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A review by lavidaenquotes
The Hero of Ages, Part 1 by Brandon Sanderson
3.0
Giving a rating to The Hero of Ages troubled me quite a bit. After much debating, I settled for 3,5* I wanted to like this book sooooo badly - I fell in love with The Final Empire and was one of my favorite books of last year. Ever since I read it, I've been praising it and recommending it left and right. I love the story, the world, I got to know and love and cheer for the characters, and the magic system left me in awe. Sadly, for me, the third and final book didn't deliver what I was expecting.
Let me start off by saying I understand how amazing Sanderson's work is. He came full circle by the end of this story and seemingly little details and hints that were dropped here and there came back to show their importance and make your jaw drop. How didn't I see that coming. Although, to be honest, I did see many of those things coming, and while there was something that kept me guessing for a while (is she? is she not?) by the time the big reveal came my way, I had seen it coming long ago.
In my opinion, this book could have been shorter. A good 100 pages, if not more. Come to think of it, maybe that's the reason I had so much time to put many pieces together and see things coming. There are chapters in which you read for the thousandth time about Saze's religious crisis, about Spook wanting to be important and relevant, about the ever present ash (did you miss that? There was ash. A lot of ash), so you have plenty a time to ponder about stuff, and the element of surprise vanishes. It's really a shame, because the reveal is utterly clever, but instead of knocking me out of my sit, I went "oh, so... I was right."
The Mistborn Trilogy captivated me with The Final Empire, got a little bit slippery in The Well of Ascension with story line so politically heavy and little allomancy, and almost lost me for real in The Hero of Ages with its redundancies, slow pace, sparse action scenes, and quite an anti-climatic ending.I don't mean Vin and Elend dying. I saw Elend's death coming long before and, even though I could have done without his beheading, it didn't really surprise me. Even Vin's transformation into... Preservation 2.0? was something I could accept - although I do have my reservations. Hell, even Saze's ascension and transformation into a deity was ok. But everyone coming out of... a cave? Into a beautiful green meadow of sorts? Finding Vin's and Elend's bodies? And a note from the new God in town? Who is, apparently, hanging out with all their dead friends in the after life? (side note: is God allowed to have a girlfriend?) It was, after already so much, too much for me, and it left me blinking for a few minutes at the pages, wondering if I had really read that.
This book by itself would get 3 stars from me. However, like I said at the beginning, I recognize Sanderson's work and the complexity of this story. That counts for at least half a star.
Let me start off by saying I understand how amazing Sanderson's work is. He came full circle by the end of this story and seemingly little details and hints that were dropped here and there came back to show their importance and make your jaw drop. How didn't I see that coming. Although, to be honest, I did see many of those things coming, and while there was something that kept me guessing for a while (is she? is she not?) by the time the big reveal came my way, I had seen it coming long ago.
In my opinion, this book could have been shorter. A good 100 pages, if not more. Come to think of it, maybe that's the reason I had so much time to put many pieces together and see things coming. There are chapters in which you read for the thousandth time about Saze's religious crisis, about Spook wanting to be important and relevant, about the ever present ash (did you miss that? There was ash. A lot of ash), so you have plenty a time to ponder about stuff, and the element of surprise vanishes. It's really a shame, because the reveal is utterly clever, but instead of knocking me out of my sit, I went "oh, so... I was right."
The Mistborn Trilogy captivated me with The Final Empire, got a little bit slippery in The Well of Ascension with story line so politically heavy and little allomancy, and almost lost me for real in The Hero of Ages with its redundancies, slow pace, sparse action scenes, and quite an anti-climatic ending.
This book by itself would get 3 stars from me. However, like I said at the beginning, I recognize Sanderson's work and the complexity of this story. That counts for at least half a star.