Book 2), The Well of Ascension (Mistborn

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's the second in the mistborn series and highly addictive. I read the first one in paper back and once I got my kindle it was the first book I purchased. I would recommend for anyone who like sci-fi.

Brandon Sanderson is one of the most amazing authors. His action packed stories are filled with wonder and excitement with never a dull moment. Very few authors can write like he can. By Far my Favorite series and one of my Favorite books

This book, along with the rest of the trilogy, is one of the best, most entertaining books I have read in a while. I wouldn't say I'm the most prolific reader, working on a Masters degree and preparing to start my Doctorate program can be a bit time consuming, but after reading a little of the first book to get a taste for the series, I made time for it.

All of the books in the series are very well written, and the characters themselves are very believable. I would recommend the series to anyone with any interest in a good read.

Being a fan of Robert Jordan, I became interested in Brandon Sanderson. He weaves a wonderfully complex story with much better character development that most authors in this genre. I can see why he was chosen to complete Jordan's wheel of time series.

Solid continuation of Vin's story, but (spoiler alert) without Kelsier, it seems to be missing something; Elend proves to be bland in comparison.

Sazed and a few other new POV characters have what I felt were the more enjoyable chapters, while Vin and Elend's for the most part felt a bit bland, and only plodded along. Maybe I'm just not a fan of romantic subplots.

Also, things drag in the middle - we know a big battle looms for the city of Luthedel, but it's constantly delayed by politicking and intrigue, some of which is interesting, but most of which just feels like stalling. We must make due with constant foreshadowing and character development until finally some much-needed bouts of action mix things up.

The final chapters are much more exciting and open a great deal of questions and possibilities for the trilogy's conclusion.

Built well on the first book. The plot becomes more complex and you learn more about the world and characters in it. I like the way the author allows the reader to follow several characters' journey at the same time.

If you are a fan of Ice and Fire (George RR Martin) or The Golden Compass, you will enjoy this book. This is no cliche fantasy epic. From the start to the end, you will be surprised, intrigued, and amazed. I can't wait for the sequel!

When I read book #1 I was pleased to have found a fantasy book I enjoyed. In my experience there is long between good fantasy books/series. Having just finished reading this book, however, I feel disappointed. Disappointed because it feels like the author don't trust me to have good memory, so it repeats and repeats and repeats. Quite annoying, and I feel this is becomming very common, at least in this genre. And Vin, our beloved mistborn, goes on and on about her not being worthy enough of her beloved. Apart from that, it is a good book #2, with a good story. But I won't buy the next book.

This book still has the same great magic and lore as the first. Great plot lines and character development. Looking forward to the third book.

My main problem with this book is the way Mr Sanderson brings up events from the first book. It seems as though a significant portion of the dialogue, especially in the first half, is elementary reflection on past events. Bringing up the faculties of Mistborn or Allomancy, Keilser's history, etc. I found those parts redundant and frankly boring.

All in all, satisfying read. I'm no writer myself and appreciate Mr Sanderson's skills.

I consider Robin Hobb to be the best fantasy writer going. Her characters are so interesting and complex-- even though maddening and obtuse at times. I come away from a Hobb book feeling as if I lived a life in her world. And I want to go back.

With the second book of Mistborn, I think Sanderson has equalled Hobb. His main characters live interesting emotional lives. They struggle with ethics and self-worth. They live examined lives, and yet they take action, too.

I must say, usually I roll my eyes at female warrior characters. Too often they are written as indistinguishable from men. They might as well *be* men, but one gets the sense that the author has got some sort of literary affirmative action program going (witness George R.R. Martin's inexplicably no-magic-or-anything unbeatable female knight in his Song of Ice and Fire. Give me a break.) I'm old school. I prefer to read about women who nurture and knights who fight over them. Do you find my attitude annoying you oh-so-modern enlightened reader you? Then I have two things to say A) screw you, and B) listen, Sanderson's female assassin, Vin, won me over. She makes sense. She's a warrior, and a believable (at least to me) young woman. Yes, this is me talking.

I want to be on Vin's team. I want to fly her banner. That takes some sensitive and solid writing, pal. So, this is the best thing I've read since since I ran out of Hobb books (get writing Robin!).

(Also, FYI, I read both books on my Kindle. It was very comfortable. I'm going to read all fiction on my Kindle from now on.)

Not to impressed by this serie from Brandn Sanderson, typical fantasy writing with a twist on the magic system. No big suprises in the plot, and characters are not espesially interesting. All in all a mediocre book

The second it the series, this book continues the story of the Mistborn and the legend that is Kelsier. The dialogue is less than satisfying and the story a bit predictable, but overall it is a solid story and good book---it lives up to the first book and gives the reader more.

I just received the hardcover version of WOA and am very irritated at TOR books. They apparently saved some money by using the smallest possible font size they could get away with - making the book 500ish pages long rather then 700ish? They also apparently saved on ink. The text is a medium to light brown in color with poor contrast offwhitish paper. I do use reading glasses on some books and on some I do not. Even with reading glasses, it was a chore to read this book, and required me to get the strongest possible reading light to do so.

For those of you who have never considered this sort of thing, at random , in your home library, pick up several books, open them to any page and read a line. then compare the books. It will emphasize what I'm saying and point out again, the publisher's who are 'cheating' us.

As much as I enjoyed "Final Empire", I was thoroughly disappointed withe the two sequels. The utter lack of action is as painful as it is in the "Wheel of Fortune" series. The dragging on and on regarding characters' moods does not deepen our understanding of their personalities. Very few new facts and twists are added in the two sequels, and these could have been summarized in much fewer pages for a more dynamic read. Actually the entire trilogy could have been packed into one great book. The trend nowadays for fantasy writers is at minima a trilogy (if not more...).

So enjoy "Final Empire" as a self-standing book, skip the two sequels

This is one of those all too rare books that I hate. It is a wonderful read, great story. I am torn between wanting to read it as fast as possible but also I don't want to read it because then the story will end and I'll be left wanting more. Damned if I do and damned if I don't.

Quite honestly one of the best series I have read this year.

I haven't yet finished the book. The story looks great so far, however the number of typos found in the kindle edition is very annoying (5-10 in the first 3 chapters only).
It looks like nobody proof-read it.

As can be expected the second book is somewhat more of the same but with other bad guys.
There are some expected twists in the plot, but on the whole it's a nice book - maybe since the charm and freshness of the idea is gone since it's the second book - it drops a mark for me...

I don't understand how this book has so many positive reviews! It felt as though I was reading what I imagine to be a young reader/teen drama novel. Nothing against young readers, but isn't that what the Harry Potter and other similar books are out there for? The dialogue was so corny! There are a lot of interesting ideas, unfortunately someone else should have written about them. Maybe I've been spoiled by the likes of George R.R. Martin. I don't want to be overly negative, or snobby. Or it could be I'm just missing something, because I distinctly remember enjoying the first book. Who knows, but this book is definitely not worthy of many stars.

I got into Sanderson for the same reason a lot of others did - WOT. Read Mistborn and thought it was OK. Thought the magic system and associated fight scenes were pretty cool, the plot was fine. Some interesting parts.

I read the first 100 pages of this and put it down. Extreme tedium and boredom. It made me realize the weaknesses in the first book - poor character development, uninteresting characters, poor dialogue. Unfortunately pages 15-? were all of things. I simply couldn't get through it.

Also seems like the author read all the books about writing fiction and followed them = fail. Sorry fans who disagree, but I'm just not interested in any of the characters at this point.

I was so close to just not finishing this one. A decent twist at the end (not all that great or unexpected after the great twists of the first book) can't save a book that is far too long and has next to nothing happen.

At the end of book one, I feared that book two would be The Vin Show, after finding her both boring and incredibly inconsistent as a character. I did not fear quite enough - Elend also becomes a POV character and good god I wish he had died in book one, he is the ultimate bore.

So much of the novel is spent trying to convince the reader that Elend would make a great king, but all the 'proof' shows far more accurately that although he is a morally good person he not just unskilled but profoundly unsuited to being a king. He prefers to hide in his books, to wallow in his doubts, and to moralise and pontificate at others. He has no instinct for leading or skill at it - at best, he has a knack for writing laws and dreaming of a more equal future/society. He lacks charisma and isn't particularly likeable - almost all of his popularity comes from trading off Vin's reputation and abilities. He'd make a great priest or lawyer/judge, but a truly lousy king.

I found Vin's romantic antics last book annoying and out of place, but that's nothing compared to this book. Vin and Elend's romantic problems are more suited to a badly written young adult melodrama. It is wildly out of place in adult fantasy, especially when every character has at least five far more pressing concerns than anyone's love life, yet everyone drops all other plots (spies, armies, demonic contracts, enemy politicians, surviving siege conditions) to focus on Vin and Elend's romance and make announcements of their unwavering belief in how destined and perfectly matched the two are. There is nothing that makes me believe LESS in a romance than everyone around the couple telling them how perfect they are. (Also looking at you, Mockingjay.)

Sazed is also a POV character, which excited me until I realised how much time he was going to spend being the #1 cheerleader for Vin and Elend's supposed epic love. When he actually focused on religious and historical matters, he was far more interesting. He and Marsh should have gone on epic exploration adventures instead, it would have been a much more interesting story.

Zane was horribly wasted potential. He started out well but fell into almost every YA love triangle trope there was, to the detriment of his many actual interesting points.

The plotting, pacing and story are woefully constructed. There are three armies surrounding our heroes. Tension should be at an all-time high! And yet, the characters all put this off to focus on much lesser concerns, such as romance and whether Breeze has a working libido or not and whether politicians like Elend or not. If the characters aren't concerned about the armies outside, why on earth should a reader be?

I'm also quite annoyed at the casual misogyny - everyone in a position of power is man. Sazed's new ladyfriend only gained a position on the Keeper council by spending thirty years constantly being whored out in the Lord Ruler's Terris breeding program. Poison is a cowardly, jealous woman's weapon! (Also, mid twenties is old and ugly and useless, who knew.) Elend and Vin's own friends tell Elend he ought to be embarrassed and ashamed that Vin protects him in a fight. Vin, the girl who's the super special powered ultimate magic assassin who killed the freaking Dark Lord. Yeah, god forbid she be better than you in battle.

Vin also has terrible 'tacked on' femininity. She might be the ultimate fighting badass but it's okay because she likes dresses. But wait, she thinks she shouldn't like dresses because she doesn't think of herself as feminine enough, so she'll punish herself by not letting herself wear dresses. Yeah! Let's angst about denying ourselves pretty dresses while three armies camp outside the city and threaten to starve everyone and then murder all our friends. It's okay to just write a badass without having to be super girly on top of it to prove she's still 'feminine' (picturing Celaena from Throne of Glass, another ultimate assassin who also giggles over pretty dresses). Or write a girly badass and own that. Why must there be an angst-ridden dilemma about how the part of her that likes dresses must be fake and therefore repressed?

But mostly this book just gets the low score for being so boring. And I want to point out that I love overly political fantasy and siege warfare both. But this book really doesn't bring either of those to the table, too busy with it's bad-YA love triangle melodrama instead.

** Disclaimer: I love YA, I've read good love triangles, I've read good melodrama. I'm not saying those things make something bad by default. This book just does them BADLY.

1. The Final Empire - 5/5
2. The Well of Ascension - 5/5
3. The Hero of Ages
4. The Alloy of Law (takes place 300 years after #3)
5. Shadows of Self
6. The Pits of Mourning

What is it about?

Book 2 occurs one year after the uprising in book 1.Elend Venture has spent this time shaping the government while Vin fights assassins in the dark misty nights. But now, Elend's father has brought an army to reclaim the city and the mists are starting to behave strangely.

Was it good?

It was brilliant. I didn't love it as much as the first book, but I did love it. Especially the Kandra; I need more Kandra!

The world and characters are all consistent with the first book but we get to learn more about them and learn more about the original hero and his quest to fight the deepness. I really can't get enough of Sazed or OreSeur. I wish I had a friend to talk to about this book because there is so much I want to say but I cannot because of spoilers. Just know that this story is so good it makes you obsessed.

Book 1 of the Mistborn series asks what happens when the dark lord wins. Book 2 asks what happens when he is defeated. The Well of Ascension is not an easy book to review without giving a lot of spoilers. Like The Last Jedi, it is a middle volume in a trilogy that rely relies on the final volume to succeed or fail. The good news is that, while I still very much have my doubts about Star Wars: Episode IX, Mistborn book 3 is out and it gives us a highly satisfactory payoff for the setup in this book.

Bottom line: The Well of Ascension suffers a bit from middle-book-syndrome, but the trilogy is none the less for it, and The Well of Ascension is ambitious, if nothing else.

Sanderson shows his now well known skill at worldbuilding by continuing to expand the world of Mistborn (and the Cosmere). We see the koloss we only heard about in the first book. We learn much more about the kandra.

Vin and Elend don’t just have koloss and kandra to worry about. Vin faces off against another mistborn, and there are two armies on the doorstep. Inside Luthadel, Elend learns that running an empire is harder than winning it.

Where Sanderson really shines, though, is in how he plays with prophecy. But that is spoiler territory.

Vin, Elend and the remains of Kelsier’s crew are left managing the remains of Luthadel after the events of The Final Empire this sounds simple but there are armies descending on them from all sides wanting to take control of the city in addition to weird goings on in the mists which mean this unlikely bunch have to be stronger than ever to overcome everything being sent their way.

Yet again Brandon Sanderson presents a tome with a solid epic fantasy, this is not a quick read but there is so much going on all the time that you can delve in for hours at a time. The allomantic play by the mistborns is wonderful to read, so vivid that you can see them dancing around on the page clearly, pushing and pulling bouncing around on rooftops. We meet a new mistborn in this novel, Zane, and I very much liked his character and the way he connected with Vin.

There are a lot battles in this novel, some brutal, and the way Sanderson has written them from multi-POV’s and over multiple chapters to really bring you as a reader into the depth of the battle is just how I like it. I love Sanderson’s knack of writing plenty of detail, of reeling you in so that you can see, hear, smell everything, exactly how I like to read my fantasy. The worldbuilding in these books has been stellar and I have such a perfect picture in my head of every location, every building, every outfit and every person.

I’m really looking forward to delving into the next book in this series. Lucky it’s on my bookshelf already!

*Just a heads up, this review is filled with spoilers*

Recently I was browsing my local book store, and picked up Mistborn on a whim. This being my first experience with a Sanderson novel, I came away very impressed. While Mistborn certainly wasn't a perfect novel, the world created by Sanderson was fantastic, and the story and characters were lively and really captured my interest. Unfortunately, the follow up seems to have taken a massive nose dive in quality.

To start with the positives, like it's predecessor, the world of The Well of Ascension is fantastic. Sanderson has done a great job crafting a world that has a deep and interesting lore that managed to keep me turning pages to discover the next revelation. The magic system of the Mistborn universe as well feels like it was created with an attention to detail and is definitely one of the more unique systems I've come across.

Sanderson also posses a solid writing style that can easily jump between action and dialog, or from character to character, while still feeling natural.

Unfortunately, that's about where the positives end in my opinion. In general, I feel that this novel has two fatal flaws. Those are, the story and the characters.

To start, the story, if you can call it that, is almost non-existent. I'm not exaggerating when I say that nothing happens for 80% of this novel. It's too bad because the premise of this novel is great. A city under siege by three separate armies, all the while a supernatural threat is moving across the land. Sanderson however completely squanders this interesting premise by having the characters spend the majority of the novel bickering and doubting themselves, all the while doing nothing to address the threats they face or move the plot forward. There are several points in the story where the protagonists are faced with a problem, such as the encroaching mists or the discovery a spy in their midst, which they then completely ignore for hundreds of pages in favour of repetitive conversation. It isn't until the last 100 pages of the book that something of significance finally happens, which is a problem considering the book is 750 pages long.

Now, a slow story isn't necessarily a fatal blow for a novel if the characters are interesting. Unfortunately, the characters, or at least the leads, are as dull as can be. The biggest offender of this is Elend. This is a character with exactly one character trait. He is a "good man". You know this because every character feels the need to mention it every single time Elend is the topic of conversation. He has no real faults, he has no interesting back story, he doesn't really accomplish anything, he just seems to exist for other characters, particularly Vin, to fawn over.

What's worse though, is that Elend somehow manages to be both dull and annoying. For a character everyone seems to think the world of, Elend is surprisingly useless. Everything he achieves is completely undeserved. He becomes King through no feat of his own, but simply because of his association with the person who killed the last king (Vin). Seriously, who would want this guy as king? In Mistborn Elend was a lazy heir to a rich family who wanted nothing to do with the real world, but instead liked to spend time reading. What exactly qualifies this guy to be leader of hundreds of thousands of people? Even as king, he fails spectacularly. Elend fails to prevent the siege of his city, fails to negotiate with the enemy generals, fails to find the people sabotaging his city, and fails to prevent himself from being ousted from power (by his own laws). In the end, mister "good man" Elend abandons the city in its time of need, and only gets power back because Vin murders and threatens everyone into swearing loyalty to her boy toy. At the end of the story Elend even becomes a Mistborn because.... reasons. After reading Mistborn, where every character was portrayed in shades of grey and accomplished nothing without some kind of sacrifice, Elend being squeaky clean and never having to work for anything just feels so out of place.

Its not just Elend that got hit with the Dull Hammer though. Vin, who in Mistborn was portrayed as a relatively complex character, seems to have lost all nuance in this novel. The primary reason for this is, you guessed it, Elend. Vin's entire thought process in this novel seems to revolve around Elend and their relationship. Does he love me? Do I love him? Is he too good for me? On and on these angsty questions go. I had a hard time believing that a girl who grew up on the streets and murdered a god-king would be this weak. This infatuation with Elend even manages to undo her character arc from the previous novel. In Mistborn Vin started out distrustful and reserved, before Kelsier and his crew broke down her walls and she became trusting and open. In this novel however, her angst over Elend manages to regress her back to being distrustful and reserved. The relationship between Vin and Elend in general felt very hollow and there is no reason it should have taken up this much screen time in the novel.

