Mistborn

by Brandon Sanderson

What’s good about this book is the magical system, allomancy. Allomancers swallow small amounts of metal, feel them internally, and can “burn” them to get special powers, like strength (pewter), enhanced senses (tin), the ability to push (steel) and pull (iron) metal objects, the ability to detect allomancy in use (bronze), the ability to cloak allomancy’s use (copper), and the ability to soothe (brass) or enhance (zinc) another’s emotions. Those are the main ones in the book, but there are others.

Detailed fight scenes in books are usually boring, but allomancy made the fights in this story interesting. The one between Vin and Shan Elariel at the end of chapter 30 was exciting, and he did a good job of describing only what you need to know.

Overall, I did not think the writing itself was very good. The story had some unique elements. I think another writer might have gone deeper on the world building. I guess I’m glad he didn’t (I probably wouldn’t have read it), but the world seemed a little Potemkin sometimes. The dialog was not at all realistic. The audiobook reader didn’t help! But you get used to it…

He likes the word “maladroitly” enough that I noticed it.

Something about the writing reminded me of Thomas Kincaide for some reason. But that’s probably unfair – Sanderson may be cranking out autographs as fast as possible and still not meeting demand, but he isn’t using subordinates to do the real work of writing.