The closing chapter of the Mistborn trilogy. After having read Sanderson’s debut novel Elantris, I was excited to see where this was all leading. He does a fantastic job of world building, getting into the details of life to a meticulous level (religion, economy, politics) without being dull. He has a flair for writing fight scenes and keeping the action taut and suspenseful.

He also has a penchant for using the phrase “raised an eyebrow”. I swear to God, if you made a drinking game out of spotting cocked eyebrows in this book, you’d be David Crosby before you got to the final page. I used Amazon’s “search inside” feature on the phrase “raised an eyebrow” or “eyebrow” and it returned close to fifty hits. That equates to someone doing an impression of the Rock about once every ten pages. It GLARES.

Eyebrows aside, the trilogy follows a fascinating arc. Rather than telling a tale about how a band of heroes saved the world from destruction, it’s more about how those attempts failed and what needs to be done to fix them. There are a wide array of characters and species to follow, some fascinating, others feeling a bit like plot devices or a bit two dimensional. I would recommend the Mistborn Trilogy for anyone who really likes epic fantasy (I’m only a passing fan, and it’s the twist Sanderson puts on things that kept me coming back), but I would still steer people towards Elantris above this collection.