It's unfortunate that the leads are so dull because the side characters are quite interesting. Secondary characters like OreSeur, Sazed, and Breeze all managed to steal every scene they were in. If any or all of them had stepped up in Kelsier's absence instead of Elend, I probably would have enjoyed the novel a lot more.

In the end, The Well of Ascension is a slog. The story is almost non-existent and the main characters are at best dull, and at worst infuriating. The world is still interesting, but I have a hard time crediting that to this novel as most of the world and mysteries were established in the previous novel. The only reason I don't give this novel a worse score is because the ending is actually pretty solid and leaves me intrigued for where the story will go next.

I first decided to give up on this series after reading bad reviews, but then changed my mind later, thinking surely it couldn't be that bad, even without Kelsier. I liked Vin and the other main characters, and wanted to know what happened. I should've listened to the top review, which brilliantly describes the book to a T. If it's too long for you, here's a shorter version.

People talk about stuff, and then talk about the same stuff over and over and over and over. And over. There are pointless meetings and more pointless meetings. In between every other sentence, the author repetitively (and tediously) explains how everything works like we didn't just read that four pages ago...or worse, melodramatically tells what angsty thing each character is thinking...and they think the same thing—over and over and over. (Apparently this is to make them more human/believable. Instead, it's just a tedious course in 'telling' rather than 'showing.') This alone makes it stressful to slog through.

You keep believing it's going to eventually get better. But sadly enough, nothing much happens until the last quarter of the book, and by then, characters you thought you cared about feel more one-dimensional than ever before and you suddenly realize you really don't care that much (and some of them have even become annoying). Plot twists or sudden events/payoffs that should have emotional impact or even be exciting just feel meh. In fact, some of the plot twists are pretty predictable (or given away by the obvious 'this bad thing is happening so that you'll be surprised when it turns around!' type of thing). A bunch of mysteries that are *endlessly* discussed and stressed over throughout the story end up not really being much of a mystery. The last time I found myself involuntarily saying "So stupid" or "I don't care, move on" was reading the worst Clive Cussler paperback ever, which is sad because Sanderson probably has 10x the writing talent/potential.

Worse, major plot points rest upon the author making characters do or not do things in moronic/illogical/not-believeable ways (based on everything else we're told about them). I feel like I'm starting to see this as a pattern with this author, even in his books with better plots such as the Stormlight Archives, although it's a little easier to ignore there if you don't think you're about to read what's supposed to be a masterpiece. Sanderson is super prolific, so I don't fault him too much for not having totally pristine plots, but I can hardly believe this sort of seemingly thoughtless writing when I recall just recently hearing him say that plots should never cheat like this. Where's the editor who could be helping us all out by cutting out at least half the repetitive parts and be pointing out plot problems? It's almost as though neither of them really read the whole thing through after the first draft was done.

Some reviews said it's worth suffering through for the ending, but even that turned out to be pretty hastily scrawled out. It actually felt like I might have been better off just reading a plot summary of this book and moving on.

As a few others have said, albeit in their own way, the author had a good idea, and basically blew it. Firstly, whatever the merits or demerits of the basic plot, characters, dialogue and narrative, this book is ridiculously overlong, there simply isn't enough literary meat to fill the pages; if it really was meat cooking in the oven, then the roast has been burned to a crisp.

The very basic storyline is OK - (presumably) an alternate universe, still with humans, but with other creatures too, and is a massive tale of elite and ruthless nobles, and an extremely downtrodden peasantry, with some of the elite having incredible powers, although others also have them (the power to ingest metals and 'burn' them inside to gain a variety of powers and skills for one).

One of the main problems is the indecisiveness of some of the main characters - extreme angst duly suffered while trying to decide who they really are, what are they in existence for. Let's reduce it to the poetic and sometimes comedic scene or sketch where someone pulls the petals off a flower while going 'He Loves Me', 'He Loves Me Not', then magnify this to nauseating levels / repetitiveness, and you just about have the gist of far too large a slice of this tome.

I am really sorry to say that, in my opinion at least, this book does not match up to the plethora of incredibly positive and sometimes gushing reviews plastered all over the paperback version. So much so, I wonder if they are genuine reviews?

Book 2 of the phenomenally successful Mistborn series finds our street urchin-turned-powerful Mistborn facing even more challenges as she not only navigates her evolving relationship with Elend (enter dark love rival who is literally Elend’s dark opposite), and the possible destiny that awaits her as the prophesied hero of the ages.

Elend is trying on his role as king of Luthadel, even as his corrupt father Straff tries to wrest it from him, and Elend soon finds the threat comes not just from that quarter. For much of the book, the city of Luthadel is under siege, and the action flags just a little from this impasse, which is not insubstantial, considering it is more than 750 pages in length. But given the pattern of 2nd books in trilogies, which act like the exposition section of an epic-length novel, it is not too surprising. To be fair, there is much political intrigue and sabotage to occupy the reader, as all sides try to outwit one another.

The reader learns a lot more about Vin’s character from her inner struggles, and the Terrisman Sazed, who was Kelsier’s steward in the first book, also plays a significant part in this second book, and his story arc moved me the most, more so than the at times cloying romance between Elend and Vin, who are after all, very young lovers. The kandra Oresur, who played Uncle Renoux to Vin’s Valette in the first book, now inhabits an animal, and surprisingly, that is where his humanity shines through, and the conflicting relationship he has with Vin was especially well executed, although it gets lost in the later events of the novel.

An overall engaging enough novel that makes you want to see how Sanderson eventually ties up all the loose ends and the fates of the huge ensemble cast in the final book.

EDIT
I originally wrote a review of book two, below, then went on to book three. It made me reflect that my disappointment in book two had much to do with my expectations I would love it the way I did book one. I didn’t, but it is still masterfully written, with incredible characters and a great story. Book one is among my top favorite books. I am into book three without expectations and am enjoying it.

Original Text
With the first book I was hooked. Loved the characters and the story. I waited long enough to post my review of that book before starting the second. (Same day as finishing the first.)

I didn’t feel the same after this one, it’s been months since i finished it. I have not moved onto the third book. Book two was longer, which I don’t mind if I’m engaged. It dove into character detail, and to me it seemed to lengthen it significantly without adding enough value to make it worthwhile. For me. Please note this is subjective, I see others posting that they love that depth and that’s fine. But I personally stopped reading another series because of the intricate detail that took so much time to describe, it lost my interest. It’s a balance that is different for everyone.

Finally, I do like closure at the end of a book. I felt it at the end of book one and still could not wait to start two. This one had some things left unresolved that really bothered me, and maybe book three addresses them, but I spent 30 hours on book two and just couldn’t fathom more time to get to where I hoped it might go. Again, that’s just me. I don’t mean to be unfair, the characters are brilliant, I love the unique concepts and the stories within this series. Just that this book fell a little short for me. I may get book three at some point.

Reader thoughts:
This book was pretty dark, had quite a bit of death and despair, but it had a redeeming ending (still dark, but in a twisted this-is-going-to-make-book-three-awesome sort of way).

Also, it felt (just a little) like not much was happening. Siege. Negotiations that go wrong. Posturing. Repeat. Vin could have done more to search for the imposter (that was brilliant!), and why didn't more people use the secret tunnels to escape? Why did all the meetings have to be weeks out . . . it was almost like the people were trying to starve themselves when they should've been able to move up the times. (We're running out of food, so let's wait until next week to negotiate with Straff.)

Condra. Yes. Trust? Cool.

The prophecies and Qwon's writing; I knew the revelation would come at the end, and I wanted to see the answer before that, but, alas, I could not figure out what was wrong with his story. Shocking. Write the words in metal.

I love how academic Sanderson's characters always are. Even Vin, who grew up on the streets, conducts her own research! Sadly, I didn't like Vin as much; she was willing to give up Elend, and she brooded a lot. The horseshoe trick was cool.

Writer thoughts:
Vin gets even duller in book 3, and I think I know why. Characters have to have flaws to be interesting, and Vin is just too powerful. She can do too much physically. In book 1, she was still learning, and she had lots of doubts about her place and what it meant to be half skaa. In books 2 and 3, her doubts are less interesting. They're about whether she and Elend should be together (the answer is too obvious, and so this is not worth pondering for an entire book) and nebulous doubts about how to defeat Ruin and draw on the mists.

If you've read the first one in this series, you'll know what I mean when I say that there's just too many elements in these books to properly review and give thought to each of them. Honestly, there are just so many ideas, themes, concepts, and goldmines presented to be able to remember them all or comment on them all. All you can do is read and have your mind blown by it all, and then reread to experience it all over again. Bravo, Brandon Sanderson. You are a literary God!

As I said, there are just too many aspects of this book that go above and beyond everything for me to be able to coherently gush about or even remember them all, because I am bound to forget something. Out of these 763 pages, there's a goldmine on every single one... Amazing!

So, on this read, I am just going to gush about one aspect: the concept of time! I've never read a book where time is such a relevant factor for the characters. They talk about what happened centuries ago and then they talk about what it'll be like centuries after them, in the future. That is just so crazy to me! When or after making their important decisions, someone will make a comment about what the world will be like hundreds of years from then. It's just crazy to me to see them look at their world as a timeline where the Deepness ravaging the land and then the Lord Ruler took the power a thousand years ago, to the second century of his reign where the Keepers were created, to the present where the Lord Ruler has been defeated, to speculating how the skaa and their viewpoints will be different two hundred years after the rebellion... It's amazing and so unique. I've never read anything like it!

LOVE: Kelsier, Vin, Elend, Sazed, Breeze, Ham, Clubs, Spook, Dockson!!!

Some interesting new characters: Tindwyl, Zane, Allrienne...

Amazing sequel to perhaps the best book ever written!!!

Vin, Elend, and the rest of the crew now must face the realities and politics of running the city of Luthadel. This is a big challenge and brings with it new friends and foes as well as a compelling calling for Vin. As with the first novel in this series, I give The Well of Ascension 4-1/2 stars. I’m really loving these characters and this story of a group of well-intended friends attempting to make their world better. The adventure is terrific. The intrigue is high. The action is gripping. The relationships are refreshing. I find it to be very satisfying. This was a long novel and I was never bored. I kept wanting to check in and find out how the characters were doing and how their circumstances were changing and clarifying.

Again, the narrator was Michael Kramer and I had no problems with his narration this time. I give him an A+. He seems perfectly suited for this story and the things that annoyed me during Mistborn did not seem to bother me at all with this one.

As many have said, this book is slow in the beginning. There is much talking and debating and information gathering, but there isn't any action . Action seemed to fuel the first book in this series and this book lacked that for a very long time--or what seemed like a long time. Once this book picks up, it is very difficult to put down. The characters are all so much more than they were in The Final Empire. Each character has grown and taken on the responsibility of a new empire. It has its challenges, but each man and woman does what they can to protect their city.

I find the fight scenes in this book to be even more beautiful and heartbreaking than those in the first book. (view spoiler) The skill each member has taken to learning and improving really shows as the armies draw near and as the book progresses.

I'm not sure what else I can say about this book that hasn't already been said or that wouldn't be full of spoilers, but it is a wonderful second installment in the Mistborn series and I cannot wait to pick up the next book.

This is the second book in Sanderson's original Mistborn trilogy and while he has created a layered world and mythology in this tale that is hard to beat, I didn't like this book anywhere near as much as the first one. I guess I just still miss Kelsier because, in my opinion, this book lacks a character with the requisite amount of charisma needed to get me through the slow parts. And this book had a lot of slow parts. The final four or five chapters did finally ramp up the interest factor but the rest of the book spends far too much page time devoted to the woeful inner musing of both Vin and Elend as they contemplate the status of their relationship - and never mind that there are THREE armies breathing down their necks. Personally, I find their relationship the least interesting thing about the any of this. At times it seemed as though the two were competing for the title of "Most Insecure Under-Thirtysomething in Luthadel". And Elend, oh Elend, he's a good man, to be sure. He's as pure as the driven snow. He could give any of the Disney princesses a run for their money he's so good and pure. It's not a bad thing; it's just...boring. Then there's Vin. She's so all powerful now, like superpower powerful, that no one and nothing can beat her. The last book in the trilogy should only be a couple of chapters long because there's nothing she can't do at this point. I don't dislike Vin and Elend, they're good people, I'm just a little bored by them now and they tick off all the usual fantasy cliches and, I have to admit, that's a little disappointing.

I still give huge props to Sanderson for creating this world and his writing style is one I do like. Personally, though, I would have preferred to read about the exploits of Kelsier, Dockson, and the rest of the crew (including a still living Mare). They were/are imperfect people with multi-layered motivations and desires but that's exactly what made them interesting, what gave them their spark. Alas, that's not the story I'm getting so I will accept it and finish out the trilogy - not because I'm really all that interested in seeing what happens to Vin and Elend, but because I want to get past them to the new books which will, hopefully, bring more dynamic and charismatic main characters.

After the fall of the Lord Ruler the Final Empire is finding its footing in this new world without their ‘God’.
Elend has been put on the throne in Luthadel but holding on to it and defending the city from armies interested in invading might be bigger problems than he had anticipated.
Vin is all for helping Elend defend his title and the city but there is something that keeps stealing her attention. The last words of the Lord Ruler hunt her and she fears that the Deepness is gaining strength once again. There might be something far more sinister than armies and assassins out in the mist.

Like the first book I really loved book number two.
The characters are great (even though I miss Kelsier a lot), there are some good actin scenes and I could not predict what the outcome would be in the end.
This book is more focused on political aspects than the first book and some might find the story a bit slow overall, but I really enjoyed almost everything about it and was at the edge of my seat many times while reading it.

"The Well of Ascension" is where the Lord Ruler gained godlike powers to battle the Deepness and then transform the world instead of just releasing it, or that's what Kelsier's crew believed throughout the second Mistborn book by Brandon Sanderson. The middle volume of the Mistborn trilogy not only has the magic of allomancy of the first but realpolitik as the Final Empire collapses into numerous kingdoms.

The book begins a year after the Collapse following the death of the Lord Ruler with more point-of-view characters from the beginning than "Final Empire" had initially, giving a sense of the bigger scope that "Ascension" is meant to have given the plot threads throughout the book. The primary character continues to be the street urchin-turned-Mistborn Vin who not only protects the city from antagonistic allomancers bent on assassinating Elend Venture who rules Luthadel as King and who wants to marry her. Elend along with Vin and the rest of the Kelsier crew must deal with three armies arriving and besieging the former imperial capital as well as dealing with internal political intrigue. And only to add stuff on top of that, the ever present nightly mist is starting to crept into the day, form spirits, and kill people.

At about 760 pages, "Ascension" is a 100 pages longer than "Final Empire" and given the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and political conflicts within the book this seems a reasonable. Unfortunately there were brief stretches in which the writing drags in the middle and last third of the book as internal conflicts are rehashed once again for Vin and Elend in regards to themselves and the other, the sheer amount of times it's repeat gets wearing to the reader. The book has a lot of unforeseen twists that catches the reader off guard both positively and negatively depending on the clues only picked up on after the fact, if there are any. However unlike the "Final Empire" in which the last 100 pages turned out to be a weakness, the last 100 pages of Ascension was a strength as subplots were resolved and the story threads quickly interwove for quiet a interesting ending that makes you want to see what happens next in "Hero of Ages".

As with all second acts, all doesn't go well for the heroes even though they survive (for the most part) and strive to build a better world than the one they've had. "The Well of Ascension" builds upon what Brandon Sanderson began in "Final Empire" not only in the present time frame of his world, but into it's past and setting up a potentially fantastic ending to the "Mistborn" trilogy.

The Well of Ascension is book two in the Mistborn fantasy series by Brandon Sanderson. The story continues about Vin, the young Mistborn girl, who suddenly finds herself and her companions in a very different position of ruling an empire after she killed the godlike ruler. At 815 pages or nearly 30 hours as an audiobook this story tends to be a long one.

Basically, the story focuses on Vin as she struggles to find her place and protect her love from assassins while the city is besieged by multiple armies wanting the riches and power the city supposedly has.

I enjoy the Mistborn world but have to admit that it felt like a chore to get through this book due to the length and meandering plot. Yes, there are armies surrounding the city but much of the story revolves around government meetings and Vin trying to discover secrets about the mists. I give it three stars but thinking a shorter story would have been more enjoyable and be better paced.

Picking up a year after the events of the first volume, this book shows what has become of the Final Empire. In the wake of the Lord Ruler's death in book one, political scholar and aristocratic fop Elend Venture has become the king of Luthadel, the central city of the Final Empire. Being well-read on political philosophy, he establishes an Assembly made up of equal parts from the nobility, the merchant class, and the worker class (known as Skaa). The Assembly shares in decision making with the king, though naturally differences of opinions rise. Elend manages it as best he can. It's hard to maintain control and give people freedom at the same time.

Meanwhile, Terrisman scholar Sazed is wandering the remains of the empire, teaching the people about the ancient religions (that was his research specialty) and researching ancient legends concerning the rise of the Lord Ruler. Since the Lord Ruler's death, the mists that cover their world have become stronger, lasting further into the morning and in some rare cases killing people. The rumors of death are hard to believe but Sazed gains some evidence on his travels. So maybe the Lord Ruler was holding something worse than himself in check while he lived. Things are getting out of control.

Mistborn action heroine Vin has also done some research, even though she grew up as a Skaa waif wandering from thieving group to thieving group. She becomes convinced she may be a new Hero of Ages, which is what the Lord Ruler thought he was before he went to the Well of Ascension and gained god-like powers. She thinks she must seek out the Well of Ascension and use the powers properly in order to undo the damage inflicted by the Lord Ruler and stop the Mists, which she believes are an embodiment of the Deepness, a force or creature that the Lord Ruler presumably vanquished when he took power at the Well of Ascension.

