The Final Empire is the first novel in the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson.

Plot:
For a thousand years, the Lord Ruler has ruled the world. He’s not only a king, he’s a god. While the nobility mostly thrives under him, the largest part of the people are skaa, who are, essentially, slaves.
Now, one of the skaa, a famous thief and Mistborn (meaning he possesses the ability to burn metal in his body and manipulate his surroundings with it), named Kelsier starts to plan for the ultimate destruction of the Final Empire and the Lord Ruler. For that he pulls together his old thieving crew, with the new addition of Vin, a young street urchin, who is a Mistborn as well – but doesn’t even know it.

The Final Empire has an intriguing premise and Brandon Sanderson does it full justice. Though his writing style is not the cleanest, the world he’s created and especially the characters in this world are engaging and will hook you quickly.

[Loads of cover love goes to Gollancz, again.]

Sanderson repeats himself often. While I appreciate it, if you don’t mention completely new concepts – like Allomancy or Feruchemy – only once and then assume that everybody knows everything, sometimes it got a little too much. It was never so bad that I actually skimmed, but  I was tempted to, sometimes.

And it’s not only the repetition of the concepts, but also certain words… I bet if you compared how often Sanderson tells us that Vin is scrawny and how often Stephenie Meyer tells us that Edward is perfect, it would be a tight race.

Nevertheless, the world building is tight and the main characters are great enough to make you overlook the fact, that most of the secondary characters remain underdeveloped. Kelsier – and his brother Marsh – are fascinating, and Vin is a great reader-stand-in [and still is a character. With character traits! And an agenda!!] and I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I fell in love with her love-interest Elend a little bit as well. [Despite the fact that Elend, in German, means misery, and I always have to make sure I pronounce it differently in my head.]

And if Sanderson does something well, it’s banter. It’s wonderful.

Anyway, this might not be the best fantasy series ever, but it’s entertaining and I’ve already started part 2.