginning, he is a true strength to this story.
The plot is awesome. There are some major twists. The last one blew my mind. Seriously, it changed my vision of one of the two main characters.
And the magic ! Ah allomancy and feruchemy ! I have never read something similar to that. That’s so refreshing !
Brandon Sanderson managed to make me discover a different fantasy world, which doesn’t happen a lot anymore. He created a whole universe, well built and detailed. I can’t wait to learn more about it in the sequel, The Well Of Ascension.
In a few words, this is a MUST READ for all of you fantasy lovers !
About the author
Brandon Sanderson was born in 1975 in Lincoln, Nebraska. As a child Brandon enjoyed reading, but he lost interest in the types of titles often suggested to him, and by junior high he never cracked a book if he could help it. This changed when an eighth grade teacher gave him Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly.
Brandon was working on his thirteenth novel when Moshe Feder at Tor Books bought the sixth he had written. Tor has published Elantris , the Mistborn trilogy and its followup The Alloy of Law , Warbreaker , and The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance , the first two in the planned ten-volume series The Stormlight Archive. He was chosen to complete Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series; 2009’s The Gathering Storm and 2010’s Towers of Midnight were followed by the final book in the series, A Memory of Light , in January 2013. Four books in his middle-grade Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians series were released by Scholastic, and his novella Infinity Blade Awakening was an ebook bestseller for Epic Games accompanying their acclaimed Infinity Blade iOS video game series. Two more novellas, Legion and The Emperor s Soul , were released by Subterranean Press and Tachyon Publications in 2012, and 2013 brings two young adult novels, The Rithmatist from Tor and Steelheart from Delacorte.
The only author to make the short list for the David Gemmell Legend Award six times in four years, Brandon won that award in 2011 for The Way of Kings. The Emperor’s Soul won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novella. He has appeared on the New York Times Best-Seller List multiple times, with five novels hitting the #1 spot.
Currently living in Utah with his wife and children, Brandon teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University.
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