Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

If only I had read this when it came out.

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

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I have probably tried reading this book three times over the years, and I was never able to make it far. For my first attempt, I tried the audiobook but didn’t like the narrator. The second time, I forgot that I tried reading it before, and still didn’t like the narrator. The third time, I tried reading the actual book – but had to slog through the part I had previously read, because it had been long enough that I didn’t remember the story well […]

“I’m tired of people dying because of arguments between their leaders.”

The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, Book 2) by Brandon Sanderson

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A few months ago I reviewed the first book in the Mistborn trilogy. I mentioned in that review how good the fights were, and how much I enjoyed Sanderson’s world building. He sketches out a complex continent full of history, classes, and intrigue and puts his RPG party of thieves, smooth talkers, and warriors to work. It’s fun! In The Well of Ascension, Sanderson benefits from all of that book one groundwork while also enriching the world’s lore and political machinations. As a political scientist, I […]

Happiness is a warm gun

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The last time I reviewed a Brandon Sanderson book, I complained of Sanderson fatigue, the review got featured, and several more people complained about it with me. So it is a bit sheepishly that I confess I not only went back to him but that I read the entire second Mistborn series minus the one book that hasn’t been published yet. And I enjoyed them immensely. In fact, for someone like me who still had fond memories of earlier Cosmere experiences, The Alloy of Law, […]

Hero of Ages? Enrique Iglesias is SHOOK

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Including: Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages A back-to-back read through of the three novels in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy (as a part of a bigger series and world created by the author). This trilogy presents a world with many of the seeming aspects of what would be considered “high fantasy”, but without as much of the convolution and excessiveness what sometimes comes with those types of epics. That is not to say that there aren’t many characters (there are, but […]

“Color our world blackened”

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My honest rating would be more like 3.5 but since I liked the book enough to read the next one in the series, I bumped it up to 4. Brandon Sanderson does a lot of things really well. He spins a hell of an epic yarn and he writes great fight and battle scenes. However I often find his characters fall a little flat for me, which I’ll address later in the review. Overall, the first book in the Mistborn series was engaging and fun […]

Probably Don’t Start with book 5 in this series

Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson

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Who am I kidding? If you read the first four Mistborn novels, you’re likely going to read this one. If you didn’t, well, I don’t know what to tell you.   It’s not that Brandon Sanderson novels are without teeth, but he’s almost goofily squeamish about sex and sexuality. They tend to have some interesting ideas about religion and faith, have good action, a reliably interesting and intricate magic/abilities systems, and he’s good at embedding genre fiction into his genre fiction. His political writing is […]



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