Favourite book

[GreenMonsta]

I like where your going. I agree that the growth of the main characters had a lot to do with my love of FE.

 I will have to respectfully disagree with your magic system statement. I was refreshed with systems of magic that had rules and limitations. Although I love WoT and many other series with all encompassing magic systems, they seem to lack any kind of logical base. In reality, the longer one works with a magic or the more naturally talented one is means they can do practically anything. I'm not the biggest fan of magic that has no end. Wot and the One Power, Sword of Truth and "Additive and Subtractive" even the Belgariad with the "Will and the Word". Of course there are many more examples those are just a few of the more well known ones. Although it seems strange that rules can be refreshing, in this case I find it to be true.

[Curious]

I always found that there was something weird about the Mistborn trilogy. I've finally decided that it was because I didn't complete buy into the theme of faith because it felt like it was there for the sake of being there, and the arguments didn't win me over. It also made a lot more sense to me when I found out later that it's set in a period of technology similar to our early-1800s (Victorian?) England, but I think the main problem for me was with the theme.

Warbreaker is not only my favorite book by Brandon Sanderson, but my favorite book in the entire world above anything else I've ever read (which isn't a small number of books). Everything was perfect, and it was my first Sanderson book. (I read it online and bought hardcover the week it was out and reread it.) I hope his books continue getting better and better, and that his Stormlight Archive series follows on the footsteps of the other great epics.

Elantris was a close second for me. After finishing HoA (which, despite my small discomfort with some of the theme, was epic) I couldn't read anything because I kept thinking of how it couldn't compare to a Sanderson book, so I went out and got the one non-children's Sanderson book I hadn't read, Elantris. I really liked all three characters and found Hrathen developing feelings for Sarene heartbreakingly awesome and sad. I loved all the political machinations in this one, but the romance in Warbreaker really won me over because it was so organic and enveloping.

I'm disappointed at how few people voted for Elantris, but I'm thinking that maybe it was a close second on many people's lists like it was for me.

PS: This isn't necroing, is it? This is a pretty recent post, sorry if it is necro.

[Ari54]

Come on people. HoA was fantastic but would it have been so good had not FE been amazing first. I mean I've re-read that book twice and I find myself not wanting to skip a word and that's rare for me.

Alright so I will respect opinion here and just say that FE was eye opening for me. The drastically different magic systems and the amazingly interesting characters just threw me for a loop. I will always think of that as one of my favorite books of all time.

I dunno. I think paying off the development of several of his characters in HoA was what made it my favourite Mistborn book. The only characters that really develop in FE are Vin, and Kelsier if we count us finding out about his previous character growth. (and I think we should) In HoA, Vin, Spook, Elend, TenSoon, and Sazed all have very significant character development, and I think this "ensemble cast" style makes the story stronger, even if it required some setup from previous books.

You're certainly right that HoA could not have been so good without the setup from FE. But of course, we experience the payoff of that setup in HoA and not FE, so of course this flavours our perception.

[Batchman]

My favorite isn't even on the list! I guess I have to wait three or four years to vote for it!

Brandon's books are the best!

[little wilson]

My favorite isn't even on the list! I guess I have to wait three or four years to vote for it!

I would've voted for Scribbler too, if it had been on the list. But alas, it wasn't.

My vote went to Hero of Ages. That book was incredible if only for the sheer epicness of it. Of course, it was also incredible for a lot of other reasons, but...wow. I loved it. Sure, the ending tore me up, and I'm still not entirely certain of my thoughts about it (I don't like it, and yet I love it...such a mix), but I do know that it was full of awesome.

But really, all of his books are good. I'm sure Way of Kings will blow all those listed out of the water....

[Chaos]

I must say without a doubt, Final Empire.

Don't get me wrong, Hero of Ages was great and all, but to me, Final Empire turned pages faster. I don't know, in HoA, the parts before the ending weren't as exciting than comparable areas in FE. Of course, the ending and seeing everything fit together in HoA was amazing, and I have no qualms at all with its ending at all (it's all universally positive for me).

But on the sheer value for holy crap, this ending was sweet, I think my reaction to the ending of Final Empire was stronger. The part where Kelsier died was so perfectly done, and made the book phenomenal. Finding the Lord Ruler's secret also made the book awesome. I have a thing for immortal god-kings

So purely on a reactionary level, my favorite goes to MB1. You can't beat a pure visceral reaction to that.

Now, analyzing closer, Brandon's writing in Warbreaker is his best yet, embedded with a subtle irony which makes it a pleasure to read. None of the Mistborn books have the same flair as Warbreaker's prose, but Mistborn wins on epicness and creativity. Warbreaker, I thought, did not have as "whiz-bang" of an ending as the others.

