Mistborn

There is absolutely nothing I did not love about this story.

Loved the magical system Sanderson has created. The way the "allomancers" burn metals to unleash their magical powers makes them the coolest creations since the Jedi. Unlike the Harry Potter books, in which the magic made absolutely no sense, here the magic feels like it has been thought out and could almost actually exist. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. Even fiction needs to feel like it could be real, otherwise what you are reading is a metaphor or an allegory, or maybe religion.

Which brings me to another thing I loved about the book: there is a place in this world for religion. Or rather there was a place, before the Lord Ruler, the Ultimate Bad Guy, outlawed all forms of religion. But one of the main characters, who belongs to a fascinating group of people called "Terrismen," has spent his life collecting what information he can of the lost religions of this world.

Speaking of religion, there are Inquisitors in this world, and they are the baddest baddies since the Ringwraiths or maybe the Shrike (Dan Simmons' Hyperion). I cannot get the image of these evildoers out of my head: they have metal spikes driven right through their eyes and out the backs of their heads! Sanderson definitely has a gift for creepy images, because there is another being in the Mistborn world that is nearly as terrifying as the Inquisitors, and that is the Mistwraiths. These beings wander in the mists of night, scavengers who pick up old bones, absorb them and form them into weird bodies that combine everything they have absorbed. A single mistwraith can have animal bones, human bones, multiple heads, multiple limbs... altogether a unique and disgusting concept that is terrifically well described by Sanderson.

Also unique is that the protagonist of the book is a woman, and Sanderson does a great job of portraying her realistically. Even though she gains enormous power over the course of the narrative, the author does not forget her origins, and her origins continue to define how she reacts to her circumstances throughout the book. In fact, all of the characters, even the minor ones, display realistic motivations for their actions, and come across as very real. Another couple of notches in the "loved it" column.

This book was so good, I didn't even notice how long it was (24 hours in the audio version). When I finished, I immediately downloaded the next book in the series and started it. Thank goodness for long car rides!

[I listened to this as an audio book read by Michael Kramer, who is AMAZING.]