Tuesday, April 22, 2014

The Mistborn Series 01 - The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson





Hello there, this is my very first Book-Review-Blogging entry with my very first Epic Fantasy genre book review on this blog. In reference to that, I have started out by choosing Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series as my first review on this blog.

As bizarre as this might sound, I can honestly say that I have never come across this name, Brandon Sanderson, before as an author until I was in Goodreads searching for some new genre to explore. Moreover, the moment I bump into his page, most of the books that was written by him are beyond 4 stars! Well, I'm not going to bore you with statistics in regards with number of readers, but with that generous rating, NOW THAT is bloody fantastic!

Enough with my ramblings. Let's move on with the good stuff.

Ash... Mist... Falling from the sky. (Say what?) I just don't care, and I just continue to read. 

Alright, just a simple question, in which part of the world has ash falling from the sky? My very first thought would be places with active volcanic geographical landscape. I am from the South East Asian region with tons of active volcanoes around me. Ashes falling from the sky are signs that YOU SHOULD EVACUATE from that place like RIGHT NOW. But as you read on, Mist are hovering the whole place during the night. Now that is mysterious!

Keep on reading... Keep on reading... Keep on reading...
[While humming Finding's Nemo Dory's "Just keep swimming" tune]

Whilst characters are being introduced, metal magic too are being announced into this world. Okay, let me be straight up honest with you... Metal magic? What? I thought Metal magic is some sort of manipulating metals around you to maneuver how you attack your opponent.

I WAS WRONG!!!

Before the magic comes into picture... I love the characters that were being introduced. So many of them and still so good!

Vin, Kelsier, Sazed, Breeze, Ham, Marsh, Spook... etc

The chemistry among them... ahhhh... They reminded me so much like the family from Ocean's 11. I know I know many did make Ocean's 11 as a reference and comparison to this book. But heck no! The plot is way more cooler, exciting, witty, direct... and different. The humours during dialogues are SPOT ON funny! Now, I have to admit that you can't get anything better than that!!! <-- (There is a lot of big talk here folks... bare with me. I'm excited... What can you do? Sue me!)

I'm back with magic... the magic... magical magic!!! Metal magic!!! Trust me, you will never hear the end of the Push & Pull effect, the Internal & External metals, the Soothing effect, Manipulation... etc. You'll definitely want more... More... MORE!!! There is a word for it which is called "Allomancy".

Allow me to be a little bit of a show-off here on how the structure of this book works. I've studied an elective paper during my Uni days with the subject called "International Business" and I've learnt a new term called P.E.S.T.L.E. :

This book covers PESTLE!!! What does PESTLE represents?

P - Politics (OH YES, there isn't a world with no political issues... )
E - Economy (Reminds me of the CAST and CLASS system that runs a country like INDIA!)
S - Social (There are many social injustice here... DON'T GET ME STARTED!)
T - Technology (It Sucks! But with the magic in place... Then it's amazing!)
L - Legal (There isn't any!!! Reminds me so much of an Absolute Monarchy system!!!)
EEnvironment (If you're from a 3rd world country like I do, you can really relate to this!)

I was very optimistic that the plan from these lovelies will go well. I was really taken by surprised that something happened tragically! Well, I'm not going to spoil it for ya because I know you're gonna read it!! *hint hint* READ IT... Come on!

Oh wait... Master Elend Venture! How could I missed him out? Ahhh... It is a confusing world out there with such complicated love story in such a disastrous world. Yet with such injustice in place, the preaching of love has never failed to lose out from all living things in the world. I'm loving how subtle the love story develops. It's refreshing!!! Believe you me, some of those overly-done-cheesy-love-stories does not work on me! Heck, I'm just a dude who needed his "privacy space" when authors over-writing stuff like that!!!

CONCLUSION

It's a given 5 out of 5 stars in Goodreads. Pick this up (or purchase an ebook), and READ IT. It's really mind-blowing. 

I can never finish praising how good Mr. Sanderson has brought me into a world with such an intriguing plot and how much connected you are with the characters he has introduced.
  
Goodreads Review Link