Elantris deserves another mention, because it's ending was sweet. If I were to rank Brandon's epics in terms of my likeability of them:

1. Final Empire
2. Warbreaker
3. Hero of Ages
4. Elantris
5. The Well of Ascension

2-4 are hard to rank, because I like them all equally for completely different reasons.

Well of Ascension gets last place because I have always disliked Zane. That whole book didn't click all the way for me. Of course, it's ending justifies it tenfold, so I have to give it that, but I always felt Well of Ascension moved slowly.

[GreenMonsta]

I like how you put that Chaos. Based solely on reaction theres almost no question. HoA did slow down for a while near the end when Vin was captive and before Urteau burned. I think the chaos that followed Kelsiers death was my favorite thing Brandon has written. The radical change from, Survivor leading the way to, OH SH**! was awesome. Its almost like from the moment Kell decided to save the captives in the square all the way to the last page there was this amazing culmination of unexpected and amazing events that kind of set the tone for the whole trilogy. Kell died so no one was safe, TLRs dead so all that we knew was at an end. All that was left was the rest of the crew and the rest was a question mark. A surprisingly satisfying question mark.

I find it amusing how you don't like Zane. You always seemed like a Zane type of guy.

[little wilson]

I find it amusing how you don't like Zane. You always seemed like a Zane type of guy.

Heh. He does, doesn't he?


This next part will have spoilers. If you have not read Hero of Ages, do not finish this post (although I don't know why you would be in this thread if you haven't read it...). If you do, it's your own fault...You have been warned.

First, Final Empire. I loved it. I was completely surprised when Kell died, but not at all surprised by who killed him. Plus, it was awesome that the first sighting of TLR is the scene where he kills Kell. Amazing. And then with the uprising, and Vin killing TLR....it just kept getting better and better. The whole book was really just freaking amazing.

Hero of Ages, though. I would have to agree that it was a little slow in places, but that end. From Vin and Elend's separation on the walls of Fadrex City, it sped up. The sheer amount of information given--like the first generation, and where the atium has been, and the earring, and so much else--was incredible, and it made total sense. And the deaths. Both made sense. Both made perfect sense. Yet it still hit me that Marsh decapitated Elend. Sure, he's controlled by Ruin, but....Elend is headless. That's just not cool.

It also didn't help that somehow I missed the part in the epilogue where Spook finds their bodies. When I finished it the first time, I still had this image of headless Elend floating around in my head and it was distinctly unpleasant. And then I re-read it, and I saw the part with the bodies and I was relieved. For everything that happened, it ended very positively.

And I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was near the end of the semester when I read it. About a month to the end, and I was coming up to finals, and there I was, completely preoccupied with the ending of HoA. I'm not sure what it was, but it stunned me. Left me in complete awe of Brandon's geniusness. It was emotional, surprising, and gutsy. Not to mention epic. And completely perfect. It couldn't have ended any other way.

In terms of ending, Hero of Ages wins by a long shot over Final Empire. Final Empire, though, is a stronger book as a whole. Yet, HoA's ending, for me, makes up for the few slow places, putting it in first place. So FE is second...

I think my standings are thus:

1. HoA
2. FE
3. Warbreaker
4. Elantris
5. Well of Ascension

...Methinks I spent way too much time on this post. If I'm not careful, I'm going to become as bad as Chaos....

[Chaos]

I find it amusing how you don't like Zane. You always seemed like a Zane type of guy.

In real life, though, I'm far more an Elend guy. In the entire series, Elend is my favorite character. So when Zane pops up and gets between Vin and Elend... man, those are fighting words

...Methinks I spent way too much time on this post. If I'm not careful, I'm going to become as bad as Chaos....

I hardly think you have a chance.

Don't get me wrong, I love knowing the answers that Hero of Ages presents (in my first readthrough I took about 4000 words of notes as the answers unfolded), but if I'm judging on that basis, then I was probably more excited for the next epigraph than the next chapter.

Final Empire gave my climax music. I was listening to some orchestral things, and there was this song that I kept pressing repeat on with that scene Kelsier died. I played that same song until the end of the book. It was genuinely thrilling.

I think we can all say Brandon's endings are awesome. No, the word "awesome" doesn't do it justice. I'll stick with "thrilling".

[Zimra]

The single vote for Elantris is from me, unless I've gone crazy. I've read all of Brandons books apart from the Alcatraz ones, and Elantris is still my favourite.

It's not really because of the characters or the plot. And Brandons writing is far better in his later books (Warbreaker, mmm delicious Warbreaker). I love Elantris because of it's setting, and the magic. I especially love the little touches, like with the Elantrians getting wounds that don't heal and slowly drive them insane. Brandon is always coming up with concepts I've never heard of or imagined before, and sometimes I find myself wondering whether he is insane.

