Book Review: The Bands of Mourning, by Brandon Sanderson (Book Six of the Mistborn Series)

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Book, Book Review, Brandon Sanderson, Cosmere, Fantasy, Mistborn

A dreadful realization came over me as I was finishing this book.  As I neared the end it suddenly hit me that I was going to have to wait for the next one to be published before I could get closure on the series.  According to the author’s current timeline, it looks like I am going to be left in suspense until at least 2018!

This story begins six months after the conclusion of the previous book.  Mere minutes before the scheduled start of his wedding ceremony, Wax is approached by a small group of kandra seeking his assistance.  Their agent ReLuur has returned home from an investigation crippled and missing one of his hemalurgic spikes, but also bearing evidence of an incredible discovery.  Included among his possessions is information that could lead to the long-lost Bands of Mourning, the deceased Lord Ruler’s Feruchemic bracers thought to contain a considerable remnant of his power.  Feeling betrayed by Harmony and offended by the timing of the request, Wax initially refuses to have any involvement in either the search for the missing spike or the artifacts.  He comes around, however, after finding out Marasi has agreed to help and that the Set organization is most likely involved as well.  The journey takes out heroes far outside the familiar confines of Elendel to the city of New Seran and frontier beyond, where many new threats and challenges await them in their quest.

I was a bit unsure about this book after the first couple of chapters.  With Wax still reeling from the events and revelations that ended the last book, this one opened on kind of a down note.  This, in combination with Wayne’s usually amusing antics only serving to make him look like a real dick, had me worried that the series was about to take its first stumble.  How wrong I was!  Once the story got going the book recovered quickly and I couldn’t put it down.  Both Wax and Wayne redeem themselves, and we get to see some very different sides of each by the time the book ends. I also liked that Steris emerged as a strong, relatable character.  It is now very clear that she makes an excellent partner for Wax and I’m looking forward to seeing where she goes from here.  For a final thought on the characters, it was a lot of fun to have MeLaan back.  Let’s just say she is an excellent companion for Wayne and, as a kandra, brings a unique perspective to most situations.

The highlight of this book, though, was its implications for the story going forward.  With each of these novels, the world of Scadrial keeps on getting bigger and by the end of this particular installment we very clearly get a sense of how much the world has changed since Ruin’s  defeat and of how little we’ve seen of the planet thus far.  My guess is that the final book  is likely to feature a lot of new people and places; all made accessible by some pretty cool new technologies that appear.  This change in scope, in combination with the spreading social unrest and political resistance to Elendel in the surrounding cities, brought a sense of epic adventure to the story, giving it a Raiders of the Lost Arc-like feeling.  Hanging over everything, though, there was once again a lot to think about in regard to Harmony; in particular the extent and limits of his powers, his role in shaping life on Scadrial, and what, if any, equivalent forces exist.

Speaking to that last point, this novel marks the first time in the series that we see the word “cosmere” in print, used somewhat interchangeably for “universe” by some of the characters.  I am getting really curious how deep we are now into that shared universe.  Although it did not interfere with my enjoyment of the book, there were a few places where I strongly suspected that certain people or events might be part of a larger picture I am not yet privy to.  Cautiously looking into this after reading the book confirmed that was indeed the case, though not necessarily where I thought.  Since I seem to have about a year to go until I can pick up the last installment of this series, my goal now is to fill up my reading list with some books that might help me fill in some gaps.  I get the impression that some of our old friends were quite busy in the space in between the two sets of books.

Book Review: The Hero of Ages, by Brandon Sanderson (Book Three of the Mistborn Series)

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Book Review, Books, Brandon Sanderson, Cosmere, Fantasy, Mistborn

Here we are with the final entry in the original Mistborn trilogy.  It has been an excellent journey so far and I couldn’t wait to find out how the story ended.  As usual there are no spoilers for this particular book, but since this is the end of the series I highly recommend skipping this until you have read the first two books.

Another year has passed and all is not well on Scadrial.  Ruin, the malevolent force released at the end of the previous book, has been growing in power and is on the verge of fulfilling its desire to destroy the world.  Koloss led by Steel Inquisitors are marauding through the countryside, ashfall and earthquakes are occurring with alarming frequency, and the mists have begun appearing earlier and earlier and have begun to seemingly strike down people at random.  The only hope for our heroes appear to lay within the Lord Ruler’s hidden storage caches they discovered to exist at the end of the last book.  Desperate for the vital supplies and cryptic clues about fighting Ruin, Elend and Vin are struggling to secure the final two caches which lay in unfriendly hands.  With time running out Elend splits what remains of his forces between the two sites.  While Breeze, Sazed, and Spook travel to the city of Urteau to parlay with an erratic Skaa populist that has risen to power, Elend and Vin lead their army towards the heavily fortified city of Fadrex to secure the final store by any means necessary.

I liked this book a lot and definitely felt it provided a worthy end to the story.  Full of surprises and suspense, it also gave satisfying answers about the origins of the mists and what caused the drastic changes to the world.  I won’t give away the ending, but what I do want to say about it is: Wow, I did not see that coming!  For the book as a whole, the author did a great job in setting a tense, urgent mood, and I particularly liked the mysteries surrounding the storage caches.  I was often reminded of my favorite parts of Heretics of Dune, in particular the chapter in which Odrade uncovers the ruins of Sietch Tabr and the God Emperor’s message.

I also enjoyed that the story again explored a larger portion of this world.  It gave the book an even more epic scope than the others while allowing characters like Spook, TenSoon, and Sazed more page time as well.  There were again a few slow spots, this time on account of an unnecessary amount of time spent rehashing established information every few chapters or so.  My eagerness to read on gave me the momentum to speed through these parts, but what really bothered me was that this took away time I could have been getting more new story.  Don’t get me wrong, I thought this book was great.  I just wanted to get as much of it as possible in the pages provided!

Luckily for me there is indeed plenty of more story out there.  There are a couple of novellas associated with this trilogy and a follow-up series set a few hundred years after these events.  Further, as if all that wasn’t enough, I found out all of those works are part of an even larger collection of the author’s works known as the Cosmere, a shared universe in which some of his various other series take place (and eventually overlap).  Pretty safe to say my reading list is now well stocked for the immediate future.