Mistborn
Mistborn is a series of epic fantasy novels by the American author Brandon Sanderson and published by Tor Books. The first trilogy, commonly referred to as "Era One", was published between 2006 and 2008 and consists of The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages. A second series, officially titled Wax and Wayne and informally known as "Era Two", was released between 2011 and 2022, and consists of the tetralogy The Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, The Bands of Mourning, and The Lost Metal. A novella was released in 2016, Mistborn: Secret History, relating to a hidden side of the events of Era One. Sanderson intends to write a third and fourth Mistborn series, with the third series' official title being Ghostbloods.
The first Mistborn trilogy chronicles the efforts of a secret group of Allomancers who attempt to overthrow a dystopian empire and establish themselves in a world covered by ash. The first trilogy was a commercial success. This success pushed Sanderson to further develop his fictional universe, the Cosmere, which also includes The Stormlight Archive. Set about 300 years after the ending of the first trilogy, the second series is about the exploits of a character forced to move into the big city, and starts investigating kidnappings and robberies. The third series will be set in the early computer age with 1980s/1990s technology. The fourth series is planned to be a space-opera.
Books in the series
Development history
Sanderson's first idea for Mistborn came while reading the Harry Potter series: He thought it would be interesting to set a story in a world where the "dark lord" triumphed and the "prophesied hero" failed. His second idea, originally unrelated, was to tell a heist story in a fantasy setting, an idea inspired by the Ocean's series. The idea for the titular mist came while he was driving through mist in Idaho, which he combined with his memories of having once seen Washington National Cathedral lit from the inside. He originally developed feruchemy and allomancy for separate stories before deciding to bring them together in one story.Sanderson began work on Mistborn: The Final Empire while trying to get his earlier novel Elantris published. After writing two early iterations of Mistborn, he shifted his focus to his Stormlight Archive series. However, Sanderson chose to delay its publication in favor of completing the Mistborn series, which he thought would serve as a better follow-up to Elantris.
Publication and future
The original trilogy published by Sanderson was the first in what he used to call a "trilogy of trilogies". Sanderson planned to publish multiple trilogies all set on the fictional planet Scadrial but in different eras: the second trilogy was to be set in an urban setting, featuring modern technology, and the third trilogy was to be a science fiction series, set in the far future. However, this structure changed with the release of The Alloy of Law, which began a new series set between the first trilogy and the planned second trilogy. After some confusion, Sanderson decided to refer to the overall series in terms of four eras, with Era One being the first trilogy, Era Two being the four books starting with The Alloy of Law, and Eras Three and Four being the other planned trilogies.Setting
The series primarily takes place in a region on the planet of Scadrial. The events of Era One primarily take place in Classical Scadrial, specifically within the Final Empire, while Era Two and beyond take place in Post-Catacendre Scadrial.Prehistory
The history of Scadrial started with Preservation and Ruin, two opposing gods. Preservation's nature made him want to preserve things in their current state indefinitely, whereas Ruin was destruction without malice, intent on reducing everything to a state comparable to the heat death of the universe. While each possessed considerable power alone, they could neither create nor destroy completely. As forces of opposite intent, they could nevertheless join forces to make something which could also be destroyed. As a result, they created Scadrial. To prove to Ruin that he could destroy Scadrial when the time came, Preservation created humans, modeled on humanity they had already encountered in the Cosmere, infusing a part of himself in their creation, weakening himself. The deal was that Ruin would be allowed to destroy the world one day, but Preservation was determined to prevent that from happening. Preservation used his own mind to create a prison, the Well of Ascension, and trapped Ruin's mind inside, preventing him from destroying Scadrial.Nevertheless, despite their mutual incapacitation, Ruin and Preservation remained aware, and possessed sufficient powers to influence events directly. Humans eventually discovered that the Metals of Scadrial could be ingested and burnt by some of them, granting them special powers such as enhanced strength, hearing, speed and various other abilities. Unknown to them, the Metals were fragments of Preservation and Ruin's bodies. As a result, even from his prison, Ruin could directly influence people pierced by Hemalurgic spikes created by stealing a portion of a soul using a metal spike. Aware that Ruin could influence them and that his prison had a flaw that could allow it to be opened every millennium, Preservation gave humanity the Terris Prophecies, a series of predictions of what would happen when the Well of Ascension would start calling out to the Metalborn of the world.
Classical Scadrial (Era One)
On Classical Scadrial, the sun and sky are red, vegetation is brown, and the ground is constantly being covered under black volcanic ash falls. Every night, the land becomes covered in an unnatural fog, known as the "mists". One thousand years before the story begins, the ruler of the Final Empire, the Lord Ruler, gained access to a divine power at the "Well of Ascension", where he is rumored to have defeated the unknown danger called the "Deepness". With this power, he remade the world and everything in it into its state at the beginning of the first three books. After this event, he established "The Final Empire", which he would rule over for the next thousand years.The Dominances
Within the Final Empire, a Dominance is a territory within the Lord Ruler's empire. The dominances are:- Central Dominance
- Northern Dominance
- Western Dominance
- Eastern Dominance
- Southern Dominance
- Crescent Dominance
- Farmost Dominance
- Southern Islands
- Remote Dominance
- Terris Dominance
- Luthadel is the capital of the Central Dominance and the entire Final Empire, serving as the heart of the Lord Ruler's power, as well as the site of his palace, Kredik Shaw. Before the Lord Ruler remade the world, Luthadel was in a mountainous region known as Terris. To hide the true location of Old Terris and the Well of Ascension, the Lord Ruler moved the mountains elsewhere and named that region "Terris" instead. Terris is the ancestral home of the Terris people. It is a mountainous region located north of the Northern Dominance.
- Urteau is a key crossroads city in the Northern Dominance. It was the traditional seat of House Venture, although the family is based mainly in Luthadel. It later came under the control of a Skaa-dominated government led by a man calling himself 'the Citizen'. Urteau is also famous for its canals, which mysteriously ran dry at some point in the past. It plays a key role in the third novel.
- Fadrex City is an important crossroads city in the Western Dominance. Although all cities outside of Luthadel are forbidden from having walls, Fadrex City has a natural rock formation that makes it very defensible. Yomen, an Obligator, claimed the city after the fall of the Lord Ruler for this very reason.
The Steel Ministry
The Steel Ministry is organized into four subsections, called "Cantons".
- Canton of Finance: Directs the financial operations of the Final Empire
- Canton of Resource: Manages trade, transport, and taxation within the Final Empire
- Canton of Inquisition: Manages law enforcement within the Final Empire; run by the Steel Inquisitors
- Canton of Orthodoxy: Organizes and presides over the Steel Ministry, especially its religious aspect
The Nobility and Skaa
During the reign of the Lord Ruler, the skaa were oppressed slaves treated brutally. While noblemen oversaw skaa workers, all skaa belong to the Lord Ruler and were loaned to the nobility for work. There were multiple skaa rebellions over the centuries, but none ever came close to succeeding. All skaa Allomancers have some noble blood.
Before the Ascension of the Lord Ruler, weapons technology had progressed to the invention of gunpowder. At the beginning of his reign, the Lord Ruler deliberately suppressed knowledge of gunpowder and most other advances. This was done to prevent technology undermining his military strength and being used against him in rebellions. This left archers as the only long-range military option, and it left skaa rebellions at a disadvantage as archers require considerable training. The only major advance since the Lord Ruler's reign started is the invention of canned food.