It's funny, really. I tried explaining Mistborn to a friend at work. "Yeah there's these dudes who basically swallow flakes of metal and it lets them fight like ninjas. Honestly. It's so great I bought a signed first edition.. What? Why are you looking at me like that? They fight like ninjas. Yeah I said they swallow metal. They burn it in their stomachs. Ninjas. Ninjas!!"

Thank god I didn't have to try and explain Warbreaker. "Uh, well, these dudes get these things called breaths, which are kinda like peoples souls but not really and everyone starts with one, and they can put them in objects and tell them to do things. Like throwing a rope and telling it to 'strangle things'. Honestly it's really cool."

Maybe he just puts a bunch of words in a hat and draws them out. Huh, let's try it. *rummages in a hat*

Flowers, sniffing, reality. Okay... So Sniffers (the magic users) snort the distilled scent of different flowers and use it to warp the fabric of reality. *rummages again*

God Emperor, Gardener, Dragon, Twilight. So in a world set in constant twilight (where it's hard to find the good flowers, like Daffodils which let you warp time) there is an evil God Emperor (The Gardener) who is really a dragon and he sucked out all the sunlight for his own personal garden.

So now we need the Brandon twist. *looks in the hat* Good, evil, flowers. So it turns out that the Gardener is actually good, since without the perpetual twilight Sniffers would destroy the world by rampantly warping reality, but in another twist he's actually evil because he eats everyone who enters his lair, and plans to return the sunlight (which he thinks is good but is evil because the Sniffers will blow up the planet). So he's good and evil. And in a final twist, this is all taking place on a giant flower, which another Sniffer sniffs on another world, which is also a giant flower, and the image repeats for all eternity until one of them sneezes and ruins it. This also all takes place in 60 pages after 800 of buildup.

Damn. This is why Brandon writes the books huh. Oh well.

[sortitus]

Damn. This is why Brandon writes the books huh. Oh well.

Yes, well, insanity and a hat with random words in it are just two of the many requirements you have to have to be Brandon.

Honestly, though I voted for Warbreaker, the prose didn't seem to flow as naturally some of the time as in his other books. The cleverness felt a little forced to me at times. Perhaps I've just read too much Wilde.

My List:
Warbreaker
The Final Empire
Elantris (despite less refined prose than is used in his later books)
Hero of Ages
The Well of Ascension

tFE is a close second, Elantris and HoA are close to each other but a bit below the first two, with tWoA being just barely below HoA.

[Curious]

Wow, Zimra, I loved your post! The first part was entirely true and the second part was hilarious. What I really liked about Elantris was that all the characters really clicked for me. I felt them. The same was mostly true for Warbreaker (although the first time I read it I got as confused as Vivena about the whole Denth/Vasher "who's the good guy" kind of thing) but for Elantris, everything fit.

In Mistborn, a friend of mine spoiled the ending by telling me Kelsier dies before I had even read any Sanderson or about the time I was reading Warbreaker on my computer, so I didn't think much of it but when I read FE it kind of ruined the tension and the revelation for me. I guess it's parallel to the surprising developments in Elantris where Hrathen is cursed by the "Shaod" (drinks that potion there) and then later does the same thing to Sarene, but on a much bigger scale with much more impact? Damn, I'll forever wonder what it would've been like to experience that... Maybe I should ruin TGS for that person to get back at them. xD Just kidding, that would be a sin.

[AGrey]

Elantris

the plotline with Raoden bringing civilization to the magical leper colony is what really makes the book stand out for me
the food cart chapters, hrathen's constant struggles, and sarene teaching the women to fence are all spectacular.

Hero of ages comes in second, because of the epic scope and atmosphere of the books.
there's a scene where one of the kandra is running cross-country, and he takes a paragraph to describe the scenery: the pervasive ash is now piled high, there are active volcanoes erupting everywhere, it's an image that just stuck with me.  With all the action, all the fighting, the wars and politics, you forget that the backdrop is armageddon.

also, the twist with vin's earring was an absolute kick in the nuts.  the best plot twists are the ones where you get enough clues beforehand, and rereading the series, it just seems so bloody obvious, but getting the reveal the first time completely swept my legs out from under me.

[Plasman]

wow, zimra.  parts of that actually weren't that bad. altogether it was awful, but some of it... do u mind if i steal The Gardener as the bad guy idea? i might have to try this hat thing...

[Patriotic Kaz]

Am i the only one who's favorite characters in Mistborn are Vin and Spook? The first book was the best but it was much more than Kel the whole thing of thieves being heroes was awesome! Elantris is 2nd, then HoA then WoA.