Review: The Bands of Mourning

The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I only realized when I looked at the Mistborn series as a whole that every book of it that I have read so far has easily earned five stars from me.

So, what do I love? Firstly, of course, it's fantasy superhero heists, and those are three things I enjoy that also go well together. But I don't enjoy them if they're not well executed, and these books consistently are.

They're written (and copy edited) to a high professional standard, but it's more than that. I sometimes complain that books are "made from box mix," that they just clump through the expected motions like a primary school dance class. In Mistborn, every time I think I'm about to get a well-worn trope, I get something that subverts, or averts, or plays with, or reverses that trope in a fresh and interesting way. Sanderson knows genre fiction; he spends a lot of time thinking about it, he lectures on writing it at BYU, he's part of a long-running podcast that breaks down how to write it, and the result is that he notices when he's heading for a trope and can catch himself and do something original instead. Or play into it, if it's exactly what he wants; but he rarely does.

Then there are the characters. They're delightfully out of the ordinary, and not only because they have magical powers; Wayne, especially, sees the world through his own unique lens, but just as the plot doesn't fall unthinkingly into tropes, so none of the main characters fall unconsciously into conventional behaviour. Wax is driven, troubled, but ultimately incorruptible, and half the trouble he causes is because he doesn't care what most people think of him; Marasi is exceptional not least in finally acknowledging that her highest role is not to be the hero, but one of the highly competent sidekicks; and Steris, with her obsessive planning coupled with an ability to improvise if plans fail, makes neurodivergence look good. The immortal kandra, MeLaan, rather than being aloof and enigmatic, is right there in the action and pragmatic to a fault. She and Wayne almost form one of those Shakespearean low comedy duos.

In fact, all these oddball characters generate hilarious banter, seemingly effortlessly, just by being thrown together in an unusual and challenging set of circumstances. They pull together, they sacrifice, they learn more about themselves and change (with each other's help), and they show grit and perseverance in the service of what they know to be right. That's everything I look for from an ensemble cast.

There's a lot of worldbuilding in a Sanderson novel. His magic systems are complicated; this one has thirty-two (or maybe forty-eight, or more) separate powers. But the exposition somehow doesn't choke the action. Even when I noticed at one point that exposition was happening, and had been happening for several paragraphs, and maybe was just a touch of self-indulgence by the author who'd worked hard on figuring out the political economy of this world and wanted to put it in the book, it still felt like it spoke to stakes, that it could turn into an engine of conflict in due course (and it did). How he manages to present such a complex world in a way that the reader can understand while still enjoying a fast-paced plot is a source of wonder to me.

I know the author works incredibly hard on these books, even though he also writes them fast (considering how large and complex they tend to be). And the hard work shows. It shows in the all-round excellence of every aspect of the writing, and in the overall enjoyment I get from them as a result. I have no hesitation placing this in the Platinum tier of my Year's Best list.

View all my reviews