Deluded Review – The Hero of Ages
About the Book The Hero of Ages: Book Three of Mistborn
- Written by Brandon Sanderson
- 590 pages
- Published August 21st 2007
- Part 3 of the Mistborn trilogy (other books include The Final Empire and The Well of Ascension)
From Goodreads: Tricked into releasing the evil spirit Ruin while attempting to close the Well of Ascension, new emperor Elend Venture and his wife, the assassin Vin, are now hard-pressed to save the world.This adventure brings the Mistborn epic fantasy trilogy to a dramatic and surprising climax as Sanderson’s saga offers complex characters and a compelling plot, asking hard questions about loyalty, faith and responsibility.
My Review
The first part of The Hero of Ages – definitely a 3 for mediocre writing style. The last part of this book – definitely a 5 for a superb finish to the trilogy!
The story began with the characters all still pondering the same questions and puzzles they had pondered in the last books. Their repetitive and mundane recollections of every previous event in their saga made me begin to question their sanity. Normal people, fiction or not, shouldn’t just summarize the last few years of their life in their mind on a whim while having conversations with other people. Also, just some of the word choices and dialogue made me cringe. I know the author was trying to make his characters have deep and meaningful conversations… but people just don’t talk that way most of the time, and it was a little jarring when compared with the otherwise relaxed writing style.
However, as things went on, and the story finally kicked into action… it was hard to put the book down. Questions were finally, painstakingly answered. Each page seemed to reveal more and more about the mysteries of Ruin and Preservation, which definitely made me want to keep reading. By the end, I still wasn’t quite sure how the gods functioned or the rules that bound them… but this is kind of a metaphor for the questions we have about our own universe. The big twist at the end was kind of a shock but not really as I didn’t think Vin was the hero since they kept mentioning it… but I thought it might have been Elend instead, not Sazed . It was sad that basically everyone died at the end, though again, I kind of expected this. From all the trouble they had gotten in, it didn’t seem like everyone would be able to have a happy ending when the book ended. In the end, most of my questions were answered, and as a couple other reviews have pointed out, the author did a great job of wrapping up loose ends and compiling a believable yet complex universe.
Parts of it (especially the ending) reminded me of “American Gods” (I think, anyway? It’s been a while since I read it). However, the epic showdown of gods was crafted so much better in this particular book.
Rating
