Review : The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
Pages : 572
Genre : Fantasy
Series : Mistborn, book 3
My Rating : 5/5
My thoughts :
I feel there is very little I could say to explain how much I loved that book – the whole series, in fact. I am not sure I can translate all these feelings in words, but I am willing to at least give it a try.
I came from The Well of Ascension with a lot of expectations. It had been, if possible, even better than the first book, and had left me with many unanswered questions. I felt nervous for most of the characters, and almost completely unable to predict what would happen next. So far, Sanderson had excelled where so many authors fail : surprising me while being faithful to the worldbuilding and the characters. I would be a huge disappointment if The Hero of Ages was anything less than awesome.
I will admit that I felt the book had a slow start. It might be because of all these expectations, or it might be that the book did have a slow start; in any case, the feeling didn’t last. I was soon completely hooked to the story, as I had been in the previous novels. I’m still impressed with how life-like these characters felt to me, and how complex they were, even the secondary ones.
And the story. Oh! I can’t really talk about it without adding a “caution-spoilers” announcement, so :
The following part of the review is slightly spoilerish; you’ve been warned!
That ending! Oh my! My jaw fell so far to the ground I had to get it back from my downstairs neighbors. I’m pretty sure there were tears, too. I had not seen that coming. Well, I knew there would probably be deaths, but that was as much as I could predict. I couldn’t say who, or how. Wow. I’m still in shock thinking about it. And I certainly couldn’t predict the role that Sazed would play. And Ten Soon.
This was both heartbreaking and beautiful. And magical. And I was impressed how Sanderson could make this ending such a godly experience, without stepping too strongly into the religious aspect of it.
I’m actually not sure I understood everything that happened there, and I am looking forward to rereading it in a few years; I know I’ll be surprised by details I hadn’t noticed before.
End of the spoilery bits; read safely from now on!
Reading the Mistborn trilogy was certainly a once in a lifetime experience! Often I’ll read a book with a weak worldbuilding but wonderfully complex characters, or with shallow characters but a strong story; Sanderson achieved greatness in so many aspects that I would have a hard time finding flaws after only one reading. Complex characters, intricate plot, creative worldbuilding; I can only recommend that you read and experiment for yourself this wonderful series!
- Mistborn : The Final Empire
- The Well of Ascension
- The Hero of Ages
- The Alloy of Law (set in the same world, but not part of the trilogy)
Several times in the last few chapters of the book, I literally stopped reading and hugged the book to my chest, because i just loved it so much! I think the book was slow to start because Elend had been forced to change so much, and I really missed his old unruly scholar days. But GAH, I had moments where I just shivered, realizing about her earring the moment she realized about Reen’s voice in that cellar, and the moment when Ham finally makes a decision and says “No” to Elend’s question about the Koloss (probably my very favorite moment in the series, actually), and that moment that Marsh manages to make his one little act of defiance in the midst of all the horrible things he was doing to her…this book was just so good! I wish I could make more people read it!!
Sounds fantastic. I love the cover.
Yeah, this was the first series of Sanderson’s I ever read. And I think, so far, it’s been my favorite. A lot happened and there was a lot of deep stuff involved too. I remember noticing “errors” in the book (regarding prophecies) that turned out to not be errors. I thought that was pretty cool. The whole series was great.
Oh, I am so glad that this series continues to impress! I didn’t read your spoiler section because these are books that I want to experience on my own. So happy you enjoyed this one!