The Well of Ascension

I just finished reading The Well of Ascension or "The Empire strikes Back...... Sanderson style." Don't get me wrong, I liked this book by Brandon Sanderson even better than the first book in the series, The Final Empire. In the first book in the "Mistborn" series the reader is introduced to the heroes of the realm. They overthrow the ruler of a thousand years, and they all live happily ever after. In this second book the reader finds out what happens after the happily ever after. Our heroes have to become politicians and administrators. The cracks begin to show in their characters and our heroes feet of clay become all the more obvious. This makes all the characters less heroic but more relatable as people and not just characters in an epic story. It becomes obvious that some of the characteristics that made our main characters Vin and Elend heroes, leave them ill-suited for the life of a politician and ruler.

Elend, who in the first novel is the idealist who dreamed of a utopian society where Ska and Nobles work together in harmony for the good of all people, soon learns that that idealism is easily corrupted in the face of political back-biting and double dealing. Elend's book learning and introspective personality really fails him I his attempt to rule a democratic society.

I'm not sure that what Vin displayed in this novel was a character flaw, so much as a result of her just beginning to grow up into a young woman. The most important thing for me to keep reminding myself through this entire novel was, that Vin is in fact only sixteen years old. She is bound to make mistakes. She grows in confidence, but some of that confidence can be ill placed.

I can't wait to read the third and final book in this part of the series.