I'm continually impressed with Brandon Sanderson, and I appreciate the subtle (at least to me) morality in his books. As most people who read his books will know, Sanderson comes from a Mormon background, and I think this only enhances his ability and perspective as a writer.

I read his first widely published novel Elantris a few years back. The pace, magic, character development, etc., was all good, esp. for a first novel. I eventually picked up Mistborn a few months after its release and this More...

Oh my gosh, this book should have been called "The Well of Absolute Tension". Tense is the perfect word to describe this book. Luthadel is surrounded on all sides by enemies, they have a weak but idealistic king, no food, a small army and winter is coming. There are spies everywhere it seems, and murders keep occurring with no explanation... *gnaws fingers* Tense, I say!

I loved the political and espionagical (I know that's not a real word... I just made it up.) feel of this book. I loved learni More...

Despite the 800 pages I finished this book in 3 reading days. That's typically already an indication of me liking a book. When reading trilogies, i often have concerns about the second book - somehow they often end up having no plot of themselves and only serving as a big chessboard to bring everything in the right place for the endgame. But i don't think this one suffered from that. It has a solid plotline of its own, while at the same time putting all the pieces in place for book 3.

It does st More...

I'd like to say that this book was a vast improvement over the first book. Not because it's just better in some regards in its flow of information and political maneuvering (Sanderson's favorite topic in his books aside from the magic and over the top action), but in how it fits in with the first novel.

These books were made to be in a series, even if some people do believe that a book in a series should be able to to stand by itself. Series, like books, come in different styles. Some have them s More...

Warning: Minor spoilers for Mistborn, but nothing you couldn’t figure out on your own if you had more than two brain cells to rub together.

The Well Of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson is the second book in the Mistborn trilogy. You can catch up on what happened in the first book, Mistborn by clicking here. After the fall of the Final Empire, Elend must figure out how to build his new government. He begins to experience the difference between theory and realism. Vin struggles between love, trust, a More...

I really wanted to like this book. I liked the first one a lot. But it turns out that putting together a government is far less interesting and exciting than overthrowing one. It's possible the pace picked up later, but after reading well over 100 pages it just wasn't working for me. I think there's actually a point to be made that overthrowing a government is easy and exciting, creating one from the ground up is much more difficult and not nearly as exciting. Still, I genuinely like politics an More...

This is a very good book, although a little slow to start picking a good pace. However, as with the first one, I couldn't put it down once I started it. Will get the next one un about two weeks.

The plot and the characters are as likable as ever, and the books is realistic when it deals with the very difficult issue of trying to lead people you are in charge of (for instance when you are the boss). You can not be too friendly and informal because they will not respect you, but that doesn't mean More...

Before I say anything, let me make clear: THIS. WAS. AWESOME.

... I don't know how to rate it ...

4.4? How's that?

See, there were parts in this one that I liked better than the last one, but... that ending in the last one killed me, which makes it a much stronger book. Yeah... 0.1 isn't much, but honestly, what else am I supposed to do? 4 just feels too low, 4.5 won't be fair to the first book -- OH! Wait, I think I got it! I'll bump the last one to 4.7, and leave this at 4.5. Yes, I think I wil More...

Warning: this review is long, and may contain spoilers of Mistborn. If you don’t read it, let me tell you the gist of my rambling praise. Read this book. Now. Or forever regret your decision. And now, for my stark love of this awesomely stupendous book.

This book is utterly brilliant. Brilliant says I! I bow down before Sanderson for his startling ingenious mind. I cower before him. I envy him, I admire him. He is my ultimate role model in how to write a novel that will stand out for its uniquene More...

I feel here as if I ought to apologize to my friends who love these books. The first was okay but I found the pacing a bit slow and had a "my interest comes and goes" experience. Sadly if I compare the pacing of the first volume of the series to the pacing in this one (the second volume) the story in volume 1 moved like the wind.

I know that some are very involved here and love these, and I can see why. The characters have depth and you get an "in depth" view of their lives. Not only their lives More...

