Hero of Ages release party tomorrow!

Tomorrow at 5:30 pm is the Mistborn release party at the BYU Bookstore!  I am so excited!

Brandon Sanderson is a great fantasy writer, an awesome teacher of creative writing at BYU, and a really friendly, approachable, good person.  I had loads of fun in the English 318 class he teaches (definitely my favorite class of the semester) and he was kind enough to take the time and come speak to the Quark writing group on how to become a published author.

I also read Mistborn: The Final Empire and The Well of Ascension last year, and was greatly impressed with both of them.  In particular, I think that Mistborn is one of the best fantasy books that I’ve read.  Vin’s transformation and personal growth throughout the book completely fascinated me, and it rang as true as anything else I’ve read.  Also, I enjoyed the fact that the good guys did not always win; in fact they failed a lot more than I expected them to, and the ways they had to adjust their plans with each failure kept me engaged and interested in the story with every page.  There were enough genuine twists that I was only able to predict the ending and climaxes about half of the time.  Eventually I stopped trying and just enjoyed the book–and I definitely enjoyed it!

When I picked up The Well of Ascension and started reading it, I remarked to Brandon that I didn’t realize how much I had missed his characters until I picked up the sequel.  I wonder if that’s how I’ll feel once I start reading Hero of Ages?  I definitely will.  The thing I most want to see is how Vin and Eland end up, what kind of peace is brought to the empire and how it comes about, what happens to Sazed (he was my favorite minor character)–but mostly I just want to see how Vin grows into a person with a full, healthy life.  The magic system and dark lord and setting and other characters are all really well done, but the thing that I’m most invested in as a reader is Vin and her character arc.

So I got a sub for work tomorrow, which means that I’ll be in line at about 4:00 pm.  The signing starts at 5:30, so I’ll probably be one of the first people in line.  It really helps an author when you buy their book in the first week after it’s released, because those are the numbers that publishers and critics put the most stock on, so I figured I’d help Brandon out and come to the release party.  There’s even a fairly good chance I’ll get one of the first fifty numbered editions–those are supposed to be super valuable or something.

But really, the thing I care the most about is finishing the series.  The release party and everything else is going to be fun, but reading a good book–a genuinely good book–that’s the best thing of all!