All of this is set up in the first fifty pages of the book. But before she sets out for the Well, there's the security of the capital to consider. Other kings want to conquer Luthadel and claim the Lord Ruler's throne (and the secret stash of atium (a metal used by Mistborn)). So the next five hundred pages go through a lot of political intrigue, battles, plot twists, and world building. Also, Vin's feelings for Elend aren't settled yet. They aren't sure they are right for each other but only time and definitive choices will get them together. They finally set out for the Well only to have more plot twists come up.

I enjoyed the main story in this book but did feel like it has a lot of side plots and action (the five hundred pages I mentioned) that don't ultimately contribute to the core story. Of course, they could be set-up for the end of the story in the next volume, which brings up another problem. This novel is the typical "part two" of a fantasy trilogy. In many fantasy trilogies, the first book is written as a stand alone story. If that story is successful, a sequel or two seems justified. Several trilogies I have read seem like the second and third books are really one long story broken over two volumes, rather than two stand alone novels. The end of book two has a big cliff-hanger that doesn't resolve the narrative satisfactorily, forcing the reader to get the next volume to finish the story. Happily, the Mistborn trilogy was written years ago, so I don't have to wait around for the next volume, which I will be starting soon.

At least I'm not caught in an ongoing cycle that may never end *cough*Game of Thrones*cough*.

Book two of this extraordinarily original fantasy series created by one of the profession’s elite is a smooth, fun, fast, and exciting read right from the opening page. Vin - the once street urchin - is still in love with young King Elend, and young King Elend is till in love with Vin. Most of the old gang have returned, and even the dead ones tend to linger via their ghosts. There are even hints of someone’s return, but I may be reading too strongly between the lines there for that comment to be valid.

The story opens with a siege. The city is surrounded by more bad guys than you can shake a (metaphorical) stick at, and its up to the heroes of book one to come together again and develop a solution that will ensure their survival, as well as that of the city’s inhabitants, too.

Mr Sanderson’s writing never seems to get bogged down in ’boring bits’. The chapters are relatively short, but even the longer ones are comprised of mini chapters that are obvious places to put the book down (why would you?) if you have the need. Kudos must again go the publisher for these beautifully presented paperbacks. Gorgeously stunning covers (that match the originality of the story found within) and lovely thick, smelly paper to adore as the reader traverses the land of The Final Empire.

And maps. I like maps. Maps rule.

Of course this book is not just about surviving a siege. There is the hunt for the legendary stash of atium that is rumoured to be hidden (somewhere...) way back when, by the Lord Ruler. There are lands for the reader to explore (via minor and major characters such as Sazed) and he comes upon a doozie of a monster species called the blue-skinned Koloss. Very violent, very fast growing, very very ugly and very quick to die. I love these guys!

The writing is not goose-bump inducingly beautiful. How can it be when the entire fable is based on a riddle that you read backwards. Book one opened with a dead city, being governed by the bad guys and it was only the efforts of a small group of revolutionaries (that had no idea that plants and trees are meant to be green, and that the sky is meant to be blue - not black) who have made such an impact on the lives of the populace they were fighting for.

Of course other heinous characters return, but not in such an intimidating way. The Steel inquisitors are a truly brilliant creation, and they feel like something that belongs in a horror novel, as opposed to a fantasy one. But such is the world that was created by the author of this incredible tale, that they fit right in.

The story is a tad slow in the first third, until we meet the book’s arguably pivotal character. Zane is his name, but nothing more will I add about him to this review for fear of spoilers. His place in the story is significant (obviously) and he is one seriously dangerous dude from many perspectives.

Of course the story goes on. Just like the WELL OF ASCENSION itself, book two is a deep, deep, deep, and always thrilling ride into an unknown land, populated with men, women, children, monsters, and even ash that falls from a black sky, and where the populace are too scared to venture out at night for fear of death waiting for them in mist form.

And so this book gets a very solid four stars from me. Now, back to reading of the rescue of THE FINAL EMPIRE I go. Wish me luck, fellow book lover. If I fail to return, feel free to send out a search party. I am heading north, to the TERRIS DOMINANCE, home of the sacred Well of Ascension. For that is where rumour tells me the stashed source of mystical attium can be found.

BFN Greggorio.

http://readfantasybooks.wordpress.com

Plot

The Well of Ascension takes place one year after the events of the previous novel. Elend is King of Luthadel, but his kingdom ends up becoming besieged by three different armies who want the atium that is supposedly stored somewhere in the city. The entire novel focuses on Elend trying to figure out what to do about these armies and how to save the people he worked so hard to free. Not only does he have to worry about this, but Vin and Sazed realize there is something terribly wrong with the Mists. There is also more information uncovered about the previous Hero of Ages among other things.

Even though the plot of the book seems simple and maybe a little boring, it wasn’t. Sanderson was able to make me interested in the novel from beginning to end; almost 800 pages! The pace of the book was absolutely perfect just as the previous novel. I never had to skim pages or skip them altogether because I found it uninteresting or slow. Just perfect!

Again, the plot was completely unpredictable. I had a feeling it was going to turn out a certain way and it did, but not in the way that I thought. Also, I did not see that ending coming! OMG! I still don’t know how I feel about what happened to Elend. However, I was entirely satisfied by the ending and thought it was amazing!

I suppose I should mention the one thing that kind of bothers me. When Vin ends up in a fight I think it is almost a little too detailed. It could have been shortened just a bit without taking anything away from the novel allowing it to flow more smoothly. I love the magic system and have come to understand it more now, so in the second book I don’t need a step-by-step guide on how she fights with her Allomancy. At least these encounters didn’t become boring per se. I just thought they were a little too wordy, but how he writes these scenes really does give you a sense of urgency and I think that is why he explains everything.

Characters

I have very strong feelings for the characters in this book! I love some and despise others, which tells me that Sanderson really knows how to write some awesome characters.

Vin and Elend are my favorite characters, and I love watching them struggle with their relationship throughout the book. I love the way it turns out, but it took them awhile to get there. The relationship between Vin and OreSeur also develops and is quite interesting, especially towards the end of the novel when something I never suspected happens.

I liked reading about how Vin is getting incredibly good with her Allomancy and I thought it was really interesting that she was finding different types of metals to create new abilities. Her encounters with the mysterious Mistborn was interesting too, but I thought she was a little too trusting of him. Also, I liked being able to know what she was thinking, especially about having to kill people, etc. There is a lot of Vin reflecting on who she thinks she is in this novel and am glad that she seems to be figuring it out.

Elend is also an interesting character and we get to see a lot more of him in this novel. He spends a lot of time trying to figure out who he is, how to be a King, and his relationship with Vin, among other things. It was great to watch him develop into an amazing person by the end of the novel.

The other character that I really enjoy reading about is Sazed because I think he is so interesting. In this book we get to know a lot more about him, and he even gets his own chapters! I love him as a character and he is so well developed. By the end of the novel there are many changes going on with him and I hope to see that it all turns out in the next book.

Writing

Sanderson’s ability to write amazes me! He is so captivating! I love how well the story flows and how good he is at world-building. His magic system is so unique and incredibly interesting, and I can’t wait to read some of his other books!

Overall Thoughts

To find a series that has amazing characters, world-building, and an incredibly interesting plot that is also original is very difficult to find. That is why I highly recommend reading this series! It is incredible! Young adults and adults alike will really enjoy this book and it is a great way to get into fantasy! I can’t explain how much you have to read this book, but be sure to read the first book! READ IT!

My rating: 4.5/5 stars!

This series continued to pull me along, deeply invested in the world, but this one had some trouble the first did not. I think my first issues was Elend. I liked him so much in the first book from Vin's perspective. He was less appealing from his own. His insecurities were a bit frustrating. More than this however, was the romance--two people assuming the other couldn't care for them because of something THEY'VE done, and the other seeing that avoidance as proof when in both cases it is their own self-loathing. It is the reason I don't read romance and I found it frustrating in fantasy too. Just talk to each other, dammit.

OTHER than that, I really liked the threat to Luthadel, the efforts of Kelsier's (now Elend's) team, the twists, the turns. The creeping mists. It was a page turner and a book I carried with me to see what would happen next. It is a great strength that a book can do that in spite of a flaw that would have killed most books for me.

Mistborn: The Final Empire, was everything the first book in a trilogy should be. It had all the action, intrigue, and cool characters it needed to get me booked on the series. The emotional beats were great, and it demanded that I read Well of Ascension immediately.

Well of Ascension caught me off guard a little bit, though. It’s not the same book that Mistborn was. Sanderson took a dangerous route by changing up the plot structure, and though the world itself still has the same dark atmospheric feeling, the book itself feels very different from the first.

As expected, Sanderson managed to pull this off with aplomb, crafting yet another thrilling tale.

While Mistborn was a tale of thieves trying to overthrow an empire, a tale of the dark alley ways and shadowy places of Luthadel, Well of Ascension is a political novel and a war novel. With the Lord Ruler and Kelsier gone (I did warn you about spoilers…), and funds running low, the remainder of the thieving crew must try their hand at running an empire, a task that is proving even more difficult than overthrowing it.

An old villain comes into new prominence, and he’s very nasty. Straff Venture, Elend’s father, is one of the generals who is leading an army against Luthadel, trying to claim the city—and the empire—as his own. But he’s not alone. Others want the city too, and they’ll stop at nothing to get it. The impending armies give the book its main sense of drive, and for the most part, they’re enough to keep it going.

Elend is forced to play the part of king, and the novel delves deeply into what this really means, and what the politics of the Final Empire might really look like. I must admit that I found this element of the pacing slow at times, and these were some of the least enjoyable sections of the book.

The rest of the book more than made up for it, though. Vin, growing every more confident in herself and her powers, is up to her usual mistborn antics, and there are plenty of nerve-wracking fight scenes, including two of particular note. The first is still one of the bloodiest, most revolting massacres ever, and I love it for both the visual aspect and the impact it has on me—and the characters—every time. The other, well. Let’s just say it involves Vin, a lot of iron, and a very large sword, and ranks in the top five scenes that I want to see on the big screen. Heck. I’d pay for an entire movie just to see that one scene.

But that’s not to say that the awesomeness is limited to our favorite mistborn. The whole crew from the first book is here, and there are plenty of new additions. The old characters gain new depth—in particular, Sazed continues to develop into one of the best written non-religious (or poly-religious, I’m not sure) characters I’ve ever read, and I truly admire Sanderson’s ability to write viewpoints he disagrees with so very, very well. Everyone gets their own scenes in which to shine, and the variety of the cast makes it an entertaining book.

My favorite character, perhaps because his situation is the most relatable, and because I can understand why he takes every action that he does, is Spook.

And, as you saw in Mistborn, nobody is safe. The feels that Sanderson unleashed on page 573 of Mistborn (Kelsier. Yes, I have the MMPB page number memorized. 588 in the YA TPB edition.) are a good indicator of what is to come. With a whole host of armies sitting around, all of whom want the same thing, you really can’t expect everyone to survive. Have the chocolate ready, especially as you approach the end.

And what an ending it is. While Well of Ascension is the middle book of the trilogy, and almost by necessity, is a little slower than the other two, the ending is still a completely amazing piece of work, and the number of twists and surprises that Sanderson pulls really make it utterly thrilling. And it’s not over until the last page. The last time I saw someone read this book, she went from amazed to horrified, to swearing she would never read Sanderson again to crying from happiness, to demanding Hero of Ages immediately, all in about 10 minutes. This is a fairly typical reaction.

In summary, The Well of Ascension, the second book in the Mistborn trilogy, is another triumph for Sanderson, and while it feels slow at times, it has some of my favorite scenes ever, and adds depth to pretty much every character in the series, all the while raising the stakes constantly and building towards a surprising, twisting ending that will leave you demanding the third book as soon as you can get your hands on it. Five of Five stars.

This review is SPOILER FREE. If you want my full thoughts, with spoilers included, leave me a comment and I'll post one. I would love to talk about these books for ever and ever.

Without giving too much away, this takes place about a year after the first one. It's very different, too. The characters have matured and, reflecting on The Final Empire I almost can't imagine them like that. What a testimony to Sanderson's writing, that characters have grown so much. Another big difference lies in the central theme. No longer is this a heist story, rather a war story. Additionally, where the first is a bit of a conversation about religion, this one is a conversation about politics.

I loved this book so much. I can't say I loved it more than the first book because I loved them equally in different ways. The character development, for one, blew me away. Those of you who aren't fans of Breeze, by the end of the book I swear you'll be sold. Besides him, Sazed and Elend have the most drastic of changes. I can't believe they're the same people! Vin, too, goes through a lot, but I feel like it's a more predictable trajectory.

This book ends with one heck of a cliffhanger (it had me turning to the page with Sanderson's picture and cursing him out of love...) and can't stand on its own. Which makes sense, since it is a trilogy. Like with Final Empire this one had some pretty mind blowing surprises about 70% of the way through that continued to build and finally, in the climax, shatter my mind. My. Mind.

Five star reviews are hard to write because it's literally me just gushing and gushing. So I won't say anymore. Hopefully you're planning on picking the first book up because it's well worth it. It does take a while to read, though, so be warned that other reading might get shoved to the side. This one took me almost two weeks (although they were especially busy weeks, I grant you).

Anyways, happy reading!

This review has been crossposted from my blog at The Cosy Dragon.com. Please head there for more in-depth reviews by me, which appear on a timely schedule.

Vin has toppled the Lord Ruler. What is left is a country increasingly in peril. Although Vin strives to become more than a tool, ultimately she is in service to a greater cause.

Vin has finally become more than just a pretty girl in Kelsier's shadow. Her role in the fading empire isn't clear, but she tries to do the best she can. She has to be the most convincing self-sacrificing heroine I have seen in a while. This is offset by her violence, which sometimes seems unjustified and dangerous.

The romance between Vin and Elend is refreshing. The trust between them is something that we should all strive for. Theirs is a relationship fraught with danger, and so is more wonderful for that.

Elend is a bit weak for me. That's not to say his character building is weak, it's just that him as a person is weak. His character progression is clear, and ultimately he rivals Vin for power and self assurance.

This novel has the big battles that you would expect in an epic fantasy like this one. When the odds seem poor, there has to be a way. It's not necessarily the politics that will save them, perhaps it will tangle them up even more?

The kandra are an inspired creature creation by Sanderson. One part bones, one part muscle, and the other part composed of The Contract. Although they play an important role in this novel, it comes to a head in the third book.

Just as good as the first book in the series, and a pleasurable and surprising read.

In his Mistborn series, Brandon Sanderson has done several things right: he has come up with not one, but two (linked) new systems of magic; he thought not just about the current state of the world he was designing, but also its history and mythology- believably so; his characters are not all purpose or perfect, but flawed and unique; and he breaks his trilogy into logical stories that can stand as quality on their own. Many authors can successfully do two or occasionally three of these, but it takes a master to do all of them.
The book rejoins the story of Vin and her friends a year after the events in the first book. The characters have been busy. They have (variously) developed a government, travelled, and built an army. One problem, none of them had ever done this before... they made mistakes, they learned, and they grew. Vin has grown in power through practice, and seemingly through destiny. Elend has become ruler of Luthadel and is putting into practice the new political ideas he and his young nobleman friends used to discuss. Probably one of the compelling figures in this story though was the eunuch Terrisman- Sazed. Sazed is the character who, in my opinion, grows and changes the most in this book (in ways I won't write as spoilers).
As good as the book is, there are a couple of minor holes (so it seems)... items that could have been plot points, but which disappear. I am guessing these will be cleaned up in the next book of the trilogy.
If you like thoughtful fantasy that combine politics with battle, you will enjoy this series in general and this book in particular.

The first book was already a terrific story, but I will admit that the plot wasn't it's strongest aspect. It wasn't bad, but it was the most standard part of a story that was so unique in every other aspect. That problem doesn't exist here. Instead of exploring what happens if the prophetic hero failed this book asks "What happens after the great evil is defeated?" It's something that remains surprisingly unexplored, mostly because the story usually ends after the evil empire falls. A majority of the book is just spent trying to pick up the pieces left behind by the last book's conflict and having the characters make tons of mistakes and learning from them. Every problem presented is complicated in its own way and the characters often have to think outside the box in order to solve things and often the best they can do is to band-aid over some things until they can think of a better solution. It's much more nuanced than just trying to stop a malevolent ruler and it's wonderful to see Vin and Elend get back up after getting thrown into the dirt over and over again. However, what really elevates this book in my eye is the ending and without giving much away, let me just say that it uses genre expectations to set up one hell of a curveball.

A different approach than it's predecessor, The Well of Ascension involves Vin, Elend and the rest of Kelsier's crew dealing with the aftermath of the Lord Ruler's death. Rather than go down the usual fantasy path of having everything turn to roses and butterflies the moment the evil tyrant is dead, they now have to deal with the fact that the one person who kept the world stable (albeit ruthlessly) for the last thousand years is dead, and now every noble and would-be warlord is vying for power as society collapses.
Now Elend is the king of the Central Dominance, and although he is a good person he is unsuited to the role, while Vin has become revered by the Church of the Survivor as the Survivor's Heir.
There is less struggle and battle in this book, but there is still a simmering tension that keeps the pace moving along nicely, and a few twists that had me silently applauding their execution. I think I preferred the first book to this one, but not by much, and as they take such different approaches to things I feel that this is a somewhat unfair judgement to make.

THE WELL OF ASCENSION is everything a second book in a trilogy should be, it is the fulcrum upon which the entire trilogy turns, and it is a fulcrum of such strength that it apparently effortlessly bears the load of the weighty epic that is the Mistborn series. In saying that the trilogy "turns" on this second book, I mean that in every sense of the word, and there are not just one but several jaw-dropping twists to accompany those turns. The book even has shades of the detective novel in that there ARE clues at the beginning to what is to come in the climax, but they are extremely well hidden and subtle, making their eventual revelation oh so delicious and quite stunning!

