Tag: highfantasy

The Well of Ascension Review

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Vin, the street urchin who has grown into the most powerful Mistborn in the land, and Elend Venture, the idealistic young nobleman who loves her, must build a healthy new society in the ashes of an empire. Three separate armies attack. As the siege 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.

Have I Read? NPR’s Top 100 Fantasy and Sci-fi

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So this post was completely inspired by MeltingPage’s post of the same name. I just really loved the idea, I thought it would be fun!

So there is a bit of a key to this task.

  • Bold titles means I have read the book.
  • Titles in italics denotes book/series I am currently reading.
  • Underlined titles denotes books I would like to read eventually but don’t own.
  • A single asterix (*) denotes books I own and plan to read.

So, let’s get into it. I will give a bit of info along the way.

  1. The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R Tolkien
    Got to be honest here. I read The Hobbit and absoutley loved it. I also read The Fellowship of the Ring and wasn’t as fussed about it, I struggled with the pacing a lot. Finally, I read The Two Towers but I couldn’t finish it. The pacing was so slow and even the action sequences couldn’t get me into the story.
  2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
  3. Ender’s Games – Orson Scott Card
  4. The Dune Chronicles – Frank Herbert
  5. A Song of Ice and Fire series – George R.R. Martin
  6. 1984 – George Orwell
  7. Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
  8. The Foundation Trilogy – Isaac Asimov
  9. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
  10. American Gods – Neil Gaiman*
  11. The Princess Bride – William Goldman
    I read this book due to the movie. I plan on re-reading this book next year as I unintentionally DNFed it. I didn’t consciously decide to DNF it but I was reading multiple books at that time and I left it for too long. So I want to re-read it and a bunch of other DNF’s.
  12. The Wheel of Time Series – Robert Jordan
    I am currently reading The Eye of the World and I am loving it. It is taking more time than I anticipated, due to my Netgalley reads, but I am still loving it. I am also listening to the Wheel Weaves podcast which is a great spoiler-free companion podcast.
  13. Animal Farm – George Orwell
    I read this for school and enjoyed it. Wasn’t my favourite story but still enjoyable.
  14. Neuromancer – William Gibson
  15. Watchmen – Alan Moore
  16. I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
  17. Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert A. Heinlein
  18. The Kingkiller Chronicles – Patrick Rothfuss
  19. Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
  20. Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
  21. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Phillip K. Dick
  22. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
  23. The Dark Tower series – Stephen King
  24. 2001: An Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
  25. The Stand – Stephen King
  26. Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
  27. The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
  28. Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut
  29. The Sandman Series – Neil Gaiman
  30. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
  31. Starship Troopers – Robert A. Heinlein
  32. Watership Down – Richard Adams
  33. Dragonflight – Anne McCaffery
  34. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
  35. A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller Jr.
  36. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
  37. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne
  38. Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
  39. The War of the Worlds – H.G Wells
  40. The Amber Chronicles – Roger Zelazny
  41. The Belgariad – David Eddings
  42. The Mists of Avalon – Marion Zimmer Bradley
  43. The Mistborn Trilogy – Brandon Sanderson
    So I put this title in italics and underlined. It’s in italics as I am currently reading the series. I read The Final Empire earlier this year and loved it. But it’s underlined as I don’t own the next two books.
  44. Ringworld – Larry Niven
  45. The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin
  46. The Silmarillion – J.K.K Tolkien
  47. The Once and Future King – T.H White
  48. Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman
  49. Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clarke
  50. Contact – Carl Sagan
  51. The Hyperion Cantos – Dan Simmons
  52. Stardust – Neil Gaiman
    Very similar situation to The Princess Bride, an unintentional DNF. I also read this book after watching the movie. I read this at the beginning of the year and I did not enjoy it.
  53. Cryptonomicon – Neal Stehenson
  54. World War Z – Max Brooks
  55. The Last Unicorn – Peter S. Beagle
  56. The Forever War – Joe Haldeman
  57. Small Gods – Terry Pratchett
    Very similar to the Mistborn series. I am currently reading the series only on book 5. But I don’t own any of the unread books.
  58. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever – Stephen R. Donaldson
  59. The Vorkosigan Saga – Lois McMaster Bujold
  60. Going Postal – Terry Pratchett
  61. The Mote in the God’s Eye – Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
  62. The Sword of Truth series – Terry Goodkind
  63. The Road – Cormac McCarthy
  64. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell – Susanna Clarke
  65. I Am Legend – Richard Matheson
  66. The Riftwar Saga – Raymond E. Feist
  67. The Sword of Shannara Trilogy – Terry Brooks
  68. The Conan the Barbarian series – Robert E. Howard and Mark Schultz
  69. The Farseer Trilogy – Robin Hobb
  70. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
  71. The Way of Kings – Brandon Sanderson
  72. Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
  73. The Legend of Drizzt series – R.A. Salvatore
  74. Old Man’s War – John Scalzi
  75. The Diamond Age – Neal Stephenson
  76. Rendevous with Rama – Arthur C. Clarke
  77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series – Jacqueline Grey
  78. The Dispossessed – Ursula K. LeGuin
  79. Something Wicked This Way Comes – Ray Bradbury
  80. Wicked – Gregory Maguire
    I DNFed this one. I wasn’t a fan of the writing style and the pacing was very slow.
  81. Malazan Book of the Fallen Series – Steven Erikson
  82. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
  83. The Culture series by Ian Banks
  84. The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
  85. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
  86. The Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher
  87. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
  88. The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn
  89. The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
  90. The Elric Saga by Michael Moorcock
  91. The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
  92. Sunshine by Robin McKinley
  93. A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
  94. The Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov
  95. The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
  96. Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
  97. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
  98. Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
  99. The Xanth Series by Piers Anthony
  100. The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis

Just a small post for the weekend 🙂

The Final Empire Review

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  • Author: Brandon Sanderson
  • Series: Mistborn #1
  • Genre: High Fantasy
  • No of pages: 647
  • Year Published: 2006
  • Dates read: 19.07.19 – 30.07.19
  • Rating: 5 stars (Favourite)

I cannot put into words how incredibly amazing this book is.

Going into this book I was worried that it may be over-hyped and that I might not enjoy it as much as everyone else did but that was NOT the case, AT ALL!!

Plot: In a world where ash falls from the sky, and mist dominates the night, an evil cloaks the land and stifles all life. The future of the empire rests on the shoulders of a troublemaker and his young apprentice. Together, can they fill the world with colour once more?

First of all, all the characters you meet are just written so incredibly well. I loved every single one of them both good and evil! They were also so varied all the character felt a bit grey and even if they were more on the good side, they had their doubts, worries and moments of anger. They felt like real people, not just classic stereotypes.

Vin, especially, was amazing. I really enjoyed her character arc within the story. Watching her grow was so fun and you couldn’t help but root for her and want to see her succeed. It was so good to see a strong female character kick ass in a more male-dominated world.

I loved the world-building. Sanderson just created such a rich world that is so layered, that I know all the detailed info we received about the world is just the tip of the iceberg to how intricate the Final Empire is. The Government and the Nobility were such interesting factors in the story. I loved learning about how the higher classes worked and how the Empire functioned alongside the Nobles. The political intrigue, which was a massive theme in this book, was so good. I loved all the secrets, backstabbing, false loyalties everything. This is something that I am slowly becoming more interested in and this book fuelled my passion to read more books with political intrigue in.

The magic system was so much fun. I loved learning all about Allomancy and what it can and can’t do. At first, I found it a bit difficult to grasp, I still don’t totally know how SteelPushing and IronPuling work in regards to moving around a city quickly, but it was so much fun to learn. I really liked how we learned about the metals over the course of a couple of hundred pages and how we learnt different facets of the system alongside different characters. It gives us more of an insight into the characters and allowed for better development and also it was a fun way to not shove all info down our throats at the very beginning.

The writing as a whole is really accessible. I found myself reading with ease and the first 100 pages were probably the most drawn into a story I have ever been. The combat was done really well, most of the time I find combat scenes hard to read and just skim over them but because Sanderson’s writing is accessible and easy to follow. I found the scenes so enjoyable after one particular scene my heart was beating so fast!

One of my biggest disappointments in this story is the lack of female characters. Thankfully, Vin is a brilliantly written character but we literally only had a choice of 4 female characters and one of them is dead and only mentioned in the past tense! While the characters were interesting, they were not as varied as the numerous male characters we meet along the way. I hope in the sequel we will see more varied female characters. Thankfully, the characters we were given were written well and shown as capable women in this tough world. I just wanted to see more.

Overall, I get the hype. It is well and truly deserved. I cannot wait to read the sequel and read more of Sanderson’s work as a whole!

The next book I will be reviewing will be another Agatha Christie novel, The Big Four. I felt that I should have a break from the fantasy genre as my TBR consists of mostly fantasy at the moment and it might just be too much to read one after the other so I decided to break it up with a small cosy murder mystery.