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A review by sarahdm
The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
4.0
I'm here to eat my own words: The Final Empire is good actually.
TL;DR: While there are still bits of this book that left a bad taste in my mouth, over all its a great read. Interesting magic system, lovable characters, a great "lets over throw the government" narrative, well written fight scenes, and (to my surprise) some stellar court intrigue.
The terrible male fantasy writer features are all here: sexism, racism, and more!
The female lead violently swings between being boiling down to Generic Girl gender role and "I'm not like other girls." Very much dude trying to write from a female point of view even though he clearly don't understand woman outside of tropes and stereotypes. Also there is only ONE named female character (the other one is dead before the story even starts). All other woman are either mothers, servants, cooks, or prostitutes. Its a very "more named horses than woman" kind of situation.
There is also the Skaa and Terrisman who are inferior humanoids who are literally bred to be subservient and weak. The Terrisman get an extra 'magic minority' trope on top of it. If that doesn't smack of racism and eugentics then I don't know what does. And yeah I get that the book is pushing the "they are just like us" narrative but its still feels really weird.
I'm also not totally happy with the "not all of our oppressors are evil, some of them are good" message coming through. I like Elend, I think he is one of my favorite characters, but it just rubs me the wrong way. I think I have been spoiled by other dystopia uprising narratives that just do not fall for this (Hell Followed With Us and Iron Widow).
Now looking at this list, this is pretty bad. Definitely these are all reasons I would DNF this book. I don't think Sanderson did this on purpose, its just you know the Mormon culture and upbringing just kind of accidently slipped out onto the page on this one I think. Somehow Sanderson beats the odds and the good out weights the bad. Which is pretty amazing because this is a REALLY bad list of shitty things going on in the book.
For starters, the magic system is the coolest shit I have read. And listen I am not a fangirl of Sanderson so I'm not just blowing smoke. It is actually really interesting and unique. Even before I really started liking this booking (about 40% of the way through) I kept reading because I just wanted to understand Allomancy. And Sanderson doesn't just info dump all of the information at once. We get it little by little, which really egged me on to read more.
As well, The characters are all really fleshed out and loveable. I really fell in love with each member of the crew a little bit at a time. It really makes me excited to learn even more about them. And while some of them play pretty heavy into some tropes, most of the time I didn't mind it.
Also, the book is actually really well written. Fight scenes are actioned packed while also being really easy to understand. I do think Sanderson might need to use a thesaurus every once in awhile but honestly, no complaints.
The last thing I want to say is a little selfish but I actually really liked the court intrigue happening in the book. I love court intrigue. It felt like the book had this balance of both good and bad and I just couldn't make up my mind if I wanted to keep reading. But around the 40% mark of the book, we are introduced to the court intrigue. It felt like a piece of bait thrown out just for me I'll be honest. It kept me hooked and I ended up not DNF-ing.
So , should you read The Final Empire? If you are interested in different types of magic outside of generic DND style magic then I would say yes. Just go into it with low expectations. Just know that it suffers from bad fantasy features and just enjoy the good it has to offer. If the interesting magic system isn't enough to draw you in then I would say you can skip this one.
TL;DR: While there are still bits of this book that left a bad taste in my mouth, over all its a great read. Interesting magic system, lovable characters, a great "lets over throw the government" narrative, well written fight scenes, and (to my surprise) some stellar court intrigue.
The terrible male fantasy writer features are all here: sexism, racism, and more!
The female lead violently swings between being boiling down to Generic Girl gender role and "I'm not like other girls." Very much dude trying to write from a female point of view even though he clearly don't understand woman outside of tropes and stereotypes. Also there is only ONE named female character (the other one is dead before the story even starts). All other woman are either mothers, servants, cooks, or prostitutes. Its a very "more named horses than woman" kind of situation.
There is also the Skaa and Terrisman who are inferior humanoids who are literally bred to be subservient and weak. The Terrisman get an extra 'magic minority' trope on top of it. If that doesn't smack of racism and eugentics then I don't know what does. And yeah I get that the book is pushing the "they are just like us" narrative but its still feels really weird.
I'm also not totally happy with the "not all of our oppressors are evil, some of them are good" message coming through. I like Elend, I think he is one of my favorite characters, but it just rubs me the wrong way. I think I have been spoiled by other dystopia uprising narratives that just do not fall for this (Hell Followed With Us and Iron Widow).
Now looking at this list, this is pretty bad. Definitely these are all reasons I would DNF this book. I don't think Sanderson did this on purpose, its just you know the Mormon culture and upbringing just kind of accidently slipped out onto the page on this one I think. Somehow Sanderson beats the odds and the good out weights the bad. Which is pretty amazing because this is a REALLY bad list of shitty things going on in the book.
For starters, the magic system is the coolest shit I have read. And listen I am not a fangirl of Sanderson so I'm not just blowing smoke. It is actually really interesting and unique. Even before I really started liking this booking (about 40% of the way through) I kept reading because I just wanted to understand Allomancy. And Sanderson doesn't just info dump all of the information at once. We get it little by little, which really egged me on to read more.
As well, The characters are all really fleshed out and loveable. I really fell in love with each member of the crew a little bit at a time. It really makes me excited to learn even more about them. And while some of them play pretty heavy into some tropes, most of the time I didn't mind it.
Also, the book is actually really well written. Fight scenes are actioned packed while also being really easy to understand. I do think Sanderson might need to use a thesaurus every once in awhile but honestly, no complaints.
The last thing I want to say is a little selfish but I actually really liked the court intrigue happening in the book. I love court intrigue. It felt like the book had this balance of both good and bad and I just couldn't make up my mind if I wanted to keep reading. But around the 40% mark of the book, we are introduced to the court intrigue. It felt like a piece of bait thrown out just for me I'll be honest. It kept me hooked and I ended up not DNF-ing.
So , should you read The Final Empire? If you are interested in different types of magic outside of generic DND style magic then I would say yes. Just go into it with low expectations. Just know that it suffers from bad fantasy features and just enjoy the good it has to offer. If the interesting magic system isn't enough to draw you in then I would say you can skip this one.