 PUBLICATION YEAR: 2007
GENRE: Epic Fantasy
PAGE COUNT: 763
FORMAT: Paperback
BUY ONLINE: amazon
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This book started a year after the plot of the first book “
The Final Empire “ ended. It is
difficult to review this book without mentioning the plot of the first book.
Hence, if you haven’t read the first one yet, this review might spoil you.
**SPOILERS AHEAD (if
you haven’t read The Final Empire) **
Elend has become the king and Vin is the mistborn who acts
like some kind of a body guard to both Elend as well as the empire itself. But
contrary to popular belief , all’s not well even after the death of the Dark
lord. The empire is under threat. Everyone is trying to attack the city and
take over the empire from King Elend . This is due to
the rumours which suggest that the empire has a secret storage of “Atium” which is a
significant metal that can be used for magical powers. Other than that, there
is also this myth about a certain “mist spirit” which is apparently trying to
kill people.
All the characters
from the first book have been retained and have meaty substantial roles to play
. Vin plays the lead role and we see more of Elend in this book. Sazed, who was
my favourite in the first book, plays one of the most significant characters .
His parts in the book are my favourite. All the other crew members of Kelsier’s
team have become associates to king Elend and we see them grow from being mere
theives to people trying to fight the evil.
The addition of fascinating monster like creatures called
Koloss and a couple of new characters (Oreseur, Zane,Tindwyl etc.) made this
book even more interesting . I absolutely loved the dynamic between Oreseur and
Vin. It kind of reminded me of the bond between Sazed and Vin from the first
book. I specifically liked all the bad
guys in this book . They were extremely brutal and the most fun to read.
Unfortunately I ended up disliking the other main lead -
Elend . I thought he was being too righteous. I still don’t like his love story
with Vin. There is absolutely no chemistry between the two. All they do is constantly
doubt their relationship and wonder if they are good enough for each other.
They rarely spend time with each other let alone have a conversation about
their insecurities.
As far as the plot is concerned , it is pretty average. I
did not necessarily care enough for most of the mystery subplots . The sub
plots concerning “ Who is the traitor ?” and “
Are mist spirits real?” did leave a mark
but others seemed a bit dragged. Halfway through the book, I realised there is
a pattern to the plot which goes like this- “King Elend is threatened by a bad
guy due to his stupid righteous decisions , then there are pages and pages of
meetings about it . Finally Vin decides to protect him by killing the bad guy which
ultimately leads them to question their actions.” This constant self doubt of
the two main leads became annoying after a point.
The pacing of the book was frustrating as well. The first 100 pages or so were extremely boring
and I felt like quitting it but then things started to get interesting and I
was hooked till I figured the pattern to
the plot ( which i have mentioned above).
After that, everything seemed relentlessly dragged including the action
sequences . The first book had similar
issues but the twists and turns were so masterfully done that I forgave the
slow pace. Unfortunately , that is not the case with this one. I thought of
quitting this book so many times while reading it . The plot twists in this
book were predictable and underwhelming. The fight sequences were written
really well but were so long that I lost interest.
I did not like this book as much as the first one but there
was something that kept me hooked till the end. The political drama , the
characters and the magnificient world where the story is based made this book
bearable . I think this book sort of
suffers from “ the middle book syndrome” . No doubt it served the purpose of
the middle book which was to act like a bridge between the first and final book
in the series. The cliffhanger at the end will definitely tempt you to continue with the series.
RATING- 🌕🌕🌕🌗 ( 3.5/5 )
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