Sunday 19 February 2017

The Final Empire

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Book Title: The Final Empire
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Series: Mistborn #1
Date Started: February 4th 2017
Date Completed: February 19th 2017
Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Action
Quality Rating: Five Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star
Final Rating: Five stars
Review:

As usual, I don't know why I took so long to get around to this book. The Final Empire is exactly the kind of thing that I love: traditional high fantasy with a couple of awesome protagonists in a mentor/student relationship and a loveable cast of side characters, but with original and modern twists. Within the first couple of pages I knew it would be a favourite, but after finishing it I don't really know what I did with my life before I read it.

The make or break moment for most high fantasy books is the reveal of worldbuilding - sometimes it can be pinned down to a single moment, at best it's sprinkled the whole way through the book for you to absorb gradually. Sanderson did both. We're given a lot of information at the start to establish our idea of the what's going on, but we have this lovely slow and intuitive worldbuilding throughout the story that pulls on all these little ties and expectations we already have with high fantasy. On its own, it's arguably a rather standard fantasy world, but what makes The Final Empire different is the use of magic. The magic system in this book is so original and interesting the second it started being explored it was onto a winner. The idea revolves around different metals being able to grant Allomancers different powers, but Sanderson ties the politics in so closely that the magic system doesn't feel like deus ex machina as we're so often used to in books that contain magic. It's an integral part of this world and how its society works, as well as being exciting.

I was very happy for The Final Empire to catch me off guard as it so often did. I love reading diversely, and I love reading a whole manner of genres, levels and styles, but it's been a while since I've had something that was just right for me that I could sink my teeth into. Sanderson reminded me why I love high fantasy so much, and how good it is to be truly surprised when you can't predict the direction of a story.
This story takes place over a big time frame in which a lot of things happen. It's dealt with masterfully, so there's a clear passing of time, but it doesn't lose the sense of scale as a result. The things that happen in this book are big. We all love those rebellion narratives that are supposedly changing the world, but they often fail to feel as big and important as they're made out to be. The Final Empire - both the book and the empire itself - felt so solid in its worldbuilding right from the off that I could feel the political and social tensions immediately. By the time the big events started to happen I was entirely sold on it.

Much to my satisfaction, The Final Empire had a wonderful, varied and loveable cast of characters. There was depth to everyone, and even the evil characters I found myself admiring, but of course, it was our protagonists Kell and Vin that stole the show.
For a protagonist who I was reasonably flippant about to start with, Vin gave me so much pride. She grows an incredible amount throughout the book and I really admired the way she began as scared, timid and used to being used, and grew into a brave, independent, inquisitive woman. We so often see protagonists who start off reckless or stubborn and become well grounded, but it's a harder to find the development starting from a place of true fear. We're introduced to Vin when she is in a constant place of fear, so to see her place in the narrative develop into the hero that she grows to be really got to me. Towards the end, I was close to tears for pride, and the final words given to her in faith of her abilities really got to me.
And if we're going down the traditional fantasy route, you've got to have the sassy troublemaker and the wise mentor. With Kell we get both in one. He's so easy to love and easy to hate, his personality had me rooting for him straight away. He was a brilliant match for Vin, not only to balance out her initial uncertainness but to pick up her spirits and courage later on as well. And while a lot of exposition around a character is usually a negative point for me, Kell's history got me right in the heart and added so much to his character that I can't speak ill of it.

Brandon Sanderson isn't the father of modern fantasy for nothing. The Final Empire stands wonderfully on its own, but is clearly part of a huge world and story. It had me literally cursing and gasping out loud, clenching my fists and nearly turned me into Bradley Cooper from Silver Linings Playbook towards the end. It's 100% a new favourite of mine, and I desperately want to get my hands on the next books as soon as possible.

