This month I’m returning to one of my favourite genres – Epic Fantasy. Long and complex books which require a considerable investment of time and effort from the reader are standard in this genre. If you want to be sure that your investment will pay off you need to look for authors of high quality and American writer Brandon Sanderson is one whom you can rely on. I’m specifically recommending The Final Empire (2006) which is the first in his Mistborn Trilogy. The other two volumes, The Well of Ascension and The Hero of the Ages were published in 2007 and 2008. The three volumes are still easily available in all the usual formats. There is also a novella Mistborn: Secret History which shouldn’t be read until after the main trilogy because it contains plot-spoilers.
The trilogy is set in a grim world that has been dominated for a thousand years by a tyrant known as the Lord Ruler. He claims to be the Hero of the Ages who saved his damaged world from total destruction by an evil force and he is now regarded as a god. All other religions have been suppressed and the Lord Ruler has absolute power. His will is carried out by Inquisitors and Obligators with sinister magical powers. Wealthy aristocrats divided into competing noble houses enjoy a privileged lifestyle but the majority of the population are enslaved Skaa. Regarded as inferior beings, the Skaa toil in mines and workshops or in ash-covered fields. By day the skies are perpetually cloudy and few dare to go out at night into the monster-filled mists. Some Skaa long to rebel against their cruel masters but everyone knows that it is impossible to resist the Lord Ruler.
Everyone except Kelsier, the man known as the Survivor of Hathsin because he is the only person to have escaped from the dreaded Pits of Hathsin. Kelsier is a Misting – someone with inherited magical powers of Allomancy. In Luthadel, the capital of the Lord Ruler, Kelsier runs a crew of thieves who each have different metal-based Allomantic powers such as Soothing (damping down people’s emotions) or Tineye (which enhances the senses). When Kelsier is approached by Yeden, who is trying to lead a Skaa rebellion, the crew-leader agrees to help in return for all the precious atium in the Lord Ruler’s Treasury. Kelsier’s plan involves secretly recruiting an army of Skaa, causing chaos in Luthadel by fomenting strife between the noble houses, and somehow luring most of the Lord Ruler’s troops out of the city.
The most recent recruit to Kelsier’s crew is a Skaa girl called Vin. He recognizes that she is a Misting with unusually strong powers, which she must have inherited from a father of the noble class. Such half-breed children are not allowed to live but Vin was protected by her elder brother who taught her to trust no-one. After her brother abandoned her, Vin struggled to survive in the brutal criminal underworld of Luthadel. When she is befriended by a group of people who seem decent and kind she fears that this is too good to be true. Kelsier begins to train Vin in how to use the metals that fuel different types of Allomancy but he also has an important role for her in his wildly ambitious plan to defeat the Lord Ruler.
Kelsier wants to infiltrate the world of the nobility to gain information and cause trouble. He has already assassinated a provincial nobleman, Lord Renoux, and replaced him with an imposter. Vin is to pose as the false Lord Renoux’s niece, Lady Valette, who is supposed to be on her first visit to the capital. Vin, who has always disguised herself as a boy, now has to learn to dress and behave like a court lady. She is mainly instructed by Lord Renoux’s Terrisman steward, Sazed. He belongs to a gifted non-human race who are only allowed to survive as neutered servants to the nobility. Vin is extremely nervous when she attends her first ball in the capital but she does meet a bookish young man called Elend, heir to the powerful House Venture, who seems different from the other nobles.
Kelsier demands absolute trust from his followers but it becomes clear that there are aspects of his plan which he is keeping secret. Even Kelsier’s own brother, Marsh, is unhappy about their leader’s reckless behaviour. Kelsier is implacable in his hatred of everyone who serves the Lord Ruler but Vin is increasingly comfortable in her role as Lady Valette and has begun to have feelings for Lord Elend. As the plan progresses Vin struggles with conflicted loyalties and there are remarkable successes and terrible setbacks and losses. Can Kelsier and his crew defeat the Lord Ruler – and if they do, what will be the cost?
Brandon Sanderson has said that his original plan for this book was to write a heist story, with each gang member having a different magical talent, but set in a world in which the battle against evil has long been lost. Ingenious thieves have been popular figures in Fantasy fiction from the early 20th century onwards and have often been written about with dark humour. Elements of humour survive in The Final Empire as Kelsier’s crew bicker and banter with each other like characters in a Heist movie and at first the reader can admire and enjoy the audacity of their deceptions. These are people who have chosen to live independently of their society’s repressive rules and that makes them attractive.
However, the society they are rebelling against is just too grim for a light-hearted story and the tone changes as the body count rises. Fantasy fiction is often accused of being escapist but, like the hostile watery realm in The Boneships (Fantasy Reads March 2023), the world of The Mistborn Trilogy is one that nobody would want to esape to. This is a depressingly grey world, dominated by ash clouds and mists, in which no-one has seen blue skies or green vegetation for a thousand years. Growing enough food to feed its population is a constant struggle but scarce resources are not shared fairly. Sanderson establishes the wickedness of the Lord Ruler’s Empire in the very first chapter as we are shown the dreadful working and living conditions of the Skaa on a nobleman’s country estate. Worse still, we learn that a Skaa girl who is carried off by the local lord will be killed after he rapes her so that she doesn’t give birth to a half-noble child. Kelsier rescues the kidnapped girl and kills the cruel nobleman but this means that all the local Skaa have to flee or be slaughtered.
This is not the kind of story that would get a `Mild Peril’ warning. Nearly all of the characters are in extreme peril all of the time. I found myself getting very anxious about Vin and her new found friends. Sanderson keeps up the tension with numerous narrow escapes and brutal fights. Although their magic gives Kelsier and his crew various mental and physical advantages, you never feel that their victories are too easy. This is because Sanderson sets out the limits and drawbacks of his invented system of magic very clearly as Kelsier teaches Vin about Allomancy. Kelsier has discovered a previously unknown Elventh Metal but he doesn’t know how it will work – one of the many mysteries that Sanderson weaves into his plot. Kelsier’s favourite saying is that there is always another secret and that might be the tagline for the whole trilogy.
Right from the start, charismatic Kelsier is a problematic hero. Is he a selfless saviour or is he as ruthless and manipulative as the Lord Ruler? Both statements seem to be true. He tricks or forces some people into joining his rebellion and he believes that anyone who serves the Lord Ruler deserves death. This hardline attitude, which often makes him seem closer to being a terrorist than a freedom fighter, adds moral complexity to the story. Kelsier’s views are challenged by his brother, who points out how little choice most people have, and eventually by Vin. She constantly expects to be abandoned or betrayed but it never makes her cynical. Brave, compassionate Vin is an easy heroine to empathise with.
My favourite character is Terrisman Sazed. His phenomenal memory contains the details of long extinct religions and he enjoys trying to find the perfect religious beliefs for each member of Kelsier’s crew. The only thing Sazed doesn’t know is the early history of his own enigmatic race and that turns out to be key to the plot. Sanderson is a master of staggering plot twists and there are many of these in the course of the Mistborn Trilogy. He also excels at creating characters with depth and placing them in thought-provoking situations. The Final Empire is a thinking person’s epic and if you enjoy the trilogy there is a whole series of novels set later in the history of the same world. That could keep you absorbed all winter. Until next month…
Geraldine