Vin and Elend search for clues to defeating the mists and the evil spirit she unwittingly released, while learning how much they didn’t know about their world.

The Lord Ruler wasn't the only one to do his planning. The author did a great job in wrapping things up so they made sense, leaving no detail unanswered, unless it was intentionally, and where so, it's stated. However, I’m not sure what the point was for the first three quarters of the book. The characters fought, plotted and speculated, but nothing came of it. I learned more about the world in the introductions to each chapter than I did the chapters themselves. Not that the scenes weren’t interesting, though that often happened, but they were leading nowhere. They barely factored into the ending, offering very few clues that the characters could use in the final struggle. My favorite chapters, but not all of them, dealt with Vin as she observed the world and interacts with it. I liked the way she waxed nostalgic attending the ball, and felt guilty about enjoying herself when the world was ending. I really liked the end of the book, where the revelations kept piling up –it raised quality of the entire book. So many things from the first two books now make more sense, as intended. I just wish the characters had discovered them on their own, rather than being told by outside forces. 

I suspect that this series requires a reread, to catch all of the important details that the author planted early throughout. However, I’m not sure it would be more than identifying where those ideas were planted. Would they help in deciphering the story, which is finally revealed in the last two chapters of this book? I doubt it, as the author revisits those moments here, anyway.

I felt like this book could have easily just been replaced by the introductions to each chapter. Where the italicized intros in The Final Empire and The Well of Ascension told us about how the Lord Ruler came to be, this one speculates on events that are currently happening, sometimes in the very chapter it’s introducing. At first, I thought it came from Vin’s point of view, but it later became obvious that Sazed was writing it. As Terris Keeper, he had the most perspective on Ruin and Preservation. I learned more about the underlying struggle from his accounts, rather than the meandering story itself.

Having said that, and armed with the information given by those introductions, the last two chapters were brilliant. The author takes all of the plot points introduced in the first two books, the creatures he introduced in the last book, and ties it up into a world building exercise, which I loved.

The story is a war of gods, Preservation and Ruin, who were opposite forces but who came to an agreement to create a world with living creatures made from both of them. Ruin only agreed with the understanding that he could destroy the world one day. Strangely, it was the “good” god who broke the contract, not wanting to see their creations destroyed. Preservation, unable to kill, imprisoned Ruin, but in doing so, weakened himself beyond the ability to take an active stance when Ruin finally escaped.

It was Ruin’s impending escape that prompted the quest for the Hero of Ages, eventually culminating in the Lord Ruler’s ascension. He tried to defeat Ruin (who was still imprisoned) by moving the planet’s orbit, but didn’t have the control so he moved it too close. He compensated by filling the sky with ash to block out some of the sun’s heat and light. He had to alter human physiology to breathe the ash, as well as other life on the planet. Eventually, he found an unhealthy balance.

He didn’t want to kill his friends, but couldn’t have them interfering, so he turned them into kandra, born from mistwraiths, with just enough power in Ruin’s domain, but brainwashed into doing his will. He created the koloss to conquer his realms, and the inquisitors to enforce his laws. He created vast storage caverns with huge amounts of supplies and water, knowledge of new metals, knowing that he might die one day, and that people would need to hide. In his most important act, he hid Ruin’s body, which would give the god full strength. It was atium, which he smuggled into the city beneath Ruin’s senses and used as a transactional medium for the nobility.

As for Preservation, he became the mists, waiting for the Hero of Ages to appear and complete his plan.

In the first book, we were introduced to Allomancy, which was amazingly conceived and we got to feel the awe of its use with Vin as she learned it from Kelsier. The second book gave us Feruchemy, where Sazed could store knowledge, strength and other allomantic abilities in his metalminds for use later (we got a glimpse of this in The Final Empire). Another amazing concept. Now, we learn how the Inquisitors survived those spikes in Hemalurgy, where they can steal the power from allomancers, store them in spikes and transfer them to other people, including themselves. Inquisitors such as Marsh can have more than a dozen spikes, giving them all sorts of powers. But the spikes are of Ruin, a destructive element, while other allomantic powers are of Preservation.

The history is magnetic, the power system is amazingly well thought out and detailed. It all makes sense. Unfortunately, most of the book itself was a blur of almost meaningless searching. There are five main points of view: Elend, Vin, Sazed, Spook and TenSoon. A few others are sprinkled throughout, but only to offer an external perspective.

Unfortunately, Elend’s story was the most boring. I don’t find him an interesting character, dating all the way back to the first book in the series. Little by little, mostly from the introductions, it becomes clear what happened at the end of the last book as Preservation urged Vin to take the power at the Well of Ascension and use it to heal Elend, making him an allomancer with Preservation's concentrated power. The mists are becoming more dominant, and it’s obvious that the end of the world is approaching. The scholar in Elend shows him that the Central Dominance will hold out the longest, as the mists are encroaching from the edges of the world toward the center. So he’s forced to take on the role of conqueror, and invades village after village, using his new allomantic powers to take possession of koloss bands, eventually laying siege to the city of Fadrex. Still believing in democracy of a sorts, he tries negotiation first, but finds himself up against an obligator who is just as entrenched in his ways. Yomen is a strange misting who can burn only atium, nothing else. Elend also learns that the mists kill exactly one sixteenth of the people they touch, implying there are sixteen allomantic metals, most of them still unknown.