I have stopped reading the sequel to The Final Empire after 131 pages although I liked it. And if there were not so many other books waiting to be read, to be ordered, added, re-read, discovered ... I would have read "The Well of Ascension" until its very last page and would have been quite contented with the time spent with Vin, Elend and the rest of their crew. Probably I even would have rated the reading experience four stars. A strange mixture of feelings made me let it simmer, ask for a fri More...

I read Well of Ascension immediately on the heels of Mistborn The Final Empire, which was a relief and a race. I wanted to finish the second book since the third book was "in the mail" to me, signed by the author.

While not as riveting as the first book of the series, I enjoyed the continued struggles of Vin and Elend, as they pick up the pieces after shattering the Lord Ruler's Empire. Most of the characters from the first book are present, except for Kelsier, of course, who sacrificed himself More...

"The Well of Ascension", the sequel to "Mistborn" is good, but not as good as its predecessor. Sanderson does display the same skill with pacing and character as he does in "Mistborn", but I didn't find myself caring as much about what was happening as I did with the first book. I do give it four stars because I did enjoy it and it was a fun, exciting read. It just suffers in comparison to the first book. I just can't pinpoint why.

This is That Book.

You know the one.

The one you've daydreamed about.

The one you hope, deep in your little reader heart, you'll finally find.

The one with the plot that is both wide-ranging and intensely personal; with the characters who are all nuanced and flawed; with the complicated political intrigues to keep you guessing; with the shocking twists that are, true to form, both surprising and inevitable.

You've slogged through the morass of uninspiring Twilight clones. You've suffered through dyst More...

Spectacular followup to the first book of the Mistborn series, "The Final Empire". Now that Vin and the crew have liberated Luthadel and its people from the tyrannical reign of the Lord Ruler, they begin to learn the hard way what it takes to be true leaders. Elend claims the throne and seeks to create a palimentary-monarchy government based on his vast studies, but complications inevitably arise. In less than two years, word has spread among the Central Dominance that the Lord Ruler has fallen, More...

Let me first say that The Well of Ascension is an excellent book. It continues the story of Vin and the Kelsier crew in their struggle to save the world from certain doom. With out giving away spoilers, I can't really say much more than that. I will however say how I felt about the book in general. The Well of Ascension is a lot slower paced than the first it the series. It honestly takes about 3/4 of the book to really feel like something significant in the overall story has progressed. A main More...

I find it hard to give an overall review / impression of "The Well of Ascension". The first half of the book is a totally different read than the second part. Maybe I should just review each of them separately.


The First Half (3.25 stars)

When comparing this book to the previous one in the series I notice a similar theme going on.

Where the first book focuses on an oppressed, abused people trying to overthrow the tyrants that rule them, using some elaborate "ocean's eleven"-scheme - and the same li More...

I just finished it and am writing while the impact of its ending echoes in my head, like credits rolling at the end of a great film.

It has been said that the middle book of a trilogy is the dark one... where the plot thickens and things are left "up in the air", awaiting the final resolution at the end.

This book lives up to that promise... as one gets swept up in the ongoing saga of the Mistborn. More is revealed about various characters and creatures introduced in the first book, Mistborn: The More...

What an awesome series. This book is a lot different from the first, but carries the same extraordinary feel and sense of adventure the first left you with. This one has everything! Action, adventure, mystery, love, loss, twists, and great characters. The first book was a bit lacking in character development for the friends and partners of the protagonists, but this one does it a whole lot better. The first book also started of a lot slower than Well Of Ascension, so put that in the list of impr More...

I enjoyed this! The character development I had felt was a little lukewarm in the first book was more...developed. :) Lots of action and buildup to several reveals at the end, leaving me very interested in picking up the third book asap. I've gleaned that quite a few readers on here were disappointed in the protagonist and her male counterpart, but I found it a relief to read about imperfect characters, and enjoyed traveling with them as they attempted to figure themselves and their relationship More...