The nature of the epic fantasy genre demands that there must be certain similarities between the many series of books that circulate within its orbit. But it is the differences that make certain series stand above the rest, that make them something special. As the second book in an epic fantasy trilogy, THE WELL OF ASCENSION conforms to type in that it must spend a substantial amount of time setting up what is necessary not only for the climax of this book but also the book that will follow and conclude the trilogy. These preparations make the pacing of the story through the middle of the book feel slightly more sedate than usual. However, this waiting period in the plot is simultaneously filled, and thus compensated for, by one of those special differences that make Mistborn stand out from the crowd of epic fantasy series - the depth of character development is extraordinary, and is particularly dynamic throughout the first two-thirds or so of THE WELL OF ASCENSION. So while the plot is engaged in its "deep breath before the plunge," the characters truly come alive, and the reader can indulge in watching their relationships grow and change and become imperiled, just as the characters grow and change and become imperiled.

And then comes the other major feature that sets the Mistborn series apart from the pack - its heart-pounding, mind-boggling climaxes. The climax of THE WELL OF ASCENSION is even bigger and better than that of THE FINAL EMPIRE. This climax is long but completely action-packed, pushing our favorite characters to their limits and beyond, challenging them body, mind, and soul. And more than ever, it is the challenges to their minds and souls that leave them, and us, reeling. Without giving too much away, all I'll say is this: Expect the unexpected.

New characters, new settings, new world-shattering evils, new mysteries, new epic butt-kicking allomantic duels, and new plot twists. Gone is the world’s largest con-job/revolution, and instead comes soul-searching while waiting to die. (Oh. That doesn’t do it justice at all, but that’s actually a pretty accurate description.) Here, how’s this instead? I liked this book so much that I powered through all 700 pages or so in one snow-day extended weekend. Yeah, it’s good stuff.

Some other reviewers have commented on how slowly the book starts. While it isn’t balls-to-the-wall action packed, I wouldn’t call it slow. I would call it a little irritating: whiny characters, laughably naive rants about how the world should work, and romantic moments from awkward hell. Fortunately, these, too, passed, and the book moved right along to a really good middle, and a rip-roaring end that literally opened a world of possibilities. (I even used the word literally accurately there. It wasn’t hyperbole. Nice.)

My two quick quibbles: the “romantic” scenes between Vin and Elend are just laughably bad in the beginning of the book. I know that Sanderson is a relatively wholesome writer (something for which I give him much credit for), but their conversations and cuddlings are just so wholesomely awkward, it made me want to either fall on the floor laughing, or vomit. A tough decision, I know. My other quibble is a carryover from the previous book. Sanderson (or some evil editor?) has this terrible habit of stating the obvious, just in case the reader was too stupid to make the observation him/herself.

A quick almost quibble: At first I was disappointed by the overly simple worldviews of several characters. These characters had such strong convictions and these convictions were written about in a manner that a reader usually associates with I-the-author-am-now-telling-you-how-I-see-the-world moments. Eventually, I just accepted these characteristics as qualities that I didn’t care for, but that were not book-ruining for me. The neat things was, though, that as I continued to read, these strong convictions were completely dumped on their heads and several characters went through genuine moments of confusion. Even as I read the third book, many of these characters are still struggling with how the world should work vs. how the world does work. These changes of character were handled very well, and I am most impressed in Sanderson’s ability to pull them off.

I’m really enjoying this series, and I hope Sanderson write more full-length novels in this universe (I thought The Alloy of Law a little weak.)

If you liked the first book, you’ll like this one, too. Just don’t give up until you get passed the first two hundred pages or so. Sanderson is a breeze to read, so it’s not hard.

Oh, and the covers for the mass market paperback are still AWFUL! Do you have any idea how hard it is to hand this book to a dubious fifteen year-old boy?...all because of these IDIOTIC covers! Barf.

This was a real slog for me - I couldn't finish it. It was so repetitive with very little meaningful action. Some things just seemed illogical. I enjoyed the first book so much, and this was a disappointment for me. Mostly pushing and pulling, and Vin's constant battles were tiresome. It's more like a written video game. I got about half-way through it before I gave up - I kept falling asleep. I wish I'd read some of the synopses written by other reviewers. Now I can't decide whether to read the third book or give the entire trilogy away to someone who would appreciate it more. If anyone wants it, just pay for postage and it's yours!

This series was recommended because I purchased Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles, which were excellent. (Can't wait for the third book!)

I guess I should start by saying that if you read the first book, you'll know that for certain reasons the main character (or one of them) shifts from Kelsier in The Final Empire to Elend Venture in the Well of Ascension. Clearly, this would naturally make the material a little less exciting as Elend is purely a politician. As a result, much of this book revolves around political maneuvering, civilian rights, voting processes, law structuring and other things of the ilk. While this is pretty boring in and of itself, there are still great interactions between many of the characters other than Vin that I had come to love from the first entry in the series like Ham, Breeze, Sazed and Spook. This is what kept me interested in throughout the diplomatic portions of the book. Much of the book is spent building tension and while perhaps too much time passes before anything climactic actually happens, when it does, the book really shines. Some monumental changes occur pretty fast that make up for the dry and slow portions of the story. The pace quickens and the plot becomes very exciting. While the ending is definitely a huge cliff hanger, more so than the previous story, I am definitely anxious to see what will happen in the final entry.

Overall, this is a quality book. I really enjoyed it. That's not to say that it isn't laboriously slow at some parts and maybe too much time was dedicated to diplomatic issues but the characters are so strong and you learn way more about a few of them that makes up for it. Plus, the ending is pretty awesome too.

I purchased this hardcover book from this company. It took a very long time to arrive and when it did arrive the book had no cover. It was aggravating because I was expecting a cover. Anyways, I have wrote the company and the store. So far no response from company and no refund. :( DISAPPOINTED

Brandon Sanderson has become one of my favorite authors since finding this trilogy based on a friend’s recommendation. Sanderson does an amazing job of creating an image of the scene in the book without being too wordy, he can be very concise in his descriptions which I personally enjoy because then I can create the image in my head, but not get bored reading about how precisely everything in the room is placed. He also does a great job of describing the concept of how allomancy and allomantic powers work in a way that makes more sense than that the characters can just push on metal which is why they “fly.” When my friend described to me the concept of this book I assumed that after ingesting metal the characters could fly, but Sanderson’s detail in the description of the characters actually Pushing and Pulling on the metal brings a sense of scientific and anatomy to the concept instead of just magical powers.Although they are longer books, the war tactics, political strategies, and emotion of the characters is described in a way that keeps you thinking about the complexity of the tactics themselves, but also understanding the events unfolding. Some books I have read in the past get so caught up in describing what they are trying to do that I forget why they are trying to do it. Sanderson’s writing is so straightforward that there is no guesswork or rereading paragraphs to figure out why the king decided not to seize the armies outside the city walls. The fight scenes are also so vibrant that there is a bit of an adrenaline rush as you try to picture Vin flying over a Thug three times her size just by swallowing some Iron while simultaneously Pushing on the coins being sprayed her way to try and stop her lethal attacks. Very gripping!

I've been watching the videos of Brandon Sanderson's writing course at BYU, and it's interesting to be reading one of his books at the same time (particularly since he draws on his own writing for examples sometimes). Here is a spectacular example of plotting. At the end of each of the six parts, there's a twist or a big reveal. There are constant surprises and turnarounds, which kept me glued to the page. I was always wondering "How on earth is he going to get them out of this one?"

There's lots of action, too, but every fight is different. He never writes the same scene twice.

Mistborn has a couple of things going for it in terms of my personal taste, as well. I love superhero novels, and basically the Mistborn and the Mistings are superheroes, albeit in an epic fantasy setting. I'm not a fan of the same-old-same-old epic fantasy formula, on the other hand, but Sanderson puts wonderful spins on that formula. The result is a fresh story that wouldn't be quite the same if we didn't know the formula he's playing against. The ideas of the Chosen One, the Dark Lord, the wise mentor, even the returning king all get turned inside out and upside down. It's not just play for the sake of play, either. It makes for some deep and moving moments as the characters discover how their expectations were tragically wrong.

One of Sanderson's stated goals is to achieve "Orwellian language", which isn't (as you'd expect) doublespeak, but language that is like a clear window through which you see the story, without noticing the language itself. But, he has a distinctive language quirk that occurs over and over again and which, once I had noticed it, I found very distracting. I won't say what it was to keep from driving someone else crazy with it, but the previous sentence in this review contained an example of it. It's not wrong, exactly, just unconventional.

Other than that, I am thoroughly enjoying the Mistborn series, and will be hunting out other Sanderson books as well.

Hallelujah, it is done! Man, there is so much right with this series and there is so much wrong. What it lacks in pace it makes up for in characterisation, but the lag in the FIRST SIX HUNDRED pages is crippling. The last 100 pages had enough action to keep me literally on the edge of my seat but I wish it had been more balanced. Vin is amazing, one of the most unique female protags I've ever read.

The Final Empire was a tightly focused, plot-driven story. This book is rather less focused. Unlike last time where they had a fairly clear end goal (destroy the Empire) here they have to deal with the uncertainties of politics and two armies besieging Luthadel. The siege takes up most of the book, even though the title and most of the concluding chapters is tied up in the Well of Ascension and saving the world from the mists. I honestly didn't find the siege interesting, and while the character development was nice it went on far too long without any resolution. Perhaps it should have been two smaller books? At any rate it feels long and has some tedious moments despite the general quality of the work itself.

Having defeated the dark lord in that last book what's left to do? Well this is where the story starts defying the genre conventions and deals with the ideals of the survivors. Elend's government isn't doing too well, nor have people flocked to the good guys' side in the wake of the Lord Ruler's death. Instead everything is tied up in petty politics and poor decision-making. Meanwhile the mists have started popping up in the day, and this time they're killing people. Throughout the book there is an undertone of dread as Vin tries to work out what's going on in the world. Essentially the plot is divided between the big picture (evil force that the Lord Ruler defeated is returning) and the little picture (Luthadel is under siege and politics suck).

But the main focus of the book is not empires or battles, but the changing relationship between Vin and Elend. I have to say that I find them the cutest and most authentic couple in fantasy literature. Most of my favorite parts in the last book came from Elend's odd behavior and Vin's uncertainty how to deal with him. But now he's king and uncertainty and eccentricity have to be avoided. He is growing up throughout this book and learning to project his power in a way that people will respect. But the question is whether he'll do it in time?

Vin is going through an even harder patch as she tries to find purpose in her life without any real guidance. She feels confused about her life and her goals and this is all tied up in her uncertainties and insecurities. She doesn't feel that she deserves Elend and worse she feels driven to find someone capable of understanding her situation and abilities. Most of the book is taken up with her agonizing over this and related issues such as her own helplessness to protect him. Basically she is a superpowered teenage girl only with even more issues given her background.

There are other characters returning, but none of them get nearly as much time as they did in the last book. The only major new character is Zane, Elend's half-brother and a Mistborn serving under Elend's father, the evil Straff. He's insane and seems intent on getting Vin to come with him. He's also the closest thing this book comes to a main villain. After an immortal dark lord running an evil empire he's something of a letdown.

A good part of the problem here is that they never really go anywhere. Admittedly the last book didn't range that far outside of Luthadel either, but it made up for it by its tight focus and string of major events. Here they don't have anything happening for most of the time, and what little they do have is rushed in at the end. The whole well of ascension quest doesn't even begin until 2/3 of the way through the book. Even then it feels like a distraction. It comes so out of nowhere in fact that I thought they were saving the resolution of that story arc for book three. I don't want to bash the book too much because it's still very good, but its lack of focus made for very disjointed and slow reading. The final book (The Hero of Ages) recovers from this, but it is a decidedly gloomy entry into what was an often dark, but always entertaining series.

In conclusion, this book has a lot of good and important character moments. Elend learning to become a king is probably the most important change that they need to cover and Vin's uncertainties and insecurities are something she needs to overcome. These moments are generally handled pretty well, but the plot is too lacking to truly keep your interest. The siege of the city isn't that interesting, and while he gets the tension quite high it's only because he ends the siege story arc and stuffs a new one in there. The final conclusion and revelation are great, but they'd have been much greater if they had been properly set up earlier.

Cons: As a sequel it came across as slow. The fight scenes dragged on a bit and it sort of went over the events of Vin's life way too often. How many times do we need to be reminded of her past life? Vin comes across as annoying at times. Too much padding. The books could have been written with less pages and still covered what needed to be written. Found myself speed reading through much of the repeated storytelling. I miss Kelsier, he was a stronger character overall. Vin's insecurity and lack of humor made her dull. Pros: Great character writing. They do jump off the page and you get a real sense of who they are. The Kandra is one of the best of the book. Very original and imaginative. Looking forward to book three and hoping it's better than book two. I would rate this 3.5 stars.

Sanderson had masterfully created a complete and diverse world that draws you in. Pay close attention as you read, some of the small details come back to be important later on. The world we enter in The Final Empire is dark, covered in ash, and seems hopeless. Just surviving is work. We follow Vin, a street thief, as she encounters a special group of thieves who have grand plans to change the world. Things don't quite go according to plan and ancient prophecies come into play. As we move through Well of Ascension into Hero of ages, the characters learn how to evolve into new roles while still staying true to themselves. While occasionally things are repeated or drag on a bit, overall the story moves along well and is engrossing.

The Well of Ascension picks up on the same high note that The Final Empire left off on. However, Sanderson has significantly improved his writing between the books. While it's not quite on the same level of character interaction that more established authors have reached, he falls more towards old hand than novice now.

While one would think that the death of Kelsier would hinder the book, but it actually proves to be a bit of a non-factor. Vin and Elend are able to drive the book forward, while the secondary characters provide for welcomed changes of perspective. They don't merely repeat what we already know, instead they add different perspectives about events as well as details that may have escaped the notice of other characters.

However this is only half the books charm. The rest of it comes from the continuing development of alomancy as well as the never predictable plot. Allomancy continues to be one of the best and most intriguing magic systems in all of fantasy. The realism involved with how it works, as well as the uses for specific areas of it make it incredibly fun to read about. When taking into account the expanding uses and descriptions that we are given, it shows a lot of promise to be one of the best out there.

The other significantly bettered part of this book is the plot. In the first book it seemed a bit of a tried and true formula. Evil emperor A has to be killed by Hero A. Hero A gives his life in order to try and help the cause, and this allows for Hero B to emerge as the savior of everything. The Well of Ascension though really adds another dimension. We begin to learn a lot more about the Lord Ruler, and discover that he might not be such a bad guy. Elend faces the trials and tribulations of being a king, and Vin is left to discover what her place is in all of this.

Overall, The Well of Ascension is a huge improvement upon the Final Empire, and that's very impressive. I enjoyed the first book of Mistborn very much, but the second could hold a special place as one of my favorite books.

5/5

Second in the Mistborn fantasy series revolving around Vin, a Mistborn, and the man she believes she loves, King Elend.

My Take
I had a hard time getting back into this series, but once I was well, in the pace picked up and I had to find out if my questions would be answered. I so wanted Elend's ideas to triumph and Sanderson did beautifully with balancing desire and reality...even if I didn't like it. So true of the real world...wah.

This story is one of growth for Elend and Vin. For Elend to own being a king and for Vin to realize her own value. Sazed's own certainties take a beating and he will have to determine his path alone, going from the detached scholar he was to a grim realization. It's of kindness and consideration as Vin finds out when her betrayer betrays his own to give her aid.

Overall, this story is about Truth. Holding to it, to one's convictions no matter the situation, no matter the raging pull to Lie. Just this once.

Vin also has a revelation about Kelsier and how she has focused on all the wrong things. It wasn't the hours he spent training Vin, his ability to fight, his harshness or brutality, his strength or his instincts, but his ability to trust. "...the way that he made good people into better people, the way he inspired them...[how] his crew worked because he had confidence in them--because he respected them. And, in return, they respected each other. Men...who became heroes because Kelsier had faith in them."

There is quite enough tension and drama as it is, however, I still feel Sanderson dropped the ball a bit by not exploiting the spy the crew knows is around them. Only Vin seems to be doing anything and even that is somewhat half-hearted. Then there's that loose thread of the poisoned water... I must have missed what happened with Lekal's family. Or Sanderson isn't keeping us in the know. I did enjoy the further analysis of the journal first mentioned in Mistborn : Final Empire Series (Book #1) (Mistborn, #1); if only because it provided a bit more info on the Deepness.

I just love when Elend tells Vin: "...he told me that he trusted my judgment. He'd support me if I chose to leave him."
Followed by Vin's response to Zane: "Even if I can't share his ideals, I can respect them."

It's the first sentence of which anyone should take heed. For it is also the last.

The Story
The vultures haven't given King Elend and his crew much time to consolidate their hold on the city of Luthadel. It's Elend's own father out there first before the city walls with 50,000 troops. And without the atium, Elend's new kingdom has no chance.
The complications continue to pile up as more armies appear. As the Assemblymen teeter on a precipice of fear and greed. It's a time of fear and indecision for all of them as each worries as to what Kelsier would say or do, what he would think.

It's also a time of introspection for Elend, especially when Tindwyl shows up and schools him. For Vin, it's the appearance of another Mistborn and the doubts he plants within her mind.

The Characters
King Elend Venture is struggling to incorporate the philosophies and theories he's spent most of his life absorbing with the political realities of governing the Central Dominance. Noorden is a scribe, one of the Obligators who chose to stay.

Vin is Elend's assassin, bodyguard, love. She's also Mistborn. One of those rare humans who can burn all ten of the Allomantic metals. Even rarer, she is the strongest Mistborn known. Reen is the brother she thought had abandoned her. OreSeur is the kandra whose Contract Kelsier passed to Vin. Now he must do all he can to protect her.