TenSoon had an interesting part to play, serving time in a kandra jail without his bones, and telling the council that the world was ending and the reckoning was near. The second generation, who are in charge, don’t want to hear about it, and imprison him again, but he finds his way back into the wolfhound’s bones from the last book, and goes to Luthadel, which is in ruins. He takes Kelsier’s bones and tells people to get out of the city to the new Terris lands, then goes to search for Vin, to tell her the truth about the Reckoning at the end of the world.

As a boy thief in the previous two books, Spook had small parts to play, but in this one, he has a major plot to himself. He was sent to Urteau to spy on the Citizen who took over control of the city after the Lord Ruler died. He burns nobles to death in their own homes, and is a despot making life miserable for most people, even the underground. The city is ripe for rebellion, and Spook is thrust into that role. He burns tin nonstop, which makes his senses sensitive. He longs for the Citizen’s sister, who seems lonely but desirable. It was obvious to me that she was the Citizen’s allomancer protector. Her interference after she was taken hostage was expected, and while it disrupted their plans, aside from a few more fires, it didn’t have much effect. Spook is discovered as an allomancer and sent to burn, but a vision of Kelsier (obviously Ruin in disguise) helps save him. I loved the way he was given Hemolurgical powers after being stabbed through another allomancer. I didn’t see it coming, and it was a highlight when it was revealed. Eventually, the Citizen is revealed as being a Hemolurgical pawn also, a small spike embedded in his skin so Ruin could take control of him, feeding him instructions. This section of the book also featured Breeze as a side character, but a fun one as he tries to get out of actual work, but loves to scheme.

Sazed also joins Spook and Breeze in Urteau by Elend’s request. Ever since his love died in the last book, Sazed has been doubting himself. I found this the most tiresome of the plots, as he tries to find an ancient religion that could restore his faith. It’s strange that the Citizen allowed them to take possession of one of the ministry buildings, where a storage cavern is located. Here, Sazed withdraws into depression, until Spook needs his stored knowledge. Donning the metalminds for the first time since Tyndwyl died, he finds a purpose in engineering knowledge to block the river and restore the city’s canals. It’s only when TenSoon finds him and tells him of the kandra origins that he gains hope, looking to the ancient Terris religion to restore his faith.

Vin’s story also had a lot of hit and miss elements to it. Gone is the awe of allomancy, which is what I loved so much about the first book. She searches for the Lord Ruler’s storage caches, which offer food and water, but also clues to new metals and the hint of a grander plan. She fights koloss, and those fights are well described and fun to read. Any time she’s with Elend, however, the plot gets dragged down. My favorite parts of the book were from Vin’s point of view, when she’s scouting, searching, and generally using allomancy. She suggest infiltrating one of the city’s balls, which pretends to normalcy in an age of turmoil, and while she feels guilty about it, this time she takes charge, making people feel the way she wants, instead of the other way around from the first book.

Ultimately, the obligator who took charge of Fadrex is way more prepared than Elend and Vin, capturing her in the last storage compartment. There, she confronts Ruin, who takes the part of her brother and the voice in her mind. But Yomen is unsure of his religion and her part in it, so he keeps her alive. She keeps stalling as Ruin gets more and more agitated, searching for the missing Atium.

The genius of the book comes in the last two chapters, as everything comes together. Sazed finds the hidden Atium stash among the kandra after talking to the first generation, getting imprisoned then released by TenSoon. Marsh tears Vin’s earring out, revealing it to be a tiny hemalurgical spike that causes the mists to avoid her and for her to do Ruin's bidding at times, and being the voice in her mind. When it's removed, she uses the strength of the mists, the way she did against the Lord Ruler. It’s Preservation, entering her body and mind.

As such, she becomes a god. She decimates the obligators and restores balance to the struggle. She blocks Ruin’s attempts to use his minions, just as he stops her from contacting Elend, who prepares to fight the koloss. Both manage to leak through the others’ blocks, though, and Ruin keeps the koloss attacking, while Vin gets hints to Elend.

In the battle, Elend finds new atium burning allomancers, who he uses to fight the koloss. In the end, they can’t win against that army, but they can win against Ruin, because they burn all the atium, depriving him of his body.

Ruin and Vin struggle against each other, and they both die, in an unexpected move. But their power lives on, and it’s Sazed who emerges into the too-bright sunshine to absorb both their power, a mix of Ruin and Preservation. Because he is a Keeper, with all the scraped together knowledge of the world, he has the information needed to put it back together the way it was before the Lord Ruler. He takes the power of two gods and becomes the Hero of Ages, putting the world back in its proper orbit, rearranging human bodies that no longer need to absorb the mists or ash, making flowers colorful and grass green, and so on. It’s a wonderful moment, and raised the quality of the book by at least half a star. While most of the book hinted at Vin being the Hero of Ages, and I fully expected her to be resurrected, it didn't happen, and Sazed was forced to take on that role -the perfect candidate, of course.

It’s too bad that most of the book is taken up by tasks that are not very useful. They found the caverns, which people hid inside to survive the reordering of the world. They found new metals. They fought against each other to no real end, except to show that people will die for their principles even when the world is ending. Very few of what they discovered was useful in the final battle. For the reader, most of what was needed was found in the chapter introductions, instead.

I’m not sure if the series continues into the future or tells more of the past, but it’s a rich world that can be explored in either direction, and I’ll be happy to continue no matter which route it takes. I just hope that the sequels are not as aimless as this book, just to get to a fantastic conclusion.