As Brandon Sanderson’s name once again becomes one of the biggest in books as the launch of his fifth and final book (of this part anyway) in his Stormlight Archive comes out later this year, I knew I wanted to dive back into his writing and so after telling everyone to read the Mistborn trilogy realising I’d never actually finished it, I picked up The Well of Ascension.
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The Well of Ascension is the second book in the series after The Final Empire. I remember thoroughly enjoying The Final Empire and so I was confident I’d enjoy The Well of Ascension too.
Just a note: there won’t be spoilers of The Well of Ascension in this review but there will be references that, if you’ve not read it yet, would spoil The Final Empire for you. You can read my review of The Final Empire here.
In The Well of Ascension, Vin and Elend struggle to maintain control of Luthadel amidst political turmoil, siege, and mysterious forces, while grappling with prophecies and the search for a legendary source of power that could change their world. Cool huh?
The Well of Ascension plot – 4.25/5
There are two big points I want to bring up in this section of the review; the first is the actual story of The Well of Ascension.
Following on from a book where your take down the big baddy and it changes the outlook of the entire landscape, is a big task to take on but Brandon Sanderson handles it well. He decides to focus on Elend being made rightful king and how he’s going to deal with this new political power – battling between being a decent human being yet a force that the people of his land respect and can rely on.
Alongside this, there’s the story of the “The Well of Ascension” which is a great, ancient power that’s discussed throughout the book, which adds the more Sanderson-esque feeling of a higher power or a greater purpose than what the main story is about, which I absolutely loved!
The second thing I want to highlight is just how great Sanderson’s writing is. He must be a real joy for his editors to read because everything he writes is so open and approachable and yet well written.
As well as this, he still manages small elements of humour and personality into the characters which, in a fantasy book, is often missed.
The Well of Ascension characters – 4.5/5
Leading on from this, the characters that Sanderson writes are still as strong as ever. These aren’t possibly my favourite characters of his in his books, but I’m still a massive fan of Vin and Elend as a pairing and many of the other side characters who join them along the way.
Elend is a strong lead and we see this in may fantasy books but often this results in them just saying “no” and being “grumpy” with a lot of the rest of the cast of characters. But this isn’t the case in Sanderson’s books – he shows that you can still have strong women in a setting filled with men without them having to be strong because they’re denying and denying men all the time – something I have SO much time for!
This book explores Vin and Elend’s growing relationship and I did fear this was going to turn into a bit of a “romantasy”. But unlike that genre, there were no cheesy lines, no deep, cringey expressions of desire, just some simple questions of how they felt about one another and what the ramifications of them being together would do for the rest of the empire.
Not a strong romantic element, but one that added another layer to the characters and the story too.
The Well of Ascension final rating – 4.5/5
After not reading Brandon Sanderson for a couple of years, it was such a joy to pick up The Well of Ascension and get back into his incredible writing, genius plot designs and enjoyable characters again. The Well of Ascension is an incredibly fun time and one that sets up the third and final book in the trilogy absolutely wonderfully. If I had to give any criticism, it might be that The Well of Ascension could, by the end, have you feeling a little bit like it was a filler book for the third and final; but that may just be because it gave such a great ending it made me want to read the third.
Pick up a copy of The Well of Ascension from Amazon
