NewCountry reviewed The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn Era One, #2)
Review of 'The Well of Ascension' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I feel like I have to justify to myself/explain why I gave this novel 5/5 stars because I only gave the previous book 4/5 stars, and it's not something that I will obviously remember for it's hard hitting thematic or philosophical content or ideas like a 1984 or Dune.
So, the main reason for the 5/5 is that the climax is utterly perfect. Literally everything after the ball starts rolling with the Zane vs Vin fight is just... so good. And that's literally the thing that bumped it up to a 5/5. Just... everything after that point is so good.
The zane fight itself with it's characterization of zane and vin is good. The fight itself was so thoroughly entertaining, and seeing Vin overcome Atium through reflexes (which I expected way earlier in the book tbh) was so satisfying. Seeing the bond Vin formed with tensoon mean something in the …
I feel like I have to justify to myself/explain why I gave this novel 5/5 stars because I only gave the previous book 4/5 stars, and it's not something that I will obviously remember for it's hard hitting thematic or philosophical content or ideas like a 1984 or Dune.
So, the main reason for the 5/5 is that the climax is utterly perfect. Literally everything after the ball starts rolling with the Zane vs Vin fight is just... so good. And that's literally the thing that bumped it up to a 5/5. Just... everything after that point is so good.
The zane fight itself with it's characterization of zane and vin is good. The fight itself was so thoroughly entertaining, and seeing Vin overcome Atium through reflexes (which I expected way earlier in the book tbh) was so satisfying. Seeing the bond Vin formed with tensoon mean something in the fight. Seeing "God" tell Zane "You were never insane." IT WAS ALL SO GOOD.
Speaking of the tensoon reveal, the fact that literally ALL those meaningful conversations between him and vin were literally him going against his contract AND his master is absolutely mindblowing and makes those sections all the more tragic and beautiful... in a way. That's how you do a freaking twist.
Although I could've done without Sanderson outright telling the audience "Zane represents who I think I am, Elend represents happiness." That felt like a shockingly forward and... bland way of stating that concept, but I guess he also does that with the trust theme, but that's built up better, BUT I also watch anime so I can't really complain.
Then right after that we get the sweetest, shortest, and most nonchalant marriage where one person is bleeding out that I have ever seen. Vin x Elend is cute. (This was the moment when I realized this was going to be a 5/5 btw).
Then we get... everything else with the climax. Seeing all the politics just come together was so good and satisfying.
Elend cutting off his friends head immediately shows such wonderful characterization for him.
The sequence of Vin using the horseshoe juggling to travel was so cool. I can just picture that being an absolutely stunning movie shot.
The image of vin picking up a huge koloss sword and walking off in command of the koloss is so fucking badass. I'm just imagining her with her short stature, her badass mistborn cloak around her, half of her face covered in koloss blood, her hair all disheveled, and she picks up this big ass sword, swings it over her shoulder, than walks commanding all these monsters. Absolute queen.
Then she pulls another absolute queen picture perfect movie money shot moment when she kills straff in the most badass anime way possible. Shooting at him at the speed of sound, cutting through him and his horse, then standing up as their bodies fall in half.
AND ITS NOT OVER! The final section was just... wow. I mean. The twist was kind of obvious for a while before it ACTUALLY happened, but it was still executed extremely well. They un-equivacally lost, unleashing the true dark lord this time. But elend is apparently a mistborn now! So yay!
Oh yeah it's also revealed that the world of mistborn is only livable on the poles? So that's extremely interesting.
Sazed character development was absolutely phenomal. The moment when his girlfriend dies and he loses faith has some absolutely gut wrenching quotes about his loss of faith and his useless beliefs.
TBH I didn't feel too bad for Clubs and Docks deaths. They were well done death scenes, but I guess I just hadn't connected enough with them. Breeze's statements on his fear and uselessness though... that hit.
But it's not like the first half isn't great. It really is, especially since everything works to set up the climax. In fact, it might even be better than the first book in terms of hard hitting and character diving conversations there are. But it would be unfair to give too much create to this one because it doesn't have to act as a character introduction like Final empire did. And final empire did a fantastic job at giving everyone character. The thing that sticks on in my mind is the scene where breeze is soothing the people who are trying to be recruited for the group.
Oh yeah, well of ascension... there were great moments pre climax as well.
Good book. Solid read. Can't wait to read hero of ages.
Time to read: 12 hours 39 minutes