*Sigh* You know that feeling you get when you finish an amazing book & start wondering how in the world you can write a review to do do it justice? I have a severe case of that going on. The Well of Ascension is the follow up to Mistborn (for my review click here) honestly I have to say: this is what a second book in a trilogy should always strive to be: richer & more complex than it's predecessor. Everything I loved about Mistborn came back to me - from the flawless character developmen More...

3 1/2 stars. I liked it, but not as much as the first. It seemed to drag at the end and Vin just drove me crazy with her stupidity through much of it. Also there was a lack of romance between Vin and Elend. I mean, not that there weren't kissing scenes, there were. There was just no feeling in it. I usually don't care for the way men write romantic scenes. A lot of them tend to completely miss the mark with the emotions of it.

I do continue to enjoy the magic system in this series. Although I ha More...

I am having a very hard time beginning this book, largely because I hate Vin as a character and I could not care less about Elend, yet those two are apparently the focus of this entry in the series. Felicia Day's review of this book leads me to believe that things do not improve. *sigh*

UPDATE: Sazed has his own chapters! This is a very good thing as he was my favorite character in the first novel, and the only one to whom I could fully relate (three guesses as to why). I hope it doesn't turn out More...

What an astounding sequel to a brilliant original book. Probably one of the stronger sequels I've ever read. And in many ways I enjoyed this almost more than the original.

It focused more on the character of Eland Venture, opened up on more of the insecurities of Vin, introduced the new character of Zane and also provided insight into creatures such as the kandra and koloss.

I loved how Sanderson not only addresses such fascinating world-building ideas but cobbled them together with the political More...

To sum up my feelings about this book: It was really good, . . . but I am disappointed.

I admit that it may be unfair of me to be disappointed. Brandon Sanderson has simply set the bar too high in the previous books of his that I have read. I now think of Sanderson as an author who writes phenomenal, mind-blowing endings, and in my opinion, The Well of Ascension simply did not fit that mold. (view spoiler)[I love the idea of an entity who changed the Terris prophesies in order to free himself. That part was bri (hide spoiler)] More...

This book really frustrated me. The wonderful momentum present in the first book ground to a halt. Rebuilding a government is obviously less exciting than tearing it down, but that wasn't the main issue for me.

Sanderson spent so much time rehashing the first book, that I never felt like we were in the present story. There was way too much reflecting, and not enough acting; especially since most of the reflection felt expository. It's a trilogy-- we know there was another book. You only need a f More...

Reading through the reviews, I see that most people really liked this second installment of the Mistborn series. I must admit that after the first read-through, I was more than a little bummed. If I had written my review then, I would probably have rated it lower.

Luckily I didn't. About two months later, I reread it, and discovered that it is an interesting, fast-paced book transitioning from the end of Mistborn:Final Empire to the absolutely necessary third installment. The character developmen More...

I think Mistborn (the first book in this trilogy) is a better book, but Sanderson's "good" still surpasses just about any other author's best. For one, Sanderson managed to avoid the drop in energy that usually afflicts the middle book(s) of a fantasy epic. The book has its share of plot twists and surprises, and we also find out more about the history of the Final Empire. However, it is the development of the characters that give Sanderson the opportunity to show off his writing talent.

We conti More...

So now the battle really begins. One would think that after the amazingly awesome ending of The Final Empire, there just wasn't any where for this book to go. I mean after you pull of that ending, where's the rest of your story?

Well Brandon Sanderson found it. Everyone you'll read a review from will talk about how "Now that the characters have saved the empire they must learn how to rule it!" And I'll be perfectly fucking honest, cause I know you're thinking the same thing, that sounds like the More...

This review contains spoilers.

This book should really be sub-titled 'The Final Empire Strikes Back".

I liked this book as much as Volume one. From the first line to the last I think this book is a triumph for Sanderson and a must read.

The story picks up one year after the events of 'Mistborn Volume one, the Final Empire'. Kelsier is dead, the empire is splintering, and the chaos is threatening to overwhelm Luthadel. The parallels to The Empire Strikes Back are all over the place. Empire was ab More...