The rest of Kelsier's old crew includes "Ham" Hammond, a Thug, who is the captain of Elend's palace guard; Dockson who hates nobles but is brilliant at organization; "Clubs" Cladent, a Smoker, is Elend's general; "Spook" Lestibournes is a good Tineye, a scout, able to trace anyone's path and Clubs' nephew; and, Breeze, Lord Ladrian, a Soother, who is out somewhere in the countryside.

Sazed is a Terrisman, a Keeper of knowledge. He's also gone against the Synod's orders. Tindwyl is a Terriswoman come to teach Elend how to be a king. She is also a Keeper and frustrated with Sazed. Marsh was Kelsier's brother. He agreed to infiltrate the Steel Inquisitors to spy for the crew (see Mistborn : Final Empire Series (Book #1) (Mistborn, #1)) and he became one. Now he has some hidden agenda. Captain Demoux, the second-in-command of the palace guard, has a split part to play.

Straff Venture is Elend's father. A man I wouldn't hesitate to knife in a dark alley. The Watcher, Zane Venture, is another Mistborn. One with his own agenda. Amaranta is a discarded mistress of Straff's who still has her uses. A singular lesson in "a woman scorned". Lord Janarle is also Straff's general--and becoming more and more disillusioned with his "employer". Ashweather Cett brings up the second army and, in his way, is both more devious and more honest than Straff. Allrianne Cett is a puzzle. Devious, purposely captivating with her own Allomantic power. And I think, I think she's in love with Breeze... Gneorndin is Cett's protective son. It's an interesting relationship between the father and daughter...it'll be curious to see how it continues. TenSoon is another kandra.

The Assembly is the democratic group of lords, merchants, and skaa gathered by Elend to advise and provide a brake on the ruler. It is critical to Elend that the people, all the people, have a say in their governance. Lord Ferson Penrod leads the lords with Lord Habren, Lord Dukaler, Lord Hue, among others. The merchants are dominated by Philen Frandeu, a man who thinks only with his wallet. The skaa include Getrue, Jasten, Thurts, Haws, and Vet.

The koloss are another species of creature created by the Lord Ruler. Or, I should say monster...one that is learning. Jastes Lekal was one of Elend's friends back in the day. One with whom he had conspired towards a better Luthadel. Now, he's leading his own particular army back to the city.

Rashek was the Terrisman pack man who slew Alendi and became the Lord Ruler. The Mist is alive but I can't tell if it is in league with the Voice/God. Kwaan is the Terrisman who set Alendi in motion thinking he was the Hero of Ages and savior of the Terris people, then left messages that became twisted with time.

The Cover
The cover is all oranges and browns with Vin an exclamation of black sashed with purple wielding a sword as she swings herself around a square column to defend herself from a Thug.

It's the Well of Ascension that is the true focus of this installment, its place in legend drawing the attention of Vin and Sazed.

the second installment of the Mistborn series is a worthy successor to The Final Empire. It's pretty lengthy at 763 pages and I'm glad I didn't jump into it immediately after finishing The Final Empire. It opens a year after the end of the first book and sets itself up as obviously the second in a trilogy. We are now dealing with heroes of action and daring-do attempting to play rulers and politicians, dealing with the realization that some of the evils they so despised had very good reasons for existing. They are also dealing with trying to grow up from the childish petulence of rebels to stable rules. Finally, they are dealing with a very literal change in culture as they attempt to deal with Elend Venture's unorthodoxed style of leadership, democracy.

The book lags a bit in the middle as it dwells too long on the uncertainties of Vin and Elend's relationship and each of their uncertainties regarding their roles in the largeer scheme of things. That is a huge theme in this book for all characters. Where book one was about bravery and friendship, book two is about insecurity and maturation. There is a point where the whol book shifts though and action returns. The finale of the book is an excellent call back to the action of book one. I don't know how Sanderson does it but he manages to ratchet up the intensity without letting it get away from him. His characters were already super human in the first book. In book two they do things they even they acknowledge as beyond their own comprehension yet it all seems plausible in the framework setup.

This book is defintely worth the read.

I know some folks have said this book is not as good as the first, and I agree and disagree. Here's why:

The first book was a bit confusing for me (although not nearly as much as other fantasy magic systems have been). I felt as if I spent a lot of it learning how things work and figuring out how to picture the descriptions. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, because I did, but by the end of the book I was ready to dive into the second book because I knew that, now that I had the magic system down, I'd be able to jump into the story itself.

It's easy to forget throughout the first book that Vin is just a girl - she's a teenager, she's young, she hasn't had any sort of female influence in her life (except for a warped view of her dead mother). She's confused, scared and she's been thrown into a very impossible circumstance that's demanding that she actually stand up and make herself heard and seen - which goes against everything her existence as a thief and a girl has taught her. For that very reason I loved the bit of romance thrown in and the triangle created between Vin, Eland and Zane. I loved that it showed her insecurities and that it reminded us that, although she's a fierce assassin and a person who carries the majority of the weight of this story on her shoulders, she is still a teenage girl with the same teenage insecurities. That's a big portion of why I loved this second book so much.

Another reason is that, in spite of knowing more about the factions and the characters (although still not as much as I would like), Sanderson continues to surprise me with very rationale reasons for the way things work and with twists and turns in the political structure of the world he's created. Simply put, I never stop guessing. I LOVE that.

Now, what I didn't like - it's a short list and some pretty minor stuff actually. I want to know more about the actual characters surrounding Vin and Eland. I know those two pretty well by this point, but I was sad to see some of them dying off before I really got to know who they are. (Seriously? You had to take one of my FAVORITE dudes, Sanderson?) The book is long enough that more depth could be explored with these characters but I still feel as if I hardly know them and that they are pretty one-sided.

I'm looking forward to the third book, in fact, I'm forcing myself to write this review before I go pick it up. Very excited to see how this trilogy ends and I have already placed these books on my wishlist- unheard of for me when I haven't read the entire thing yet.

To sum up my feelings about this book: It was really good, . . . but I am disappointed.

I admit that it may be unfair of me to be disappointed. Brandon Sanderson has simply set the bar too high in the previous books of his that I have read. I now think of Sanderson as an author who writes phenomenal, mind-blowing endings, and in my opinion, The Well of Ascension simply did not fit that mold.

Sanderson added a good deal more supernatural-ness in The Well of Ascension than there was in Mistborn. There were blue monsters, religious prophesies, and a new Allomatic metal that essentially made Vin super-powered (as if she were not super already). It was a lot--perhaps too much.

My primary complaint about the book was Vin. Vin was still trying to figure out who she is and was trying to make her peace with being the significant other to a king while also being a Mistborn killing machine. Her most difficult struggles were internal. Externally, she kicked ass all day, all night, and all the time. Frankly, I got a tad bored with watching Vin kick ass. When Vin was around, her friends were safe. Vin would win the fight with some injury to herself, but no one important would die when Vin was present. Eventually, I started to think: "Okay, I get it. She is powerful." I would have liked to see her fail at protecting someone.

Now that I've complained, please note that my rating for this book is four stars. So I really did like it a lot. Allomancy is still a brilliant concept. Sanderson is still a brilliant writer. Elend is a fantastic character, as are Ham and Breeze. Elend's transformation from a scholar into a king was believable, as was his internal struggle regarding his relationship with a powerful Mistborn. I greatly enjoyed getting to know Breeze better; he's a good man who does not want to appear as though he cares about others as much as he does. I also really enjoyed the introduction of a second kandra (i.e., a being that can take the body of a deceased other being). I did not predict how that was going to turn out!

I look forward to reading the next book, which I hope clears up some of my issues with this one.

This book is as good as the first. I give it an extra star though this book probably has similar faults as I mentioned in the first book because by this point I swallowed everything, hook, line, and sinker (I read it in a day and a half, which is much faster than I normally read books).

This was a brilliant sequel. If you liked the first, you must move on to this one.

The only other thing I have to add, and it mostly applies to the first, is that, while I have read a lot of books and have forgotten much of what I read, while reading this book I felt like it has the best action scenes of any book I've read.

I feel like many books rely on emotional and plot tension to give action significance, and while this is indispensable, unless my memory fails me, the average action scene in a books are fairly simple and often short.

Most action scenes are: significant plot point -> fight -> hero struggles -> succeeds! -> moves on.

These books don't dispose of that format, but they execute it with such technical detail that it's beautiful. Furthermore, Sanderson allows power differentials that rarely occur in most books: generally you can't have someone totally raping face. But Sanderson is able to write action so that it fits consistently within the world and doesn't feel cheapened by its glorious fancifulness, where the pure ownage doesn't take away from the conflict and tension that drives the book.

In short, they are like daydreams I've often have, with all the juicy and technical martial details ;), not vague combat.

PS. I forgot to mention: The "trust" theme was a bit overstated and kinda redundant.

The Well of Ascension is a wonderful book ( in my opinion ) by Brandon Sanderson. The characters are soundly written, and grow and develop well in the story.

The book is mildly suggesgive, like most of Sanderson's stories, and does contain mild profanity.

Vin struggles even more between her relationship with Elend and her sense of duty when the Lord Ruler is toppled from his throne. As tensions build between new lord-doms and Elend's new central empire, old and new friends and foe join the hunt for atium...and power.

I really loved the first Mistborn novel. I will say this novel didn't hold up as well as the first, but I'm still looking forward to the rest of the series. The beginning of the novel was very slow. It starts about a year after the revolution of the first book. Luthadel is besieged by three noble armies, one of them giants called Koloss led by Elend's former friend, one by Straff Venture, Elend's father, and one by Lord Cett, a brash handicapped nobleman. To make matters worse Elend is impeached by his parliament while Vin spends her evenings battling Zane an insane mistborn loyal to Straff. There are a lot of themes explored in this book; democracy, leadership, loyalty, politics, and responsibility. Most of these are explored well. The one that isn't is the love story between Vin and Elend. I loved them in the first book and spent most of this one annoyed. Literally their entire plot could have been resolved if they had taken 5 minutes to have a conversation during the year this novel takes place. On the bright side Sazed becomes a viewpoint character and he's fascinating. In summary, this isn't an improvement on the first book, but I'm still looking forward to the rest of the series.

The Final Empire has fragmented into numerous squabbling bandit kingdoms and rebel states. Elend Venture has taken control of the former capital, Luthadel, aided by Vin, a powerful Mistborn, and the other leaders of the rebellion. But Elend's idealistic dreams of a democratic government are sorely tested when two other rulers lay claim to the city and arrive to besiege it.

Meanwhile, the Terris Keeper, Sazed, is worried by reports of the return of a deadly form of the mists that appear at night, and begins an investigation into the prophecies that led to the Lord Ruler gaining power, searching for clues as to the location of the Well of Ascension, the only power in the world that might save it from destruction...

Picking up where The Final Empire left off, The Well of Ascension sees a marked change in pace in the development of the Mistborn series. The first book was a bit of a caper story mixed in with a traditional 'rebelling against the evil ruler' narrative with a great magic system on top. Book 2 now sees the former rebels coping themselves with the pressures of governance. Elend, a rather thin character in the first book, becomes a lot more interesting in this volume as his former idealism clashes with an increasingly cynical outlook brought about by events. There's also a lessening of focus on Vin. Whilst still the central character, Elend and Sazed come much more to the fore in this novel as well. There's also a new Mistborn character, Zane, who enters the story and provides an effective sparring partner for Vin. Sanderson's worldbuilding also comes on a lot in this book, with a logical development of his metal-based magic system.

On the minus side, the change in narrative style means a slackening of the pace. There's a lot of talk and intrigue in this book, although it isn't entirely convincing and leads to a static pace as the various factions are engaged in a stand-off for most of the story, no one side able to move without being defeated by the others. This makes for a slightly less engaging story than the first book.

However, in the last 200 pages or so Sanderson suddenly turns everything up to 11. All hell breaks loose and as well as featuring major battles there are a series of stunning revelations about the prophecies that our characters have been following so far. The prophecy is a particularly annoying staple of epic fantasy literature but Sanderson's treatment of it at the end of this book is fascinating, making for a great twist ending.

The Well of Ascension (****) takes a while to get going, but decent character development keeps things ticking over until the action and revelation-packed finale. The novel is available now in the USA and will be published on 10 December 2009 by Gollancz in the UK.

The second book in the mistborn series starts off...slow. It's much more disappointing at the beginning than the first book was, but it redeems itself in the last 200 pages or so. Unfortunately, the characters seem a little flat in the beginning, with no real umph to their step. Sanderson, though, is a great wordsmith, and even though the characters seem to be a little mono-toned, the story keeps going, and it keeps pushing onward and upward, and then when the hook comes in, the reader is once again enthralled by every aspect of this novel.

There are many challenges to face after you overthrow a man who has ruled for a thousand years, as Vin and Elend are finding out after their unlikely victory against the Lord Ruler. It is also very idealistic of Elend Venture to think that the people, who have been oppressed for so long, have any interest in participating in a parliamentary government. Many think that to restore the balance of power, the only real option is to crown another ultimate, single ruler. Three men who follow that line of thinking have come to be heard, and each brought his army. Vin believes that she can save the way of life they have fought so hard to win if she can find the source of the Lord Ruler's power, the Well of Ascension.

I was concerned that after such a complex first book that there just wouldn't be enough left in the author's tank. I was wrong. Boy was I wrong. There is a lot going on in this book and I had to stop periodically through the book to wonder if it would all come together. Honestly, I cannot remember the last time I was this impressed by a book. Brandon Sanderson wrote a book where everything had a place; everything belonged and nothing was left to chance. Sanderson masterfully crafted a sequel that was even better than its predecessor.

The Well of Ascension begins about a year after the events that occurred at the end of Mistborn. The novel takes a while to get going and generally has less excitement to offer than its predecessor. After all, we're now mostly familiar with the world of The Final Empire and we understand the rules of the unique magic systems that rely on the burning of metals for powers and the storing of attributes such as strength, age, and eye-sight into metals. The loss of Kelsior, the most dynamic of Sanderson's characters, creates a void not only in the other characters' lives, but in this book as well.

The pace is slow in the beginning, but things finally take off when we're introduced to Zane, an unbalanced Mistborn who can't decide whose side he's on (and who may or may not be insane), and when we find out that there's an unknown kandra spy in the palace. I was fascinated by the kandra -- creatures who can ingest a corpse and impersonate the person or animal whose body it has eaten. Not only was that really cool, but it gave the opportunity for some quirky humor. (The humor in this novel is very sparse but very funny.)

Besides the kandra, Mr. Sanderson has created some other intriguing creatures: the koloss who never stop growing even when their skin can no longer stretch and who think of themselves as human, the inquisitors who have metal spikes through their brains and bodies (we don't know the purpose of these spikes yet). This is my favorite aspect of this series -- Mr. Sanderson's wonderful imagination.

The Well of Ascension is very well written (other than the constant "pausing" that I mentioned in my review of Mistborn) and the audiobook, read by Michael Kramer, is a treat to listen to.

The Well of Ascension answers a lot of questions which we were left wondering about after Mistborn, but there are just as many questions still left. I have no doubt that all will be made clear in The Hero of Ages (which I am already listening to). This is a well-planned trilogy and this middle book ends with the promise of plenty more surprises yet to come.

Brandon uses voices in peoples heads to cover up gigantic plot holes.

Characters point out the obvious in dialogue, then proceed with inner monologue for around 200 page deliberating the obvious, prior to doing the obvious.

The direction of the plot can be seen and dissected easily at most points, yet for some reason completely nonsensical and obviously impossible conflicts are created to try and make the inevitable less transparent.

This...this was really bad. I was very happy when the book was over. Not sure why I even progressed to book two.

Summary:
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"The Well of Ascension" is a bit of a misnomer. Only the last 150 pages really deals with the Well of Ascension. The first part of the book focuses on three armes camped outside of the Capitol. The first part of the book is paced too slowly and could have used some serious editting down.

Overall, the milieu created by Sanderson is very interesting but is not expanded very much.

The book feels like a middle novel in a series -- some character development, resolution to various plot points with some advancement of larger plot arcs, and the culling of some characters. Some of the new story arcs are interesting which makes me want to read the last novel in the series.

World Setting - 4 stars:
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The world setting is not developed very much beyong the first book in the series, Mistborn. You do find out more about some of the Lord Ruler creations and how they fit into the world.

Characters - 4 stars:
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You get to find out more about the Terris people through Sazed and Tindwyl. Many of the original thieving crew get killed during the capital assault by the koloss army attack. The deaths seem rather random and abrupt but it is effective in describing the fericosity of the attack and the koloss. Van and Elend both get more development but it could have been compressed a fair bit. Marsh gets a larger role in the story.

The Zane character is a nice addition to the character mix.

Action -- 3.5 stars:
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The action was fairly good but the pacing of events seemed a bit off to me. The action descriptions were good.

Prose -- 3.5 to 4 stars:
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The writing style is fairly good. I would have rated it higher but the first part of the book should have editted down in length but not content.

The Well of Ascension is a fun and occasionally funny book with a lot to like. First and foremost, there's the plot. Unexpected things keep happening, few of the plot twists are predictable, and there are plenty of secrets; I get the feeling the author has read a lot of mysteries. Besides which, things happen that you don't often see in fantasy (or anywhere else for that matter)... for instance, between the end of last book and the beginning of this one, Elend has turned Luthadel into a sort of constitutional monarchy, and a church has sprung up worshipping Kelsier, and by extension Vin.... when's the last time you saw that in a book?

Second, the main characters are endearing. You care about them because they're likeable people, and in over their heads without being annoying about it. It's fun to read about them and watch their relationships develop; I know a lot of people aren't looking to read long conversations between Vin and her canine kandra and have accused the book of being boring, but I enjoyed it.

Third, the author just seems smarter about real life than a lot of others out there. He realizes, for instance, that if you eliminate the emperor without replacing him, there will be chaos and warlords will spring up, that armies need food and it has to come from somewhere, and so on. Also, he follows through with his magic--I'm not nearly as excited to see an original magic system as I am a book that's internally consistent with it.

