This is a review for the Mistborn series from Brandon Sanderson, covering both Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages.

I'm the kind of person who gets annoyed quickly by even small inconsistencies in plot, world setup, and character behavior. Yet I found this book thoroughly enjoyable. There is a fantastic big story ark spanning over all three books, yet every single book also stands well on his own. The way magic works in the Mistborn triology is clearly the best approach I have seen so far. There are only two points of criticism I can make. Firstly, in middle part of the third book everything consistently look so desperate and depressing that at times it actually becomes a bit of a chore to keep reading - however, the fantastic ending makes it well worth it. Secondly, there is one small inconsistency in the story that I noticed. It's a bit difficult to describe it spoiler free, but I'll try: at the very end of the triology, a character taps some power that was previously unavailable to him/her. However, there seem to have been a few occasions much earlier where some other character could (as far as I can tell) easily have facilitated this - thereby avoiding a lot of suffering and death. Why didn't that other guy do that? It seemed to be in his/her best interest as well as within his/her capabilities.

Verdict: read it. now.