the well of ascension (book)

rating

starstarstarstarstar

date

15 december 2025

genre

fantasy

author

brandon sanderson

this is the second book in sanderson's mistborn series, therefore expect spoilers for the first book (which i've also reviewed here) in the following text.

the well of ascension starts us off in the aftermath of the first book's toppling of the not-so-omnipotent-after-all lord ruler. vin's crew put elend (vin's love interest and dreamy philosopher nobleman) on the throne of the former empire. the complications immediately start from there, with multiple factions vying for either the capital city luthadel or at least to raise their sphere of influence in the power vacuum. three of those factions get fleshed out, but the implication is that around the country pretty much every nobleman with some money to pay soldiers tries to get a piece of the cake and the situation is very chaotic. pretty much immediately, two different armies, one headed by elend's father, start besieging the city, leading to a general stalemate as nobody wants to risk losing their army by making the first move.

with this backdrop, much of the book's first half, if not two thirds, is more about the political intrigue of the situation, with a lot of attempted spying, subterfuge and maneuvering going on, while the action and violence only escalates from time to time, mostly when vin fends off other allomancers and mistborn sent into the city for assassinations or to sow chaos. the plot does move along more slowly for that period in comparison to the first book, but it never grinds to a halt. there's more focus on the main cast's inner lives and their character development, to varying success. it works well for elend, who has to face his own naïveté regarding the way he's trying to lead, with the political theory he's studied clashing with the reality of a dire situation of a siege leading to starvation and loss of morale. he makes quite a few well-meaning idealistic decisions that end up backfiring, but they turn him into a more mature person without losing the sense of idealism that govern his choices.

with vin, it's a bit more of a mixed bag. her main conflict comes from wrestling with the destructivity of her own power, which keeps increasing, turning her into somebody who can dispatch dozens of people pretty much at once. this leads to her feeling more like a tool or a weapon than a person and pushing elend away in the process. all of her insecurities about this are also fed by a new supporting character: zane, half-brother of elend and a mistborn in his father's service. and also, he's insane. the book makes sure if there's one thing you know about him, it's this. zane himself and multiple other characters make sure to use this exact wording so you don't forget. he doesn't get more interesting traits than this and is mostly just grating, but manages to manipulate vin anyway, leading to a wholly unnecessary love triangle.

in the final third, the political intrigues come to a head and the tense standoff turns into all hell breaking lose. at the same time, the bigger mystery of what's wrong with the world at large (and getting worse by the day, with mists enveloping the country not just at night, but more and more during the day and mysterious deaths in the mist starting to happen), of which we only get small doses of new information in the earlier sections of the book, also becomes very relevant again. the world-building regarding the general supernatural going-ons is once again excellent, with some earned twists when things are finally revealed. the final stretch builds very well to a great "oh shit" moment that, once it hits, feels blindingly obvious but nevertheless caught me unprepared.

it's a slow-burn with a good payoff setting up the last book of the initial trilogy of the series and i'm looking forward to seeing everything fall into place.