Then there's the bad. The biggest problem I noticed while reading was the writing style, which is amateurish. The action scenes were sometimes hard to follow (Vin tends to spend several pages fighting multiple opponents one or two at a time, with me wondering what the rest of the enemies are doing during all this), and the antagonists didn't feel quite sinister as they should have. And while I initially didn't agree with the reviewers who complain about the lack of sex (I have nothing wrong with authors choosing the fade-to-black method), Sanderson does have a problem with sexual tension--it's hard to believe Vin and Elend are in a relationship, rather than just friends.

Overall, a decent second book that leaves you wanting the third immediately. What it lacks in literary merit, it makes up by being just plain enjoyable.

In the riveting sequel to Mistborn: Final Empire, Sanderson doesn't hold back, continuing on from where he left off: the Lord Ruler is gone, but this was just the first mighty battle in the ongoing war. In The Well of Ascension times are still hard for many, even though the skaa have been freed and Elend is now king of Luthadel and the surrounding territories. The nobles must now learn to live in a democratic society where they cannot have slaves. It is a different world for many.

Before the dust even has time to settle, King Elend faces problems from various fronts: there is dissension in his democratically elected cabinet who wish to return to the old ways; then there are three armies marching toward Luthadel. Before our main characters can decide what to do, they find themselves under siege from two massive fronts. One is controlled by Lord Straff Venture, Elend's father who wants his son to hand over his kingdom to him, no questions asked. Then there is Lord Cett looking to seize control of Luthadel with his own substantial army. Elend finds himself in a unique position where he can ally with one army and therefore be able to overthrow the other. The question is who to ally with?

As he contemplates this a third army arrives, of koloss. These are tall 9-15 feet creatures that vary in size but are terrifying to humans. Originally created by Lord Ruler for his army, their skin is extremely wrinkled and hangs off them in places like loose clothing; while there are great tears in the skin and yet the koloss ignore this. But their red, blood-rimmed eyes strike terror in all who view them. They may seem dumb and slow, in battle they are fierce and destructive, and it's unknown whether they may lost control at any second and begin rampaging into the city of Luthadel.

Then there is Sazed, a loyal member of the group who is a Terrisman, a special person with the ability to store thoughts, memories, and knowledge in metal that is worn in the form of rings or armbands. Stored in these armbands are also other abilities such as great strength and speed. But in Sanderson's world, it's all about balance, as the energy stored in each armband is finite, and in some cases can take many years to be stored up, but can be used and extinguished in a matter of minutes. Sazed is a scholar and knows much is not right with the world. Somehow the mists that are feared by many for a long time throughout the realm begin killing people and even wiping out whole villages. There is the Deepness, a mythological force that was supposedly stopped when the Lord Ruler came to power, but is not fully understood and may bring terrible things to pass. Sazed must also find the correct location for The Well of Ascension, for it is here that the Hero of Ages - who he believes Vin to be - will release the power and save the world.

Then there is the OreSeur, a kandra, an ancient race who are able to absorb the bones of a dead person or animal and take that form and appear almost identical to them. OreSeur is Lord Straff's kandra, and is sent to spy on Vin, but it's also discovered that there's another kandra somewhere within Luthadel who, with the kandra abilities, could literally be anybody.

Finally there is the supposed Hero of Ages, Vin, who isn't sure what she is, but knows she is one of the most powerful people in existence, but must use her power wisely and not kill recklessly. She befriends another allomancer, Zane, who seems very familiar, and she becomes close to him, for they have so much in common, and yet he is the allomancer for Lord Straff and therefore an enemy.

Sanderson continues the complexity of the world, with many moral and sociological questions coming into play, as well as adding new plots and subplots. While it may seem a little overbearing, he skillfully keeps everything organized and separate and maintains the reader's interest throughout. It is a sequel worthy of its name, as The Well of Ascension keeps the pace going from the first book, making the reader hunger for more at the last page. The trilogy is concluded in The Hero of Ages.

[...]

This book's cover is misleading. On it, the heroine Vin, who possesses supernatural powers called "Allomancy" is fighting a man in robes with tatoos on his face. In Brandon Sanderson's world, these men are known as "Obligators" and Vin doesn't fight a single one in this novel. In fact, I don't think she's even in the same room as one throughout 700+ pages of story. A story which is titled, "The Well of Ascension" instead of "The Siege of Luthadel" despite the fact that the siege takes up far more time in the story than the subplot Well does.

The aforementioned 700+ pages are a complete slog. The reader has to wade through page after page of political maneuvering, character exposition and Vin or her boytoy Elend whining about their "relationship" -- an element that remains the weakest thing in the series, for me. In the first book, I felt that their relationship never rang true. It wasn't written well enough for me to understand why they were in love or believe it as anything other than a plot device. The depiction in the second book is, if anything, worse. Their relationship seems almost platonic. I'm not saying I want the novel to morph into "50 Shades of Grey" but it would have been nice to see that these two at least had some physical passion for each other, since they don't seem to have a single other thing in common whatsoever.

Finally, once we actually do get to the subplot that the title is based on, it really makes no sense at all. I think it was rushed for this mystic thing that no one could find or understand to suddenly show up in the last 30 pages along with an unexplained fight scene and more occurrences that didn't make sense. I suppose reading the third book will clear up most if not all of what's missing in this last section, but it's annoying to have the supposed focal point of the story be so bereft of substance, while a lot of desperately boring political garbage takes up so much of the story. There are a few action scenes, but they're all undercut by character moments that do not make sense. In one memorable scene, a character with no superpowers whatsoever " . . . in one fluid stroke, he drew his sword and sheared [omitted]'s head from his shoulders." Doesn't Sanderson realize how impossible this is? Even with a heavy axe, you can't just nick off someone's entire head with "one fluid stroke" that easily. And no, there was nothing special about the sword used either.

Overall I could not be more disappointed in this book. I was really excited to read it after finishing the first one and had a lovely long plane ride with which to do so uninterrupted. I actually stopped reading this in favor of watching edited airplane movies, that's how bad it was. And I admit frankly that my eyes glazed over during a lot of the political stuff that just went on and ON . . . it involved characters we had never met before who simply were not that interesting, and had no hope of being compelling with that level of unnecessary detail and frankly mediocre writing. Sanderson's strengths in this series are in the battles, fights and descriptions of Allomancy. Mythology, character and intricate plots are where he falls short, and this book is perfectly built to display all of his weaknesses as a writer. I really hope the third one does him more credit, answers the questions and wraps things up with more of a bang than a whisper.

This book is all bloat. Also I hate it for reducing Vin to a dribbling, inconsistent teenager from the schizophrenic, paranoid badass from book 1. Also Elend is nothing but author wish fulfillment - he's stupidly good for no reason in particular, its hard to see how he assumed any power at all post the Lord Ruler's deposition. Zane is a painfully cliched bad boy character. Everyone else barely matters in this book. After many many boring pages, the action finally ramps up with Vin taking the quad damage and being v overpowered. After carefully setting up allomantic rules and limits, this book just turns Vin's power level up to absurd levels so the tricky rule based combat barely matters to her, so the fights are more like Vin walks in, a hundred people fall dead as opposed to the carefully choreographed sequences from book 1. The end was an interesting twist on the hero of the prophecy foretold cliche, if not entirely original (Diablo comes to mind in the malevolent God influencing theology to serve its own ends department). Making Elend a mistborn was a terrible choice imo, adding to the wish fulfillment factor and the fact that he is unbearable as he is. Thank God for the kandra dog.

There's one problem with a book that follows up the first novel in the series - in book one there was the Lord Ruler, and the impossible, convoluted task of ousting him. And in the end, Kel and Vin and the rest of the crew were successful. How is an author suppose to follow that up? Even with a great idea, how does one create the same sense of suspense, the same sense of impending doom, as the previous book? The answer - he doesn't. But he does come pretty close. There is no lord ruler, but there are 3 armies parked at the city gates all waiting for the right moment to attack. And there's also a spy who could be practically anyone, leaving you to question all the characters motives.

This book's pacing is a lot slower than the first, a fact that seems to bug many of the reviewers. I saw a couple reviews saying how dull the first couple hundred pages are. The bulk of this book is about character development and about explaining how and why the characters develop as they do. Vin battles with insecurities, Elend learns responsibility and what it means to be a leader. We learn more about the world, the kandra, and the religion behind the steel inquisitors and the lord ruler. And true, the Well of Ascension only comes in play towards the end of the book, but the title of this second mistborn novel seems to be really about the journey, spiritually and mentally, of getting there.

I give this book 5 stars. It isn't quite as good as the first, in terms of how epic the first book felt and how impossible the task ahead of the protagonists was. But, the author still did an amazing job keeping the story going and evolving it. I can't wait to read the next novel to see how it all ends.

Did I enjoy this book: I’m in love. Sanderson twisted the best bits of Middle Earth and The Land together, added a generous dose of his own brilliance, and created The Final Empire in all its post-evil ruler glory. Where Tolkein or Donaldson might add a new enemy or a healthy dose of self-loathing, Sanderson opts to tell the story of what happens after the good guys win, and he does it brilliantly. There’s plenty of coin-tossing action, loads of character development, and some new faces (and new metals) to shake things up. Oh, and don’t forget that tiny issue of the impending collapse of not only Luthadel but the whole of the Final Empire.

Would I recommend it: Absolutely.

Will I read it again: It’s a great second installment, and I’m mere moments away from cracking book 3 (The Hero of Ages).

As reviewed by Melissa at Every Free Chance Book Reviews.

The Well of Ascension, book two in Sanderson's Mistborn series, is a good follow-up to Mistborn: The Final Empire, though it suffers some from the common failing of fantasy sequels, namely that it has to rely much more exclusively on plot, rather than worldbuilding, to move the story forward. This is to be expected somewhat, and Sanderson does a good job of not revealing all about his world in the first book (the prophecy, the kandra and so forth get more detail here). Still, much of any "first" in a series is about detailing the world itself, the cultures, the history, and any systems of magic/supernatural abilities that exist. If you're like me, you find these things fascinating and it makes the first book of a series one of the best, regardless of series length. Eventually, however, such things become known to the reader, much as the system of magic, the city of Luthadel, and the history and cultures of the Final Empire are known to anyone picking up this sequel. This, then, leads to more reliance on the plot moving forward and, while there are some very good moments in this book, the plot sometimes moves a little too slow. For the most part, however, this is a rewarding read. Much like the first in the series, this really picks up the pace in its final third and rewards the reader for following along with the more everyday interactions of the characters that occur prior to the unfolding of major events. And, much like the first in the series, Sanderson reveals many plot/character twists to make his story interesting and worth following to its conclusion.

As a sequel to "The Final Empire", "The Well of Ascension" answers the question that arises very often: what happens after the revolution? The good guys won, the tyrant is dead... what happens in "happily ever after"?
I don't want to give any spoilers, so I'll say only that I did like the way Sanderson answered this question - he is as realistic, as possible in fantasy genre, his heroes have their ups and downs, not all of them get what they deserve, so there is no Hollywood happy ending for the world of the mists.
I gave the book only four stars, because sometimes I missed the energy of the "Final Empire". Also, the allomantic fights, with their "pushing" and "pulling", became too boring for me; I began to skip these scenes altogether, knowing that the only difference between this one and the previous one would be in the number of enemies Vin fights. (It's ever increasing number, as you may guess!)
Some of the reviewers say that part of the romance between Vin and Elend lacks the passion. That didn't bother me too much, as I am tired reading again and again about passionate nights sandwiched between the battles on the pages of many other fantasy books. What disturbed me, though, it's the fact that Elend (as a king, probably) gets all the attention and character development, while Vin stuck with her conflict of insecurity versus power ... and this conflict simply escalates to the different levels toward the end of the book.

All in all, it's a good reading; the book has enough surprising plot twists to compensate the reader for the shortcomings, and I really like some of the new characters, like Zane and Alrianne. For me, though, the ending seems too much in Terry Goodkind style... not that it's necessary bad, but I expected something more original from Sanderson.

Book Two. The Final Empire (Mistborn, Book 1) is book one; read it first, before you even read this review.

They 'handled' the Lord Ruler and inherited his empire. This book is how Vin and Elend deal with the civil wars fracturing the Final Empire while frantically trying to restore the basis of the economy, (Atrium) which is missing in action. It's darkish, less grandiose than the first, and has more of a 'lets stabilize as rulers' theme, as opposed to 'let's be audacious heroes.' Expect angst/teen drama mid-book, because Vin and Elend are teens wrestling with the extraordinary responsibility of managing an empire, and they do make poor decisions. The book is not as rogue-like as the first entry, and the plot becomes more byzantine. Focus is also more distributed between characters; some secondary characters are done superficially (the crew). Plenty of plot twists, and an ending that segues nicely into book three.

Less focus on Allomancy, more on political factions and world building. Series went from pure action to political action, which I didn't mind, but you may not like. Mid-book pacing may bore readers, and romance between Vin and Elend is more a distraction than story focus, making it wooden and awkward. Skip to around page 400 if it's too slow for you. Personally, I found the magic system and world well drawn, and liked the novel.

The Well of Ascension is the 2nd book in the Mistborn trilogy. The book begins about a year after Mistborn: The Final Empire left off. Elend has taken over the government and Vin is his bodyguard/love interest. Two major problems present themselves at the onset of the book: first, the mists are harming people and second, Elend's city is under seige by two different army's. The first problem is put on the back burner for most of the book. The political situation becomes more and tenser until it gets out of hand and death, destruction, and carnage are inevitable. Also going on, the skaa (peasant class) have started forming a religion around Kelsier.

This book in the trilogy is much more political in nature than the first. Happily, the politics are eventually well balanced with action. Like the first book, the Mistborn battle scenes can seem extremely tedious. Especially in the beginning. I think the tedious nature of these scenes is the biggest problem in the book. That said, once the story action reaches full snowball, the Mistborn passages are extremely well executed and greatly add to the flow, urgency, and awesomeness of the story.

The story is once again in 3rd person shifting between characters. Every now and then Sanderson uses a completely random and (in my opinion) unimportant character's viewpoint to show the story from. This was really weird. I'm not sure why he did it, and I'm not sure that it added anything to the story. The predominant viewpoints in the story are from Vin and Elend and Sazed.

I was pleasantly surprised with awesomeness of the plot in the final 2 parts of the book. Vin's character has become something amazing. Her growth over this book was well done.

I'm really looking forward to the final installment of the series, The Hero of Ages: Book Three of Mistborn, which is due to release on Oct 14, 2008.

Vin, Elend, and company struggle to maintain hold of Luthadel a year later in "The Well of Ascension", second book of the "Mistborn" saga. Every chapter has a purpose, little is wasted conveying useless information unless one finds the political maneuvering boring waiting for the amazing Allomancy encounters. The political intrigue is carefully thought out, the romance between Vin and Elend develops properly, and the unique creatures are practical and suitably placed.

Additional characters join the cast, the more notable ones are Mistborn Zane and Keeper Tindwyl. I enjoyed learning more about Feruchemy. The clever concept behind the Deepness and its overwhelming influence sets a fresh approach as an antagonist.

The possible major editing issue concerns the confusion at the start of Chapter 24 when Vin asks Clubs to burn bronze for sensing Allomancy but as a smoker only burns copper. He stated he heard nothing, which is true in a way but only because he cannot burn bronze. The summary of book 1 is at the end, it better serves a reader placing it at the beginning.

Check out the author's web page at [...] for excellent inside information and deleted scenes (he provides warnings before any spoilers).

I highly recommend this series to any fan of the fantasy genre.

Thank you.

I won't say it's slow pace because I thought the author tried to develop his characters carefully. So it's not extremely comical fun and fast pace as the first book, but it grow more tensed and a lot political scence get concerned which the allomance power thing can't handle it itself. Nevertheless, the politic plot confused me sometime and i can't understand it accurately, it exhausted me.

Meanwhile there're a lot scene of meeting and war therefore it develop Elend's character truly while make develop surrounding character. You'll see how the very Kel crew responded in different situation which was not just an effective attacking pack while Elend learned and grew so much in these kind of scene.

And i loved Vin a lot more. How uncertain and how she doubt herself which give her and plot more interesting. Because it's something you faced when your capacity become worthless in som condition, it's what you feel when you lost someone important and something you doubt how reserved you are when you love someone so different.

However, there's something i felt guilty in this book, which is i missed Kel so hard. This book could reminded you when you lost someone you trusted, someone you believed in and someone you relied on. There's time you search everywhere and every details in your memories to find him, and you know exactly he would never comeback. You lost and feel something collapsed inside.

By the way, i hardly understand the if Zane is really necessary in the plot. He seems to be so important and he has related to Elend house but he hadn't done anything or made any great impacted to the plot. Or he came to be Vin's symbolic of uncertainty ? I really don't know.

I can't say i enjoyed it actually because it's so tensed. But i love it, i love this series.

So please enjoy it. It'll take your time but i think it worth reading.

This was the test. Now that you're not "wowed" by the uniqueness of the magic system and since the first book had a lot of closure was this book going to be just filler living off the reputation of its predecessor?

The answer for me was no. Same lovable cast of characters and they're evolving (which is good. Lots of (alemantic) action, and the characters constantly in sticky situations. Then there's the overall mystery of the well of ascension and the hero of ages. It all works for me.

It's not my favorite kind of fantasy (see China Mieville for that) but I do like it a lot. The narrator is also great on this one. He does different voices for all the characters and it really makes it fun to listen too.

So I guess I'll get to The Hero of Ages sometime this year to finish off the trilogy.

Gosh darn it. The twists in this book got to me. I love it!

