Brandon Sanderson teaches English 318 at BYU, and I’ve heard very good things about that class, both from members of Quark and from members of the English faculty. He’s also a relatively new Fantasy writer, with a handful of novels in print, so when I heard that the Quark reading group book for November was Mistborn, I decided to give Sanderson a try. I was not disappointed: Mistborn was one of the best books I read all year.

Mistborn is set in Luthadel, the capitol city of a despicable evil empire called The Final Empire. It’s called the Final Empire because the emperor, the Lord Ruler, is a god who cannot be killed. The serfs, known as skaa, are used, abused, raped, and killed at the pleasure of the nobles. Ash falls from the gloomy sky like snow and mists of dark magic cover the landscape at night. Only the powerful magic users known as Mistborn can travel safely through the mists, and use this to their advantage in the plots of intrigue between the noble houses vying for wealth and power. The nobles, in turn, are kept in line by the Imperial obligators and the powerful, mysterious inquisitors, who are the elite guards of the Lord Ruler.

The hero of the story, a young girl named Vin, starts out as the lowliest of the low–a lone skaa who barely survives from day to day as the member of a thieving crew. She has an ability, however, to acquire and use luck, which makes her something of an asset to the crew. Just as she’s about to help the crew make their biggest scam yet, she is discovered by a band of skaa rebels–but also by the inquisitors.

A skaa mistborn named Kelsier takes her off the streets and introduces her to something she’s never had before–friends. He has a number of friends, all of them masters of different allomantic powers. Kelsier teaches Vin that her ability to acquire and use luck is actually allomantic power–and that of all the allomancers, she is one of the most powerful. Like Kelsier, she is a mistborn: one of the few who have access to all the allomantic powers. Together, they hatch a bold plan–to overthrow the final empire and steal the Lord Ruler’s prized supply of atium, the rarest and most powerful metal.

As a part of their plans, they have her pose as a daughter of one of the lower houses of the nobility. When she isn’t roaming across the city as a mistborn, she goes to the balls and spies on all the great houses. She begins to realize that there is more to life than survival, and finds that this new life is changing her. But she struggles with such concepts as trust and friendship, and sometimes is in doubt about her very identity. And as she comes to see that there are good people as well as evil people among the nobility, she starts to question Kelsier’s plan–and develops feelings for one of the young men of the great houses.

Meanwhile, the inquisitors find out about the plan. They start tracking Kelsier and Vin, and start foiling key elements of their plan. Vin painfully learns that the mysterious power of the inquisitors is greater than even her powers as a misborn–and the Lord Ruler is greater than all of them. As they learn more and more about the truth behind the Lord Ruler, the pressure becomes greater and greater, until there is no way out except to do the impossible–slay a god.

As you can tell, it’s a long book–nearly 600 pages. But those pages went by very fast, because the story is really good. The two strongest things about the story, in my opinion, are the way that Sanderson describes the magic system and the way he develops Vin’s character. These two things together made Mistborn better than most fantasy books I’ve read.

Sanderson believes that the rules of any magic system should be clearly explained, kind of like they are in an RPG. The result is a set of magical powers that you can easily imagine yourself using. Many times as I read this book I imagined what it would be like if I had allomantic powers myself, and that made the magic system very exciting. It also made the fight scenes really intense and engaging, because I could follow what was going on and knew what was at stake.

But my favorite part of the story was Vin, the main character. Most of the story is about her transformation and personal struggles, from a poor child of the street to a person who has friends and loved ones–and learns how to fight for something bigger than herself, the essence of what makes a true hero (or heroine, in this case). Almost everything that happens in the story happens through her eyes, and Sanderson does a marvelous job integrating her unique point of view into the greater whole of the story.

Because of this, I came to love and appreciate Vin like someone I knew personally–because I did know her personally. And her struggle was uplifting. It was something I cared deeply about–more than the fighting and the magic and the plot to overthrow the Final Empire (although those were really cool too).

Sanderson himself describes this book as a heist story, but I think that it’s something completely different. And I’m glad that when what started as a heist story started turning into something different, Sanderson had the good sense to go where the story took him and give us Mistborn. It is a heist story, in a sense–but it is much more than that. It is a story of political upheaval, of an amazing universe with a fascinating magical system and really cool battles–and the story of one character’s growth from a mere survivor to someone who has something to live and fight for. And that was what made this story really good.

Well, this online quiz pegged me pretty good.

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far)Northern You have a Northern accent. That could either be the Chicago / Detroit / Cleveland / Buffalo accent (easily recognizable) or the Western New England accent that news networks go for.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Thank goodness the Utah accent isn’t rubbing off on me!