Book Review – The Well of Ascension
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Cover Artist: Christain McGrath
Publisher: Tor
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publication Date: 2008
Sanderson may well be on his way to delivering one of the most influential epic fantasy trilogies of the decade.
The Well of Ascension is the second book of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy. I liked Mistborn: The Final Empire a lot, quite an improvement over Sanderson’s previous novel Elantris. In The Well of Ascension Sanderson manages to raise the level a bit further. Sanderson may well be on his way to delivering one of the most influential epic fantasy trilogies of the decade. I was very impressed with this novel.
The Final Empire has fallen, the Lord Ruler is dead. The price has been high though, the unifying factor of the crew has fallen away. Kelsier has sacrificed himself for the freedom of the Final Empire’s population, setting himself up as a god in the process. But the work is far from done. Soon the first new tyrants claim power in parts of the empire. In the outlying dominances the situation is far from stable. In Luthadel, the former capital of the Final Empire, Elend has set himself up as king. Helped by Vin and her crew they try to implement Elend’s ideals on how a government should work. The local population seems contend to let him try but when the armies of two newly formed kingdoms march for Luthadel the situation rapidly deteriorates. Elend doesn’t have the military strength to hold the city. They will have to make a deal with one party soon. While Elend tries to stall for time to save his ideals the city gets restless. After all, a tyrant not only offers protection but also stability.
Such struggles for power are not the only problem the newly liberated Final Empire faces.With the Lord Ruler’s final warning still ringing in her ears Vin, (later to be followed by Sazed) stumbles across evidence that the defeat of the Lord Ruler has also ripped away the worlds protection from the Deepness. They become more and more convinced the real battle the world is facing is not the impending siege of Luthadiel but will be fought over much larger stakes. Their research into the matter is constantly frustrated by the need to support Elend in his fight for survival of his kingdom. Sooner or later they will no longer be able to ignore this threat.
One of the first things that struck me about this novel was that is has a lot more point of views than book one of this trilogy. Mistborn is mostly told from the point of view of Vin and Kelsier. With Kelsier dead Sanderson decided to really write a multiple point of view story. The risk of that is getting lost in a myriad of secondary characters of course but Sanderson manages to keep enough focus on the main characters while giving us a look in the other party’s camp as well. This was something I missed in the fist book. Vin and Sazed are very much the centre of this story and I enjoyed their characters a lot. I was less charmed by Elend, who in my opinion remains too naive for too long.
The Well of Ascension features a number of combat scenes where Vin heavily draws on her allomantic powers to vanquish her foes. With the practice she’s had since the first book she is getting better at it. These battle attain an almost Runelord-like quality, for those of you who are familiar with David Farland’s series. They are some of the most intense action scenes I read in quite a while. I have unfortunately not entirely been able to let go of my inability to accept the abuses of chemistry in these novels but Sanderson clearly put some thought to the extend and limits of this magical system. Although it is clear we don’t know everything there is to know about the metal based magic she employs.
Another thing that struck me is the emphasis on beliefs, or the importance believing in something if you will. Sazed is quite clearly going though a crisis in his faith, if he ever had one he was completely comfortable with that is. In a lot of fantasy worlds a pantheon of god-like creatures that can actually though the physical world is a given. There is no trace of such a thing in these books other than the reference to the Lord Ruler’s godlike nature (and the state religion he forces on the population). Sazed’s mission appeared to be to give the world back it’s faith but now it seems he must find his own faith first. It’s an interesting story line and a take on religion in fantasy. It’s one of the elements in this story I am most curious about where Sanderson is going to take it in the final book of the trilogy.
For a moment I feared that The Well of Ascension would suffer from the middle book syndrome and that the story would mostly be used for setting up the inevitable confrontation with the Deepness. In fact, it looked like that was what was going to happen for quite a while. The finale managed to surprise me though. Just when you think Sanderson is done with the story he hits the reader again. One could say Sanderson takes his time getting to this point though. The Well of Ascension is significantly longer than Mistborn, not all of which appears to be necessary at this point.
On the whole The Well of Ascension is a better book than Mistborn; the Final Empire. It’s one of those books where once you get going to pages seem to race past. It’s definitely one of the best books I have read this year. The third book in this series, Hero of Ages, is scheduled for release in October 2008. The Well of Ascension has certainly raised my expectations for this book. A review copy is on it’s way, I will try to review it when the release date draws near.
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