Being the second book of the series, The Well of Ascension met my expectations and then some. This epic novel had me on the edge of my seat (or on my bed due to it delaying my sleep...), and was such a page turner. If you loved the first book (Mistborn: The Final Empire) and wonder what happens to the heroes, read this book! This book is surprisingly much different than the first one - it deals more with political relations rather than rebellion. There is plentiful when it comes to action, perhaps even more so than its predecessor. Moreover, the characters are more fleshed-out this time around. We finally get to see more of Breeze, Elend, Sazed, and many other characters! In this book, Sazed is my favorite character. His mien is quite dignified and collected - he has a personality of being wise and accommodating to others. I respect that. He inspires me as a person! The characters feel so alive that they've become apart of me - they're one of my favorite sets of characters in a book ever. But yes, read this book. If you read Mistborn, you might as well read this book.

Wow. This second book in the Mistborn series focused more on politics, war tactics, and mounting tensions and problems. I loved it and sped through it, despite the massive size of this book. It was slower than the first, but I don't mean that negatively. We got more time with side characters, more development, and more insight into the world. If you liked The Final Empire, you'll enjoy the richness of it. Vin is definitely one of my favorite characters of all time, and so is the entire cast of characters, actually. I cannot wait to see what epic things take place in the final book!

The Lord ruler has been defeated. Elend Venture with Vin by his side now has to establish a fairer society where everyone is treated equally. But not everyone is happy with the thought of Elend being in charge of the Empire. 2 army's are at his door step and he has little ability to repel them. With the Empires fate in his hands can him and Kelsiers crew win this one?

Let me preface by saying the first book, The Final Empire, was phenomenal and an excellent piece of fantasy writing. I literally could not put it down.

Not so with this one, where it actually sat on my desk for a few days between each reading session.

The first major flaw was the dialogue. Sanderson seems to have a habit of making his characters sound like modern-day teenagers, not characters in a fantasy world that is modeled after what I assumed to be France or England in the late middle ages. Maybe most people don't care about this, but it jumped out at me and bothered me. It was present in the first book, but the story and characters were so awesome that it overshadowed the bad dialogue. The irritating nicknames they called one another like they were the best of friends ("Saze," "El," "Dox," "Kel,") were nauseating.

Next was a subplot that literally looked like it was taken from a WB/CW series. You have the love triangle between the "good boy," the "bad boy," and the female protagonist who felt that she was growing apart from the "good boy" that she fell in love with. Maybe Sanderson was trying to appeal to a large female demographic by adding some "chick flick" elements to his book, but I would think having a fantasy novel with a strong female character as the lead should suffice without the cliched romantic nonsense.

The next major flaw was the complete lack of events in the first 75% of the book. I am not joking. NOTHING seems to happen at all. We get a lot of chapters of Elend trying to be king and Vin kicking some ass (which was not all bad...). Throughout it all, we have the boring internalizations from Vin and Elend about their relationship.

On a side note, I find sex between a 16 year-old and a 22 year old disgusting. If Elend was 30 and Vin was 24, then fine, but not 16 and 22....

The final major flaw was pointless characters that were thrown in as filler. Tyndwyl and Zane were a waste of time. How can I make this statement? If you eliminate them from the story, it changes nothing. Without spoiling anything, Vin's revelation near the end of the book could have been done a different way.

I have said a lot of negative things so far, but the book got 3 stars because the final two acts were difficult to put down, and the final battle and the ending was truly awesome.

Onto the Hero of Ages....

Well of Ascension is the second in theoutstanding Mistborn series and the story picks up with two previous characters moving to center stage, the young Mistborn heroine Vin, emerging hero Elend, and the soulful terrisman, Sazed. The plot is moves forward with an entirely new feel while retaining many elements from the first story.

This time around the story centers on the trials of building a brand new government after the battle to overthrow the previous oppressive one. It was a more subdued journey of learning more about the fascinating aspects of how Allomacy came into existence and watching world of the Final Empire evolve and grow.

The entire story arc delves into all the elements one expects from an epic fantasy storyline, war, political intrigue, a complex magical system, moral issues, and love. I enjoyed this second book as much as the first one.

I'm really not sure about the complaints on this book. It picks up about a year after the last book ends and it had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. I will agree that there is a lot of information in the middle that can be interpreted as unimportant, but I believe the slow progression of the characters is absolutely necessary in order to connect the dots to where Elend and Vin start and end the novel. Also, what is a book without suspense? If he got right to the heart of the story, right away, this book would be 150 pages and make absolutely no sense...

I loved the second half of The Final Empire, after having almost given up on the book during the first half. If you don't enjoy suspense and realistic character development, well, then I guess you'll be disappointed by The Well of Ascension, but I thought that this book was even better than the first one.

The Well of Ascension picks up where Mistborn left off; Luthadel is in chaos after Vin defeated the Lord Ruler. Elend is left as king but his leadership is clumsy and inept. Sazed calls on his fellow Terris(wo)man, Tindwyl, to help train Elend and teach him how to become an able leader. Unfortunately, she is attempting to teach him these skills when three separate armies sit outside the city gates, planning a siege. His people are starving and his soldiers are vastly outnumbered. Meanwhile, ghosts are forming in the mists and the mists are killing villagers in surrounding areas of the Central Dominance. Thus begins Vin’s quest to protect her King and city. To read the rest of my book review, click here: [...]

This second book of the Mistborn series is, of course, a well written saga. Brandon Sanderson is an amazing author and well versed in creating characters and new worlds that we care about. My only criticism is that is is extremely wordy. I think that a good quarter of the book could have been edited out without sacrificing quality. I admit to skipping quite a bit so that I could get to the meat of the plot more quickly.

Is it as good as Mistborn: The Final Empire? No. It's four stars compared to that book, but as a book itself, it really deserves five stars. Yes, it has its problems, but it's an addictive read, and it's very hard to stop once started. The last 200 pages or so really deserve six stars. I didn't mind the first 400 pages or so; in spite of the slower progression and perfunctory action sequences added, I enjoyed it. Furthermore, the continuation of the story after what seemed to be a stand-alone fantasy book made for an interesting read. Sanderson's world of politics feels very real as the characters encounter realistic problems.

The book falters in a couple of places, however. My biggest issue with The Well of Ascension is the romance. The romance is as awkward and wooden as is is in the Twilight series. I know that's a very grave insult to compare this series to Twilight, but I make no apologies. The romance between Vin and Elend is just very frustrating to read. I understand the conflicts of interest that cause the issues, but the resulting relationship was far less interesting than it could have been. The other aspect that really bothered me was a lack of a character that really captured my interest. While the absence of Kelsier is a necessary evil due to the plot of book one, I found it hard to connect with any of the other characters in the same way Kelsier grabbed the reader by the belt buckle in the first book (Sazed emergence as a more central character helped but did not alleviate this problem).

Don't let those issues stop you from reading this book. It's still a great book, and I'd take it any day of the week over 1984, Brave New World or most of the books from the Wheel of Time series.

Highly recommended.

Good lord. I LOVE the Mistborn series. If you are even at all hesitant about continuing Min's story, don't be. This series is so good that if you don't give it a try, you'll be doing yourself a disservice.

Sanderson has developed a set of characters and a story line that keeps you vastly entertained. The action is constant and the plot moves forward very satisfyingly. I get tired of reading "young adult" fiction books or even popcorn books, which is why I love this series so much. You really FEEL for what they are going through and get genuinely upset when something doesn't work out just how you hoped.

A word of caution: You will WANT to keep reading the series. So be aware that once you read this book, you will want the next. You might as well get it right now. Seriously.

After being pleasantly surprised at the quality of the first book in the series, 'Mistborn (The Final Empire)', I was looking forward to continuing the story of Vin and company. Unfortunately, I felt the book left a lot to be desired, but does provide a good set-up for 'Hero of Ages.'

The plot picks up shortly after the last one left off, with Elend the newly-crowned king of Luthadel, who's unsure of himself and still struggling with his new-found responsibilities, all while having to deal with three separate armies who have the city under siege. A large portion of the novel deals with Elend and Vin's relationship during this period, and unfortunately this type of thing does not seem to be Mr. Sanderson's strong suit, and the reader ends up just feeling frustrated at times. Also, while Elend is decent as a main protagonist, he's nowhere near as interesting or dynamic as Kelsier, but he does eventually grow into his own, somewhat. Many of the other members of Kelsier's old crew, such as Breeze, are pushed into the background for this one. Even Vin's role is reduced quite a bit, which is quite a change from the first novel. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just gives the book a different feel overall.

'Well of Ascension,' unfortunately, suffers from the same problem as many other middle books of trilogies. The author has the tough task of trying to maintain the interest level even after the novelty or 'newness' of the first one has worn off, plus try to set up the final novel while still having a climax in this one. To me, the book felt like TOO much set-up. The pace does pick up toward the end, but having to wade through the nearly 700-pages to get there was at times a bit of a slog, but definitely leaves you with the desire to start 'Hero of Ages' right away and, at least in that respect, I think the novel succeeds. If the last one's anywhere near as interesting and just plain fun as the first, then it all will have been worth it.

I absolutely loved Mistborn, the first book in this trilogy. So much that I decided to run to my bookstore right after finishing it and purchase the sequel, because I was so excited to see what happened next. Sanderson did not disappoint, as he took an untraveled route in creating the aftermath of toppled evil empire; the city is in ruins, and the newly appointed young king has no idea what to do about it. It is very realistic in its portrayal of how unstructured and broken a land is rendered after its oppressor is taken out of the picture. Most stories end with the destruction of an evil ruler, and leave it at that. But Sanderson dares to go beyond that. He shows that despite a king's sincere attempts to create a free utopian society, it is difficult to teach people a new way of life when they have grown accustomed to the stability of their old government, no matter how much it oppressed them. It is also unrealistic to expect people with a 'slave mentality' to rise up and govern themselves, after thousands of years of oppression. I like that Sanderson addresses these political issues, rather than shying away from them, in exchange for an easier story to tell.

Sanderson's story is a complex one, with many subplots, many characters, and many twists. I enjoyed the profound nature of many dialogues within this book, and I thought that many phrases were very powerful. However, I did feel that some of the themes were beaten over the head, such as the "lock and key" concept, as well as the issue of trust (you'll see what I'm talking about when you read the book!). I liked that many new characters were introduced in this book, and more attention was focused on some of the secondary characters of the last book (Sazed, Breeze, etc) and it was great to have more insight on these characters and see that a level of depth was added to them (particularly Sazed. You even get a closer look at how his Feruchamist powers work!) I loved some of the new characters and relationships that were created, such as the Kandra (you get to learn a bit more about these interesting yet mysterious creatures) and Zane, a pretty crazy and dark character. However, I felt that most of these relationships, although beautifully developed, broke off rather suddenly without warning, and without much explanation. I still don't really understand what happened with Zane, it all happened so quickly, I wasn't really able to process it. Hopefully, these loose ends were left intentionally, and we'll get more of an explanation of what happened in the third book.

But this goes back to one of my main criticisms of this book, and perhaps even the last book, too: the relationships, albeit a few main ones, aren't developed enough. For example, Vin's relationship with Elend always seemed a bit rushed to me. One day they're flirting with each other at a ball, the next day they've already fallen deeply in love with each other. This story also suffers from the same abruptness in regard to the development of their "romantic relationship". It is clear that the two love each other, but not really clear as to WHY. All of the conversations alluding to their relationship seem to be rushed and one dimensional. Even Sazed's fleeting relationship with another terris woman in this book seems so underdeveloped and hard to believe. I guess I shouldn't expect too much when it comes to romance in this book. After all, the book was written by an author who mostly writes sci-fi adventure novels. But I do feel that the shallowness of relationships is present among the platonic relationships too. Such as the relationship between Clubs and Breeze in this book; it comes off as very contrived. I suppose it must be hard to devote more time to developing solid relationships when you have so much to worry about in your book; wars, politics, mythologies, mystical powers, and magical creatures. There are several subplots for the author to juggle, and he does it expertly. I couldn't put the book down, and read it all in a matter of days. There were parts that made me laugh, yet other moments that made me ponder over the brilliance and truth of some of the moral messages presented in this book. The suspense never ended, as there were always new, shocking twists to the story. And just like in the last book, I loved how everything tied together at the end.

I could tell that the author learned a lot in between writing the first book and this one, as his writing style and techniques improved palpably. The allomatic powers were explained better, the action scenes were easier to follow, and, as I mentioned before, more emphasis was placed on developing minor characters. I liked that the excerpts at the beginning of each chapter (the ones from the "holy book") were placed together in the chapters, making it easier to read them as a cohesive whole and thereby understand them better. However, I did feel that after a while stating and restating the same excerpts got a bit repetitive and annoying, and found myself glazing over the passages taken from the excerpt. But I like that the author is taking clear steps to improve his writing, and experimenting with new ideas, rather than relying on an old formula. I think it's his courage to try new writing techniques that led to the success of this book, rather than allowing it to fall into the dreaded sophomore slump.

Overall, this book was an enjoyable read, a satisfying sequel, and I can't wait to read the next book in the trilogy!

I read fantasy exclusively and added Brandon Sanderson to my list of absolute favorites. Mistborn Trilogy is about a thief-heroine in a world plagued by mists and falling ash. I find the Allomancy magic system (acquiring transient physical/mental abilities using various metals) unique and brilliant, the plot skillfully directed, characters sufficiently developed and believable, and Mr. Sanderson's gradual approach to reveal the environment and magics quite effective.

Book 1 (The Final Empire) is the best among the trilogy. Vin comes of age and learns of her rare abilities as a mistborn in a time of rebellion. Allomantic pulling/pushing against metals is exciting but may seem odd (only at first) since it superficially resembles comic book superhero powers. Book 2 (The Well of Ascension) tells of war among kings after the empire's collapse. The plot's dark mysteries are spine-chilling and the action is more dramatic particularly the Duralumin metal-enhanced sequences. And humankind fights to survive in book 3 (The Hero of Ages) against a force which exists singularly to destroy the world.

Story length feels right and not forced unlike other multi-volume series, and books 1 & 2 both finish really strong with immersive and climactic endings. However, dialogues and narratives get repetitive and overly explanatory, the pace and certain events in book 3 appear somewhat slow and superfluous, and to me the finale is familiar and leaves mixed feelings.

I'm not sure I will read Jordan's Wheel of Time series but I know Mr. Sanderson was specifically chosen to finish it which speaks volumes about his skill as a writer. Altogether, I thoroughly enjoyed Mistborn, skipping its stand-alone sequel, The Alloy of Law. And although not perfect, its quality and many strengths fairly merit a near-perfect rating especially in comparison with my other favorites, Hobb, Rothfuss & Brett.

This was very much a "middle of the series" book and if I'd had to rate it half way through it would probably have gotten 3 stars. Not that I don't love the story and the world and the characters but this one seemed to bog down a little and not a whole lot happened through the first half of the book. But then around part 4, Sanderson ramps up the tension and action and I couldn't put the book down. The love connection seems to finally have slipped into place, secondary characters are given more well-deserved attention and Vin comes into her powers in a huge way. Can't wait to start The Hero of Ages.

I was wondering how this book would be, since one of the major figures of the last book was gone... But it was interesting seeing them all try to cope. And the remaining characters did seem to step up to the plate a bit and try to fill the gap.

The story itself was good, with the end satisfying, even though it's obviously a "middle book." The Lord Ruler's tyrannical thousand-year rule has ended, but of course that means chaos fills the power vacuum. Lord Elend Venture, an idealistic, scholarly aristocrat who always championed the oppressed Skaa, tries to lead the Central Dominance as a king who establishes a council with power and rights. But his ruthless father, Straff Venture, has gained kingship in the North and is now coming to Luthadel to conquer it. And the minor king of the west has also brought an army to besiege Luthadel. Trying times calls for decisive leadership, but Elend cannot compromise his belief in giving power to his people, even when he risks losing everything that was gained.

Vin, with her Mistborn powers, renowned for killing the Lord Ruler, loves Elend. She has to constantly thwart assassination attempts against him--and has to fight her own heart which tells her she isn't worthy of him. She also battles her feelings for a mysterious Mistborn opponent who comes out of the night to challenge and intrigue her...

I enjoyed these characters much more than I thought I would. They were overshadowed by the very charismatic Kelsier in the first book, but they seem to be developing nicely in this installment. I will certainly look forward to the next book in the series.

With The Final Empire (Mistborn book one) being one of the best fantasy novels I have read in the past five years, my hopes were high for the continued success of this fantasy world. Needless to say, I was not disappointed, and if Sanderson continues to pump out books at this pace (almost one a year) and this quality (magnificent) he could be hailed in the upper echelons of greats fantasy writers of the decade.

In The Well of Ascension, Brandon Sanderson not only builds upon the unique world and intriguing characters introduced in The Final Empire, but he also shows off his marvelous writing skills by expanding his storytelling repertoire into areas that were not explored previously. While The Final Empire was heavy world building, character introduction, coming of age story with enough magic and wizard battles to satisfy any fantasy junkie for the coming year, The Well of Ascension starts to explore another facet of fantasy fiction: political intrigue. The book starts one year after the conclusion of The Final Empire: Elende Venture is now the king in his experimental idealistic governmental setup imagined around beers with his friends in the previous installment. Since large portions of the book are focused on the political manuevering, The Well of Ascension starts significantly slower the any other Brandon Sanderson book I have read; however, once settled into the different style of book the pacing ramps up quickly and effectively making the overall reading experience beyond satisfying.

Alongside the political nature of The Well of Ascension, there is still the coming of age story of the heroine from The Final Empire, Vin. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Mistborn trilogy (so far) is the stereotypical fantasy coming of age story told in such a way that is original and engaging, making it nearly impossible to compare to the timeless tale of a boy gaining powers and saving the world. Vin has not only gained significant powers and is still struggling to find her powerful place in the world, but she is also struggling with problems that are far above her maturity level including falling in love, a sense of honor and duty, and the price each of these play on her own mortality.