Saturday 4 February 2017

The Book of Bera

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Book Title: The Book of Bera
Author: Suzie Wilde
Date Started: January 23rd 2017
Date Completed: February 4th 2017
Genres: Historical, Fantasy, Adventure
Quality Rating: Three Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Two Star
Final Rating: Three stars
Review:

◆ Thanks to Unbound for this proof copy for review ◆

A fantasy adventure following a Viking protagonist was an intriguing prospect filled with a lot of potential. Which, as so many books end up being, wasn't used as well as it could have been. The downfall for The Book of Bera for me was that it was trying to be something it wasn't, and missed its mark as a result. Unfortunately, I didn't reach the end of this book, but I reached my 100-page limit for giving books a try.

I'm quite frustrated with this book in general because it could've been so good and enjoyable had the story been allowed to play out naturally. It is, by nature, quite an exciting adventure story, and Wilde's endearing writing makes it feel childish - and childish should in no way be a criticism as long as it's used properly. The problem that I found was that Wilde was determined to push darker issues to make a point about the tone she wanted, but that tone didn't fit the story I was reading. Had I not come across a rape scene (which I wasn't completely happy with, let alone with of the lack of sensitivity on it involving a child) I would've been happy calling this a kids book whether it was aimed at young adults or not. I think it's a bit of a shame because addressing those issues doesn't really have any wider significance, and meant that Wilde couldn't follow what I felt was the naturally adventurous side of the story.
Following on from that, I so desperately wanted the fantasy element to be pushed more. Is it fantasy? Is it magical realism? It wasn't particularly clear because it wasn't at the forefront of the narrative, which I personally think it should have been. We get a lot of daily Viking activities but I wanted to know about the folklore and traditions as well - but the extent of that was pretty much the skerns talking to Bera. Which was great, if a little sparse through the story. Wilde seemed to focus on other things and didn't let the part of the book that felt more unique pay off.

The Book of Bera throws you into the story pretty quickly, and things escalate almost immediately. Almost too fast since events don't feel like they flow into one another - they more follow one another in unrelated bursts and poor Bera is battered around in the meantime. While I felt some sympathy for our protagonist (when she wasn't annoying me) I got very frustrated at the book expecting me to get emotional over characters and things that have been given no development. One of the keys events that kicks off this book is the death of someone close to Bera, but it happens with so little build up - of both tension and character development - that when I was expected to mourn I just sort of shook my head. This happened a couple of times in the amount I read of this book and it started to get on my nerves that the story was depending on your emotional reactions to things that had no emotional effort behind them.
What interested me about this book was the opportunity to learn about Viking culture and see that utilised in a story. I've never read anything like that before and I think the reason why a lot of people are looking at it is because of that very point. The folklore element, as I've already discussed, feels like it's glossed over, but the everyday culture itself is an integral part of the story. Which is wonderful - if I knew what all these words and references meant. As a reader, I felt thrown into the deep end of the world without any explanation or background. I didn't felt like I was given a chance to understand the verbiage before it was being used as a big part of the story, so I started missing key points pretty quickly. This is probably a big reason as to why I couldn't follow this book through to the end and is a real shame because it was what I was so intrigued by that ended up losing me.

There aren't a great deal of characters we're encouraged to attach to in this book (apart from the ones we know for two seconds), so ultimately our whole engagement with the story lies heavily on Bera's shoulders. This could've been great in getting across that idea of loneliness but power in independence. Could've been. Now I can't claim to know what Bera is like at the end of the book, but from what I read she played a very passive part in the story. I appreciate that she's a child and doesn't understand a lot of the horrible things that are happening a lot of the time but a) it isn't the most engaging perspective to read from and b) it doesn't mean the bad things that do happen can just be dismissed because she can't understand them. Now, to be fair, I've read far worst protagonists, but it just drew me back to the idea that Wilde was trying to push in a direction the story didn't want to go in, to the point where it was disjointed.

There's nothing wrong with a fun fantasy adventure exploring a culture, but The Book of Bera felt like it was trying too hard to push itself into a tone it wasn't meant for. Writing this for children and exaggerating the magic and adventure could've made it a very good book, but for me the off-tone story that didn't properly delve into the Viking culture led by a passive character didn't retain my interest.