Comments on: Review | The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

By: edifanob

edifanob — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:37:56 +0000

I read the whole trilogy in a row and I think you must see it as one book. When you look at each book separately The Well of Ascension is a “real” middle book. But from my point of view The Final Empire and The Hero of Ages would not work.
What do you expect when the leader of a revolution dies? Elend Venture gets weak because of the absence of Kelsier. Forme I would it woul have been implausibly when Elend followed in the steps of Kelsier like a rising star. Hope you unterstand what I try to say.
The Mistborn trilogy is one of my top reads in 2009. And I put the emphasis on trilogy.

By: Shane

Shane — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:01:13 +0000

I definitely agree. While I still liked Well of Ascension, it just couldn’t compare to The Final Empire, which I absolutely loved. Especially after reading the last volume of the trilogy, I much prefer to think of Mistborn as a standalone novel called The Final Empire. The second and third were decent, but I did not love them.

By: Mendel

Mendel — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:49:09 +0000

I agree with you Aidan about Vin and Elend losing their bite. Marsh intrigued me a lot and I actually looked forward to the mystery surrounding him. Zane, however, I could not have cared less about. Zane seemed to take on the role of substitute to supplement the lack of action that was so intriguing in the first volume. Sazed has to be my favorite character in the whole series. His character development is very strong and continues into the third book. I look forward to your review of The Hero of Ages.

By: aidan

aidan — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:13:28 +0000

Rich & Mendel – The kiss analogy is very apt. And, like any great kiss, the ending was easily enough to get me to move on to the final volume of the trilogy.

Noircoeur – I get that ‘clockwork’ feeling quite a bit from Sanderson, and have trouble looking past his very calculated style of storytelling a lot of the time. If you’ve ever read the ‘Annotations’ that Sanderson writes for his website, it becomes very clear that writing is a puzzle to him, and he takes bits and pieces floating around in his head and very methodically writes a story around them. Not bad, especially when one is rewarded by the complex plotting that Sanderson’s great at, but sometimes a little sterile.

The videogame analogy is also apt, especially for the first volume. Still, it was something I was able to look past most of the time.

Like you, despite my reservations about the second volume, I’ve been very much enjoying the series. I’m halfway through The Hero of Ages and Sanderson will definitely be staying on my radar.

Mendel – I connected with the characters in the first volume, but felt that they changed too much for the second volume, losing much of the charisma and confidence that drew me to them in the first place. Vin and Elend lost a lot of their bite, Marsh was underused and Zane just wasn’t that interesting. Sazed, however, was a pleasant surprise.

By: Mendel

Mendel — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:02:26 +0000

I love the “kiss at the end of a long, boring, tedious date” analogy. For myself, I didn’t find it quite as tedious and boring. I really connected with the characters in the first volume. To further your analogy, it was like going on the second date. You really learned more about the minutiae of the other person. Yes, it got boring at times. However, the foundation was strong. I can gladly say that if this series of books were like a date, then the outcome is marriage. Having read all three books back to back I fell in love with this series. Sanderson will only improve with experience and I look forward to his future works.

By: Noircoeur

Noircoeur — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:48:19 +0000

Excellent review.

I just finished reading this trilogy, and I would lie if I said that I didn’t enjoy it. I just didn’t enjoy it as a series of standalone, “solid” books. The whole thing was too “video-gamy”, especially throughout the first tome. Some parts even felt like tutorials (“Hey X, can you teach me how to use power Y?” “Hey, A, tell me about ability B!”); at times, I was wondering when I would get to play.

I mean, the whole magic system is quite spectacular, and the world is cleverly built, but it’s… too much of a clockwork, if you spare me the strange comparison. It just felt like Sanderson came up with his rules first, and tried to give his story a soul afterwards. Which might explain why most of the relationships feel forced and/or simplistic.

Well, I hope it made sense; I’m rambling, and I’m French (which doesn’t help).

PS: Great blog by the way

By: Rich

Rich — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:38:06 +0000

I couldn’t agree with you more about The Well of Ascension. Much like yourself, I was eager to delve into the second volume after finishing the wonderful introductory volume. The pacing of the second volume made it torturous to finish it. I am a big fan of ‘building’ novels as long as they get to the point. Unfortunately, this volume about killed my enthusiasm for the entire project. His characters became more complex and richly detailed, but at the cost of pacing and breadth. I couldn’t help but notice how similar the problems this volume were to Abercrombie’s second volume. I mean, glacial pacing of a siege is not exactly riveting stuff… I guess I wonder why they don’t just make two 1000 volumes and just be done with it. Sometimes a story gets crammed into a trilogy when it really doesn’t need to. This book was like getting a great kiss at the end of a long, boring, tedious date. Yes, it was nice but long-term relationships aren’t built on nice kisses.