Publisher: Gollancz
Format: Paperback
Series: Mistborn #3
Pages: 724
Date Finished: 18.08.15
Rating: 5/5
Summary: 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.
“If you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you'll end up miserable.”Brandon Sanderson's official title should definitely be The Hero of Fantasy because his books are bloody fantastic. It's official: I'm 100% certain he's a genius.
If you haven't worked it out already from my gushing, this book was amazing. I read The Final Empire last July, The Well of Ascension back in December and finally I finished The Hero of Ages on my plane back from America. I read it in two main sittings, and despite the fact that you could probably knock someone out with this book, it was still faced paced, tense and exciting throughout.
Also, a hella lotta shit went down.
(There will be spoilers for the first two books in this series, by the way).
"Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don't know how to read.”I'm in awe of how much planning Sanderson must have done for this book. So many seemingly irrelevant things from previous books became significant, and all the plot threads were tied up spectacularly. I don't even understand how Sanderson managed to weave together so many individual POV's and subplots whilst still producing a coherent book.
Despite being sucked in straight away I spent the first four hundred or so pages feeling a little depressed. It wasn't because the book was bad--far from it--but rather because the situation that the characters were in seemed so bleak. Elend is questioning whether he is a good man after all or if he is just as bad as the Lord Ruler, Sazed has developed depression after Tindwyl's death and has given up his religious studies, and Spook has become addicted to his Allomatic power. The world is literally beginning to end, no one can find the Lord Ruler's stash of atium and there is seemingly no way for them to stop Ruin--an entity that Vin herself released.
“Somehow, we'll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be. But for now, we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.”There are so many different POV's in this book, and my favourite was always the one that I was currently reading. Sanderson really showed off not just his talent for secondary world creation but for constructing rich and detailed characters. Just like in the first two books the character arcs were done so well, yet there was no telling which way they would go. I was honestly on the edge of my seat all the way through.
Vin is still such a badass, and it was so great to see Spook have a much bigger role in the story. I really do love that guy, as well as Breeze and Sazed and Elend and Allrianne and TenSoon and... yeah, I kind of love everyone.
Each characters decisions were so logical, even the ones I didn't agree with. Even if characters were opposing our heroes, Sanderson did a great job of still making them three dimensional. Unless you read this book you can't understand how refreshing it was for everything to just make sense.
If I'm being nitpickey I'd say that whilst it is clear that Vin and Elend do love each other, their relationship is a little passionless. Saying that, my favourite part of their dynamic is how they trust each other above everything. They're also willing to sacrifice each other for a greater cause and that just makes me so happy, especially when I've read so many books filled with stupid characters who choose to save their partner over the whole soddingworld.
“You've managed-- in our short three years together-- to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiance. That's kind of like a homicidal hat trick. It's a strange foundation for a relationship, wouldn't you say?”My favourite Vin/Elend scene was when they crashed the party, their exit in particular. It was so fucking badass. If I wasn't in public at the time I'd have yelled HELL YEAH as loud as I could, pairing the exclamation with an air punch or something.
Sanderson is famous for his plot twists and The Hero of Ages is full of them. I managed to figure out one of them ahead of time, but most of the time Sanderson had me fooled. The cheeky bugger. Honestly, the way everything came together at the end was just so great. Although I myself am an atheist I really appreciated the religious elements (don't worry, there is nothing preachy about them at all) and it was so lovely, especially because Sanderson himself his religious. You'll see what I mean if you read it--whilst it may not be for everyone I found it so tasteful, beautiful and surprising.
“Faith means that it doesn't matter what happens. You can trust that somebody is watching. Trust that somebody will make it all right.”I read this book on the plane and by the time it was over I was crying really gross, ugly tears. I held them back a little, but thankfully everyone else around me was asleep so they didn't see the extent of my emotions. I was a mess.
Unfortunately I got spoilt for the big deaths but that didn't make them any less harrowing. For the last forty or so pages I was wearing my sunglasses (even though it was dark on the plane) so no one could see my red and blotchy eyes. I really have to commend an author when they make me care for the characters that much.
“People with passion are people who will destroy - for a man's passion is not true until he proves how much he's willing to sacrifice for it.”I definitely plan to reread this series back to back in the near future. It's one of my top three favourites of all time and I'm both excited and scared to read The Alloy of Law. Still, I don't think I've ever read a series as clever and well constructed as the Mistborn trilogy. I'm excited to read more Cosmere books to see how they fit together (also, look out for the mention of Hoid in this one).
I'm stopping the review here before I start crying again, but all I need to say is that if you haven't read this trilogy yet, you really need to. It's practically flawless.
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