Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

I first read Sanderson when he finished Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. He took a series that had gotten far out of control and bloated and pulled it all together and finished it well. Check out the review of that if you are interested. My wife gave my the trilogy as a Christmas gift and I quickly started into the first book.

In Mistborn we follow a young lady named Vin. She grew up on the streets and is of a lower caste known as Skaa. She gets involved with a thieving group lead by a man named Kelsier. She soon realizes that her power to influence people is something much more than good luck. She is a Mistborn, an allomancer, that can burn metals to gain magic powers. She can push and pull metal objects, influence people's emotions, gain super strength and with the rarest of metals see into the future.

The world that Vin inhabits is devastated. Almost no plants grow and those that do are stunted and weak. Great volcano like mountains almost constantly cover the land in repeated Ashfalls. The nobility live the high life as uncounted Skaa work as their slaves. At the pinnacle of this arrangement lives the immortal leader, the Lord Ruler.

Kelsier plan is to overthrow the empire and if possible kill the Lord Ruler.

I enjoy reading fantasy fiction. After tons of reading in my younger days, I started to get bored with "the hero goes on an adventure" books. I still seek out good fantasy and was pleased to read this book. 

The system of magic is different than anything else with reasoning and explanation for how things work. The lofty goal of a small band of people trying to overthrow an empire is not knew, but how they go about it, the limitations set by the world, and the unexpected results all made this stand out from your typical fantasy fare. The unique magic system combined with Sanderson's ability to describe battle scenes makes this really worthwhile.

3 Intellectual/Emotional - Vin and Kelsier are both very likable characters. I was invested in their success.

3 Style/Readability - Sanderson has a easy going writing style. I felt his combat scenes stuck with me and it was easy to imagine them in my head.

4 Long Term Impact - Sanderson has been gaining popularity. He pleased most of Jordan's readers and I hope that he surpasses him. I hope he sets a trend that inspires like work going forward.

10 out of 13. This is a solid score for a solid book. I really look forward to reading more in the series. I think anyone that likes fantasy or science fiction would find this worthwhile. The series is to be a trilogy of trilogies. That has one set in the past, one set in modern times and one set in the future. We'll see how it goes.