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My copy of this book is enhanced by an interesting preface, where Brian Sanderson talks about the particular challenges of writing this book. Apparently, he’d been writing various books for a while, finishing them, moving on to the next book. The Final Empire had a very definite hook to a sequel. But it was also the first book that he sold, and got published. Otherwise, apparently, he would have moved on to a new project. Now, he had to write a sequel, which was a new challenge for him, even though writing a novel was something he was already practiced at.

As far the finished novel is concerned. It does have some problems. Sanderson does do a very good job of finding new character arcs lying underneath the big lessons learned in the first book. But, it suffers from being slow moving (not necessarily a problem), and having a clunky relationship between two main-plot worthy elements that get very unequal treatment.

Our main plot, for almost the entire book, is a political crisis. It’s been a year since the Lord Ruler was killed, and the Final Empire has broken up into feuding warlords from the nobility. Our heroes have instituted a representative government in Luthadel, the former capitol, that could turn into a stable government… if not for the hostile army that has just arrived.

The city’s defenses aren’t that good, the available army is barely trained, there’s little in the way of food stores for a siege…. And the noble part of the assembly is largely willing to bow to the current warlord on the spot, and hand over the city. They’ll be relatively safe. The skaa (serf/slaves) that are just getting some taste of freedom on the other hand….

So, internal political maneuvers are a large part of the book, complicated by two other armies that show up shortly after the opening of the book. Add in the high-power magic of the mistborn and assassinations, doppelgangers, and more, and you have a good action/political thriller, and most of the book works well with this.

The end of The Final Empire promised that more would need to be said about just what happened a thousand years ago, and just what the Deepness was/is. And this forms the second main plot in this book, which lends itself to a more investigative style plot, perhaps lending itself to more Indiana Jones-style action. But it remains a vestigial side note for most of the novel.

This is a problem I’ve seen elsewhere, and I’m am surprised that I can’t think of a book trading off between two different main plots smoothly. In all cases (most definitely including this one), the trade off is abrupt and ill-timed. (Maybe the successful books just do it smoothly enough to not notice to the change of destination.) No matter how much I was enjoying the main plot of the book, I always had this thought in the back of my mind of, “What about the other major plot? What’s going on there?”, and waiting impatiently for it to get its fair turn in the sun.

Of course, the switchover does happen. And there are some interesting bridges going on between both tracks towards the end. But, they come up so late that there’s no chance for it to really affect the plot structure. Vin figures out important things to implode the first main plot, but no one else gets a chance to learn of this, to work out implications; so far Vin and the reader are left alone with esoteric knowledge.

On the action side, the book is largely satisfying, with appropriate action bits scattered throughout, and the early ones appropriately introducing new readers in what is going on. The end has two big action sequences, and we have a promise things that need doing for the next book. I hope they’re allowed to support it more fully there.