More about Mistborn
So, I finished reading Mistborn yesterday and was very happy to find that it is pretty much one of the best books I have read this year to date (as I suspected it would be earlier). It was also pretty much entirely self-contained… there were a few loose ends, its true, and I have discovered that there are in fact two more books in the series forthcoming, making it a full trilogy (sorry Darcy!). The next book is due in August of this year, and the final book is finishing up now, and should be out by next summer.
Anyway, the book was quite fun. It has the feel of Ocean’s Eleven (or Twelve, or Thirteen, etc., etc.), in that the main characters collect a group of specialists in order to pull off a rather complicated plan against the opposition. The system of magic is quite well thought out (just as it was in Elantris) and rather novel for fantasy works I can bring to mind right now. I’ll leave those secrets for your own discovery, however.
In looking for other books by the author, Brandon Sanderson, I discovered his website (I just linked to it! Jeez!) and thence the books mentioned above as forthcoming. But, the other very cool thing I have discovered on this site is the author’s commentaries on his own books! Apparently, after he has written them, and the publisher’s editors have read them and made suggested changes, he has to reread them and make sure all corrections were, well, correct. So, as this could be rather boring, he writes down what he was thinking about each chapter, how we was trying to portray the characters, and missteps he took along the way. It’s very much like a director’s commentary on a movie. Each chapter of each book he has published has at least one writeup, if not more, along these lines. He releases them in the weeks following the initial publication of the book.
Well, anyway, I thought it was cool. I wish more authors would do so, as sometimes, when I am reading some books, I really wonder what the heck the guy was thinking when he wrote that!
That’s all the update I have for now. I rather think both Elantris and Mistborn are worth reading.
Tags: books, commentaries, elantris, Mistborn, reading, Sanderson