Tuesday, September 22, 2015

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson Review

"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 color 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."











The Final Empire. Think Ocean's Eleven meets the French Revolution. I mean, the actual French Revolution, not the novel/book/article. (I don't even know if there is a novel titled The French Revolution, on the off topic.) Yes, the French Revolution is brutal, bloody, and world-changing. (As I recall, even the Americans, who just had their own revolution, were shocked by what the French did. Decapitation, death, the list goes on.)

Vin, the main character, doesn't appear until the third (fourth, fifth?) chapter. Timid, cunning, and smart, she fits perfectly into Slytherin. (Darn it. I have to get my head out of Harry Potter.) Vin, after meeting a group of people, is thrown into a brand new world she has never known. She has never known friendship, and all she knows is really darkness, pain, and suffering. Her character development begins to grow when she learns to trust people, and I think there is something beautiful about that. 

Kelsier, another main character, has an awesome character arc. Though some unfortunate and bad things do happen to him, his development is amazing. He is not a static character, and he has some surprising depths despite his devil-may-care attitude. 

The beginning of The Final Empire starts off slowly, and I admit that I'm bored. I want a lot of action, and Kelsier provides little. I wish to jump right into the book, but there is heavy exposition. Annoying amount of description, too, but I suffer through it. Thankfully, the plot picks up around the 1/3 part of the book (containing about 500 pages). 

The book contains the right amount of politics, fantasy, magic, and world building. I do enjoy the book (once it is out of its annoying exposition). 

But what is my major problem with this book? (Well, problems other than the slowness, the snail-paced unraveling of the plot, the late appearance of a main character, and the dullness of descriptions.) It would be the voice. I can't get used to it, and it unsettles me very much so. Quite a turn-off. 

Overall, The Final Empire is an excellent piece of work with great characters, an awesome world, and intriguing politics. But I don't really connect to it. 

Rating: Three out of Five

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