The characters and action are solid, and the writing is slightly improved from the last book.

Also his descriptions are generally lacking, and I can sometimes find it difficult to picture the aesthetic he's going for. a character using contractions in one sentence and then not using any in the next, or the odd use of 'perhaps' instead of 'maybe'). I noticed this in the last book, but Sanderson's dialogue is consistently bizarre, flipping randomly between modern-speak and medieval-speak, sometimes in the middle of a sentence (e.g. But instead, they all turn back to Luthadel! Luthadel is just a boring black city, and I really don't know why Sanderson chose to set two whole ass books there exploration is one of the best parts of fantasy, after all. Having essentially the entire plot take place in Luthadel was also a huge error and maybe what annoyed me the most: I was excited to see other areas of this apocalyptic world such as Terris, and was tantalized by the possibilities of Sazed and Vin going there. Oh yeah, and interesting characters like Zane or Marsh are also completely wasted I really wanted to see what was up with Marsh, the biggest badass of the last book, but instead he dips for the entire plot, appears in the last fifty pages, and then dips again! So disappointing. Vin and Elend, the main characters, don't do much of anything until the finale, other than sort out contrived relationship struggles Elend's story is particularly annoying as he gets continuously deposed and re-deposed as king only to just be re-installed at the end anyway (he does get some great character development though). The three-way siege just drags on, and villains like Straff Venture are too comical to be compelling.

Really the biggest problem is the pacing: nothing important happens for like 600 pages. The Well of Ascension is much the same, but its meandering is even worse and its twist conclusion is not satisfying enough to cover for the book's flaws.

It meandered a lot in the middle, but the poor pacing was partially redeemed by a genuinely thrilling and epic conclusion in the Luthadel rebellion. I did like the first book it's not the best fantasy book I ever read, but it was solid. I started reading this series on a whim, as I wanted to see what the hype was about: overall, I'd probably say I'm thoroughly whelmed by Mr. So I just finished Mistborn book 2 and I wanted to talk about it a little, since Brandon Sanderson seems to be a fairly popular author around here.

The well of ascension mistborn book two