Finally, what would a good fantasy story be without magic and fighting? As luck would have it, as true to form, there is no need to worry with The Well of Ascension. There is plenty of Pushing and Pulling and allomancer battles to feast upon. As Vin grows more powerful so does the epic-ness of the battles. The fight scenes are beautiful realized and exceptionally original; I could read the epic 700 page tomes of the Mistborn trilogy for the fight scenes alone. I started reading fantasy for the escapism from the real world and found magical worlds where my imagination could run wild. What I really look for in a fantasy book is something that leaves me with visual images that stick with me and that I can fully realize with very little effort. The tales and descriptions in the Mistborn books provide some of the most fully realized, enjoyable, engaging, and believable memories in modern fantasy.

All in all, The Well of Ascension, while starting a little slowly, is a tour de force of fantasy imagery, worldbuilding, and storytelling. If Sanderson is not already at the top his game with his first few books in his career (Elantris and Mistborn) I can't even begin to imagine what is in store for fantasy in the next decade; of course, with Sanderson at the helm, I won't have to do much imagining on my own and will be able to sit back and enjoy the ride.

I'm still mad at myself that I let these books sit on my shelf for years waiting to be read.

Good reading,

J.Stoner

(Note: Spoilers for the previous book.)

After "Mistborn: The Final Empire" left the prototypical Dark Lord dead and the heroes triumphant, "The Well of Ascension" starts with, well, "What's Next?" The overarching plot of the middle book of the Mistborn trilogy is the attempt by Elend (now King) and the other heroes to maintain power in the face of old nobility and their armies. This is largely ignored territory for Epic Fantasy, and it's handled well here, although the slow pace of siege warfare makes plotting it trickier.

Sanderson builds heavily on the foundation he established already; the Feruchemy of the Terrismen Keepers, such as Sazed, is further developed, and another allomatic metal is added. The biggest improvement here is the better development of the supporting cast; while not everyone was fully developed it was much more balanced than the first book. Elend, Vin, Sazed, and newcomer Zane get more screen time, and are fascinating. The fight scenes return and Sanderson manages to keep the variety up, although Allomancy now looks to have a large number of unknown metals.

There are a few missteps, however. Much like with Alendl's diaries in the first book, notes from the philosopher Kwaan are placed above the chapter headings and in the book proper. Again, they're used to foreshadow a subtle but crucial plot point; however, they are somewhat overused in the attempt, becoming annoying rather than mysterious. A certain use of Allomancy - one that is key to the plot - is poorly explained, and there are a few too many questions at the end.

Still, it's fairly clear that the questions will be answered, even if this book doesn't end as cleanly as the last. Sanderson handles the issues that arise out of being the middle book of a trilogy better than most in a book that covers mostly new fantasy ground. Anyone that liked "Mistborn: The Final Empire" should definitely stay with the trilogy.

I have read a number of books by Sanderson and loved them all. I loved Warbreaker, Elantris, and the first Mistborn book. I was excited to read more about Vin and Elend, and find out about the bigger disasters that happened after they took over the city. This was a great book and a great addition to the series.

This book starts shortly after Mistborn ended. Vin is spending time trying to keep Elend safe from assassins and Elend is trying to set up government in the city of Luthadel. Unfortunately two armies have camped outside of Luthadel and they both want Luthadel for its Atium. Elend is trying to figure out how to stave off envasion when he finds out about the threat of a third armed force. Vin is pushing herself trying to guard the city full time when she runs into another mysterious Mistborn, to add to the mystery she thinks things are changing with the Mists and that Luthadel may be facing a danger much bigger than any invading armies.

This was a really wonderful book. Sanderson has such a way with characters; they are all so lovable and human. He balances out politics, action, and characterization so well. I was really attached to the characters in this book...and there are a lot of them. I never felt like it was hard to keep them all straight and I never found the magic system and politics too confusing. It takes a great writer to craft a story this complex and still make it easy for the reader to follow.

This book was politics heavy, especially for the first two-thirds. I am not a big fan of complex prolonged politics, so I didn't like this book quite as much as the first one. That being said it is a testament to Sanderson's skill that I was still completely engaged in this story despite the fact that the first part focused almost solely on the politics surrounding Luthandel. The end of the book races by twice as fast as the first part and is packed with battle and action.

This book touches on a lot of deep issues as well such as good vs evil, democracy vs. dictatorship, morality and ethics. These are all well balanced with the other elements of the book. Sanderson makes epic fantasy more personable and I love the fact that women play large roles in his books. When I was younger I always got sick of epic fantasies that either ignored women or featured them in weak, less desirable roles. This book is about Elend and Vin in equal parts and it is wonderful to see that.

We learn a lot more about the history of some of the different races and also a lot more about Allomancy. The story ends in a great spot, tying up many of the issues presented early on while starting a big story for the third book.

Overall an absolutely excellent book. Sanderson is just such a fabulous writer; his writing is complex, easy to read, engaging, creative and absolutely engrossing. I am very excited to read the final book in the trilogy, The Hero of Ages, to see how it all plays out. If you are a fan of epic fantasy this book is for you.

As with most middle entry into a trilogy, the timing in this book is off, there is a lot of filler and Vin (main protagonist) is becoming whiny. Vin is great when she is being the all powerfull ass kicker, however she often returns to being an insecure little girl doubting her boyfriend's love way too often.
With the main treat now out of the picture it seems to me that people like Vin would rise up and become the power holders instead of the previous nobility. Vin and other "Allomancers" are basically one-man armies, all powerfull and unstoppable (except by other allomancers) why isn't one of these allomancers setting themselves up as Emperor!
I still liked the conlcusion and the overall book, but I wished it was shorter so that more of the stroy would be advanced.

Below is an excerpt of my full review of the Mistborn trilogy:

I believe that the true genius behind a great story is in its simplicity in execution, and Sanderson did that with his characters, the magic system he created and in unfolding the many secrets that kept me asking questions. I love a good mystery, and while the Mistborn trilogy is a fantasy/science fiction book, it has a good level of mystery intertwined that does not get in the way of the plot and further enhances the story. You can walk away from the books with concise, well thought reasons to how it all played out. I had several questions after finishing The Final Empire, but at my friend's suggestion, I continued reading so as to prevent spoiling myself. This is how I believed Lost would have ended, with answers truly being answered and not simply thrown into place for the sake of things. It goes back to deus ex machine, or the lack thereof. This book delivers in so many ways.

There are many characters in the book and initially I thought that perhaps I would become inundated with character overload, but that did not happen. The interaction between characters is believable. No one says the right thing at the right time all of the time, mistakes are made, facts are proven wrong, and secrets reveal a greater wisdom than one could have imagined. It takes a great story teller to have their audience sympathize with a tyrant and become attached with so many characters. The trilogy even has a love story involved, and much like everything else, it is believable and fits.

Words such as hate, love, and epic are grandiosely used in society and on the web so much that they have greatly lost their value and significance. When I called this story epic, I sincerely mean that it is one of the best stories I have ever read.

While the storytelling and pacing was excellent, I found myself rooting against Elend though the whole first part of the book. I was clear to me that the real danger came from the mists, and I knew that Vin wouldn't leave the city until Elend lost his throne. Instead of feeling suspense, I was frustrated and skimming parts of the book because I wanted Vin to get out there and confront the real threat. (I have a friend who didn't have that problem, though.) For those who might have my problem, I'll let you in on a secret--preserving the city turns out to be important to the greater battle after all.

Other than that, the book was good--good pacing, great world building, interesting characters, and so on. I also found the ending a bit more predicitable than the first book in the series, though I expect most people wouldn't find it so.

Genre Reviews
[...]

The first book was excellent and ended on a good note; though there were hints that there were problems ahead. This book explores those troubles while taking a look at the issues associated with implementing a new form of government. It effectively shows the difficulty of governing a people used to authoritarian rule and how difficult it would be to implement major reforms.

Sanderson also explored what happens to people that suddenly gain or lose great power and how they deal with it. Overall I found the character development to be very interesting.

The world that Sanderson builds also continues to fascinate me. The use of allomancy is very consistent and I am amazed at how much detail he went into.

I highly recommend this series. This book once again ends with trouble looming. I am excited to finish this series.

You can read the summary of the story elsewhere. These are some of my thoughts about the book.

I loved Mistborn so I eagerly looked forward to The Well of Ascension. Where Mistborn looked at the consequences of what happened if the hero of legend failed, The Well of Ascension looks at once the heroes succeed, how do they govern and create a stable world.

I find Vin and Elend two interesting characters. Vin I like because with all her powers, she still is frail in many ways and can definitely make mistakes, including a costly one she makes in this book. Elend is a man of great ideas who has to learn to strike a balance between physical power and intellectual power.

The story itself builds on elements that were only minor players in the first book and now are growing in importance.

I can't wait to read The Hero of Ages.

The Well of Ascension is book two in the Mistborn trilogy. Elend Venture, the new Lord Ruler of Luthadel, clings to power while Luthadel's aristocrats and merchants grumble and two enemy armies, one lead by Elend's father, camp outside the city gates. Fortunately, Elend can rely on help from his unofficial assassin and lover, the young allomancer Vin. Vin's magical metal burning ability makes her a target. Vin is having trouble adapting to her position as royal consort, especially since the underclass skaa, freed by Elend, look to her as their protector. Meanwhile, the ancient evil known as the Deepness is rising once again.

The Well of Ascension is an entertaining read especially if you want to know what happened after the good guys won. This book was just as good as the first book in the series. I look forward to reading the third book.

Another great book from Brandon Sanderson. In the process of obtaining and reading the rest in the series! Such an interesting use of 'magic'. Sanderson does such a great job of making it real and logical. A little hard to imagine, but what magic isn't? Great fantasy series!
Highly recommend.

THERE ARE MINOR SPOILERS
I'd like to first start off and say that book 2 is NO book 1. Granted the last segment is good. It was too much of a burden getting there. There were many points in the book where I wanted to burn the book it was so annoying. I would give this book a 2.5 if I could but since the ending was good. I gave it a 3.

I'll go into detail below about the negatives.

1) Vin and Elend's relationship. It is one of the most UNBELIEVABLE and AWKWARD romances. In book 1, you kind of saw the chemistry and it made sense. One could see them pushing through their differences and, hopefully in the future, grow into a mature relationship. In book 2, all hope of that is destroyed. There aren't ANY scenes where you feel that they should even stay together. I found myself many times rooting for Vin's other love interest just because it made more sense. I completely understand how opposites attract but it was just so strange reading Vin go slaughter a group of assassins and then come act like a Tween couple stuck in the puppy love stage with Elend immediately after. It was just too unrealistic and extremely tiresome to read.

2) Extremely slow paced. I won't get into this too much but let's just say this book could've been named something completely different like "Mistborn: People Gathering Outside While We Bicker Inside" or "Mistborn: Teen Insecurity and Its Dire Symptoms on a Kingdom" or my personal favorite "Mistborn: Being Redundant Helps for Redundancy". This book has so much filler I would put it up there with some of the Wheel of time books. You know, how the whole book is tiresome and then something EPIC happens at the end. Ya, its like that but not as interesting because the politics and teen insecurity happens over and over and over and over and over again. Very tiresome.

3) Elend in this book. Its not entirely the character that's the problem, but the situations that he is put in. They are so stupid and could've been completely avoided. I don't understand why Sanderson would make Elend so righteous that he lose his status as king because he couldn't tell a lie/not say anything about the clause and THEN turn around have Elend shank his former friend and then kill a Koloss just because he was wondering what was in its pouch. WTF? You ask. Yes, indeed Elend is psychopath (jking). I still don't understand how I can like the character but hate almost everything they do but the paradox is here.

3) Vin's disapproval/misconception of Kelsier. I HATED THIS ABOUT THE BOOK! This drove me up the wall, more than the teenage puppy love awkward scenes, more than the stupid political ploys that wound up doing nothing, and even more than the sheer Elend's uselessness as king. We know Kelsier as the self-sacrificing hero of book 1 that wooed us all over with his awesomesness. With that being stated, can any of you please send me the memo where Elend in any way, shape, or form is better than the Survivor? There was a section in the book that Vin states Elend is a better than Kelsier and then goes to say Kelsier was ruthless blah blah blah. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?! I'm sorry but Sanderson EXTREMELY dropped the ball here. Vin goes on to turn Kelsier in a ruthless maniac that eats babies and kicks the elderly in her mind. All the while, Elend is the golden boy that can do no wrong and is the Heaven in human form to her, while he forsakes his kingdom and its people to another man who is a supporter of one of the books main bad guys!!! I feel Sanderson tried to make Kelsier the good "bad" guy to make Elend and Vin seem more righteous. It only pissed me off. Kelsier died, paying the ultimate sacrifice for the good of all skaa in book 1 and book 2 Vin belittles his actions. I can go on and on about this because it's so frustrating.

4) Vin is a poor replacement for Kelsier in book 2. Before I go on, yes, I am a fanboy of Kelsier. He was an awesome character that did many things to earn him respect in my eyes. After he died, we had vin. At the end of book 1, Vin was pretty bearable. In book 2, Vin's loses all credibility and just becomes one of the most annoying main characters I've read in a series. The reason I say this is because Vin seems REALLY bipolar in this book. Yes, I understand Sanderson is trying to make her SEEM more human by giving her uncertainty but you just want to take her out back and shoot her many times during this book she is so annoying. It would have been a different case if there was more development of her personality. I felt, even in book 1, she didn't really have too much of a personality other than her "holy crap hide and become small". Yes, she had her moments, such as her blowing up at the crew, but it still felt out of place because there wasn't a REAL distinct feel to her. You didn't notice it too much because Kelsier had enough personality for both of them. Without him in the equation, you really start to notice her character design faults. When you add the annoyances of being in a unbelievable, puppy-love romance, Vin is the most annoying character in the book.

5) The final bad thing about the book is how easy things come to Vin in this book and how great she is. It just seems so fake. Examples of this are, of how her handwriting is amazing or of how she was dancing in her new dress at the shop and the keeper says he has never seen someone so graceful. Or how her bluntness usually turns out to be the best for the situation. Or how Everything just works for her. TOO EASY!!! Hell, she even gets stabbed in the chest by a dagger, shrugs it off, and goes on to defeat the attacker who is using Atium. Her killing Rashek left a bad taste in my mouth because of how stupid the fight was. It's turning into a really bad episode of Dragonball Z, where the main character is getting rolfstomped the whole time and then out of nowhere gets a bunch of power and wins. No originality, no skill.

Positives of this book

The last 1/5 of the book

I gave this book 3 stars for the ending section of the book. Doesn't make up for wasting my time throughout most of the book but whatever. The stage is now set for book 3. Hopefully, it is mind blowing

The Well of Ascension is the sequel to Mistborn, and is the middle book of the Mistborn trilogy. Middle books are typically the weakest volume of any trilogy, and unfortunately, Sanderson's trilogy is no exception.

While the action sequences are still well-written, the book suffers from fantasy-level-up-escalation, carried to the extremes, as the main character, Vin grows in power, and as a result, the rest of the threats have to scale up as well. This would be OK if the other characters on her team grows in power as well, but they don't, so you're treated to increasingly lopsided situations that could be mistaken for the typical Mary Sue fantasy.

The unfortunate thing is that Sanderson's ability to do character development seems to be limited to depicting characters agonizing about dilemmas that in no way feel real (i.e., the reader has so much information that he knows what the right choices are, and in no way feels like the characters will do anything but). Worse, some long running supporting characters are killed off in cheap fashion that do not serve the plot in any way.

Finally, the ultimate reveal sucks: not only was the reader misled in every way, the entire state of the world is left dangling and obviously hanging for the final book in the trilogy. In some ways, this is some of the worst sins of writing a fantasy series: an entire book in which nothing substantial happens, and you could easily have skipped an entire book and gone on with the series without missing much. While this book isn't as abusive of readers as A Dance With Dragons or A Feast For Crows, Sanderson's not doing anyone any favors with this novel. I'm debating between plowing ahead and finishing the series for the sake of completion or abandoning Sanderson permanently altogether.

Not recommended.

The world, the magic, the creatures are wonderfully creative and unique. I read this series after reading his Stormlight series, which was actually written after Mistborn. I gave this a 3 star (instead of 4) because the story becomes too focused on each character's individual thought process and a stream of melodramatic moments. I found my self skimming through entire sections. The first book in the series has much more action and it "shows" you more than it "tells" you how the characters are responding and evolving. The 3rd book, however, took the melodrama even further than the 2nd, which unfortunately made the finish line a little grueling to get past. That being said, the book is well worth the read!

I trusted her as my favorite POV in the series. I loved her personality: humble, quiet, cautious. She struggled with her fear of betrayal; surely she'd never betray me. But she did (spoiler ahead).
Halfway through the book, we're introduced to two characters: Jarloux and Wellen. The characters appear in no more than two pages of text. But that was enough.
These guys were on 'Mist duty'. They had no power. They were afraid of the mists. They didn't even want to be there.
The vivid description of the carnage stunned me.
Then we flash to Vin, her pewter enhanced muscles, her incredible power as a Mistborn. She started off as a relatively weak character in terms of power. She acquired power in book 1 and for a while she handled it. Then she allows herself to be corrupted by it and kills people who, while not entirely innocent, did not deserve to be killed like that. She stepped on them like ants. In that instant, I saw the moment at which a character goes from good to evil. It wasn't a 'flaw'; it was pure evil. Sure, she feels guilty about it later, but not nearly enough. She died to me then and I still can't finish the third book because of it (she becomes this inhuman entity that doesn't even really seem to love Elend much anymore, she prioritizes 'saving the world').
I'm not sure where Jarloux and Wellend came from or why Brandon added them, but the impact sticks with me. I wrote an entire book with this scene as inspiration but I didn't do it justice. In mine, the protagonist kills somewhat by accident. Vin did it deliberately. I almost want to try to write another with that approach but for me its like sticking 2 magnets together (same poles). I'm just too repulsed by it. So, while I thank Brandon for writing something that moved me so greatly, I hate what happened. Vin was truly a GOOD character and never did I suspect she'd do anything remotely like what she did.
Vin, you betrayed me, your reader, and it makes me sad.