Review: Well of Ascension (Mistborn, #2) by Brandon Sanderson

Last month, I reviewed the first book in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. I was stunned by the impactful world building that he achieved within the first paragraphs of Mistborn: The Final Empire. See my full review here. After the insane ending to the first book, Sanderson did not fail to deliver in the second book, Well of Ascension. If you haven't read the first book, I would suggest you stop reading my review at this point. By necessity, any discussion of Well of Ascension will reveal spoilers for Mistborn. If you have read the first book, READ ON.

Book synopsis: ***SPOILERS for Mistborn***

The impossible has been accomplished. The Lord Ruler - the man who claimed to be god incarnate and brutally ruled the world for a thousand years - has been vanquished. But Kelsier, the hero who masterminded that triumph, is dead too, and now the awesome task of building a new world has been left to his young protégé, Vin, the former street urchin who is now the most powerful Mistborn in the land, and to the idealistic young nobleman she loves.  

As Kelsier's protégé and slayer of the Lord Ruler she is now venerated by a budding new religion, a distinction that makes her intensely uncomfortable. Even more worrying, the mists have begun behaving strangely since the Lord Ruler died, and seem to harbor a strange vaporous entity that haunts her. Stopping assassins may keep Vin's Mistborn skills sharp, but it's the least of her problems. 

Luthadel, the largest city of the former empire, doesn't run itself, and Vin and the other members of Kelsier's crew, who lead the revolution, must learn a whole new set of practical and political skills to help. It certainly won't get easier with three armies - one of them composed of ferocious giants - now vying to conquer the city, and no sign of the Lord Ruler's hidden cache of atium, the rarest and most powerful allomantic metal.  

As the siege of Luthadel tightens, an ancient legend seems to offer a glimmer of hope. But even if it really exists, no one knows where to find the Well of Ascension or what manner of power it bestows.

By its nature, Well of Ascension is not a fast moving book. The rebellion has succeeded. Vin has killed the Lord Ruler. But this all came at a very high cost--Kelsier's sacrificial death. In the wake of the Collapse, Kel's crew must figure out how to govern Luthadel with threats coming from the internal and external forces. Beyond the threats that the crew faces, there are unintended consequences to Kel's nobel and not-so-nobel actions that took down the Final Empire and the Lord Ruler. These consequences propel the conflicts and the themes of the second book.

The two main themes running throughout Well of Ascension are trust and belief. These two themes center on two characters--Vin and Sazed--and these themes shape the conflicts faced throughout the book.

I am simply awed by Sanderson's skills as a storyteller. It's true that this is not a book whose plot rockets you through its pages, but that is the nature of the task facing Kel's crew. They are trying to pick up and hold together the pieces of the Final Empire. There is a lot of waiting, and sieges are not known for their fast-moving pace.

There are, however, tons of great action sequences throughout the book. At one point, Vin headbutts a guy and his head EXPLODES. I know, right? There is also a great expansion of the applications and understanding of Allomancy. There is also a lot of Vin being, as Elend puts it, a force of nature. That girl is death incarnate when she chooses to be.

There are also moments between characters in this book that will choke you up at their beauty and their truthful honesty. While Sanderson doesn't write romances that leave you in breathless suspense, he really does portray what healthy romantic love looks like in practice. And I appreciate that more than I can express.

But all of that takes a backseat for me to the interweaving of those two themes with those two characters.

For Vin, we see Kel's last words to her, "You have a lot to learn about friendship, Vin," haunt her, drive her, and finally solidify her. She must learn to truly trust those around her and, more importantly, to trust herself. We see this played out in her relationship with Elend. Her conflict with Zane, Straff Venture's bastard Mistborn and Elend's unknown half-brother. With the relationship she forms with OreSeur, the kandra she knew as Renoux. And with her connection to the Well of Ascension. It all comes down to who and what we put our trust in.

For Sazed, he is a collector of long-dead religions. He is a storehouse for beliefs, but in the end, he believes in nothing. And we watch a religion form out of Kelsier's efforts--The Church of the Survivor. Belief is constantly debated throughout the second book. What constitutes belief? Where should belief be placed? What controls our beliefs? Should we believe in anything? What is the place of belief?

By the end of the book, Vin learns to trust wholeheartedly, but much like Kel's sacrifice, it has unforeseen consequences. We are also left with a broken Sazed who has lost all faith he once had. We are left with a world whose beliefs have been manipulated. And we are left ambivalent toward what can we believe.

I theorize that the theme of belief will be continued in the last book in the trilogy, Hero of Ages. I don't want to go into any details about how these themes culminated in Well of Ascension, because the interweaving that Sanderson pulls off is impressive and should be experienced, not explained.

After the driving force of those two themes, the other aspect of Well of Ascension that I appreciated was Sanderson's subtle characterizations. He reveals his characters dimensions and depth through contrasts and foils. You understand each character better in the light of another character he or she is placed beside. You see this with Vin and Zane, Zane and Elend, Elend and Jastes, Sazed and Tindwyl, Breeze and Clubs, Straff and Elend, Elend and Kellsier, Kellsier and Vin. And he defines each character through these contrasts. Because different people illuminate different parts of our personalities--the good and the bad, and it is only through this illumination that we get a clearer picture of who each person is. It was brilliantly done with a light touch.

It seems redundant to say that I loved this book, and I look forward to diving into Hero of Ages tomorrow. But I did and I do. At the end of this book, I came to an interesting realization. The character who I am most like in these books is Clubs. I'll leave HOW to your imaginations. :D