The Hero of Ages

Mistborn, Book 3

By: Brandon Sanderson

Narrated by: Michael Kramer

Length: 27 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's Summary

Tricked into releasing the evil spirit Ruin while attempting to close the Well of Ascension, new emperor Elend Venture and his wife, the assassin Vin, are now hard-pressed to save the world.This adventure brings the Mistborn epic fantasy trilogy to a dramatic and surprising climax as Sanderson's saga offers complex characters and a compelling plot, asking hard questions about loyalty, faith and responsibility.

©2010 Dragonsteel Entertainment LLC (P)2011 Orion Publishing Group Limited

Great closure

The way the author tied in the trilogy was excellent. A little bittersweet, but overall satisfying ending to the epic fantasy tale. Great stepping stone laid at the end too in preparation for the continuation. Great read.

Simply outstanding!

Brilliant finish to a gripping trilogy. Sanderson weaves a subtle and intricate plot, always keeping the listener guessing. Indepth character development really bring the people in the story to life and the descriptions of the impact metals have upon the world from the ordinary misting right through to the omniscient gods bring a whole new dimension to the world.

Sanderson brings the right level of detail without becoming boring or long winded or skimping on something that is essential to the story.

If you like a good "can't put it down" sort of book in this genre, this trilogy and especially, this final book is the one for you.

A fitting end.

At times I felt like I was the one burning atium while listening to this book. This, I think, was due to Brandon Sanderson’s excellent writing.

An excellent book and an excellent end to era one of the Mistborn series.

The World is Reborn

Excellent ending to a fantastic trilogy of books! I have enjoyed this journey Brandon sent us on.

Great end to this trilogy

I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Both the voice and author performed remarkably in this book. Highly recommended if you enjoyed the first book.

Loved it!!!

Great writing, and lovely performance!
Impressive world building, fantastic lovable characters both "good" and "evil".

Imagination

A good read or listen. Well worth the time. What a fantasy novel should be.

great

great ending to the best sanderson trilogy mistborn! enjoyed every bit of it! go listen!

A great end to a fantastic series

Mistborn is one of those series that gets better the further along the series you go.
Not because each book gets better and better.
But because with the knowledge of each book, you progress through the story with more information to process and consider what is happening. Things start to make sense and everything unfolds for you because Sanderson is a master of his craft.
Going back and rereading things let's you understand how he was crafting everything very purposefully from the start, and each nugget of information was placed so perfectly that when you go back to listen you can see he had a very clear vision of the story from the start.
Things in book 1 crack wide-open after revelations in book 3.
That is why I love this author, and his Cosmere writings. I am very much looking forward to seeing the wider Cosmere come together as more and more books are released.
Thank you Brandon, for everything you have done, and will continue to do.

Fantastic end(?) to a riveting story

I enjoyed how the plot progressed from the first book of the series, and this book tied everything together satisfactorily, leaving behind few, if no loose ends.

The narrator of the audiobook was fantastic, and added greatly to what i imagine the characters to look and sound like.

Fantastic Epic!

This series of Audio books kept me completely hooked. The cleverly written epic story has everything you could possibly want from a fantasy novel; fun and humour, excitement, love, fear and tears, not to mention some great action scenes. This is one of my favourite stories and will take some beating!

Epic end to an epic trilogy

I have to admit, I binge listened to the whole trilogy! I fell in love with the characters in 'Final Empire' and have watched them develop with interest.

My only complaint is the amount of recap in this book -though I concede it is probably necessary if reading it over a period of time.

Loved Michael Kramers reading. One to go back to time and again!

READ THE FRIGGIN BOOK!

If youve listened to the first 2 books in the trilogy, then follow up with this. THIS BOOK IS EXCELLENT. EVERYTHING MAKES SENSE! You begin to see the hints and foreshadowing, which you glossed over in the previous books, come together. It all fits perfectly. I LOVE THIS BOOK. I usually listen to books while performing pther tasks, like cooking or cleaning or going on casual stroll. It has been a long time since I've had a book draw me in so completely that I have no other option than to sit and just listen for hours, without doing anything else. Michael Kramer as usual brings his A-game to the narration. It sounds natural. He doesnt over enunciate every word like some narrators do. It sounds like a man telling you a story. The character voices are all distinct and I never had any problems recognising who was speaking. Read this book. Brandon Sanderson is a genius.

I can see the end from here...

The end of 75 hour epic is nearly here.

How Michael Kramer kept this going beggers belief. He does a great job throughout and his careful pacing of the text makes the epic very enjoyable.

The first two thirds of the story have the familiar feel of the other two books but the final part takes us to new parts are Sanderson reveals that focus of the characters is only a tiny part of the plot. The last few chapters really open things up.

One thing that is true of all three books, for me anyway, was my misunderstanding of some of the key names and it was only when I happened to flick through the book in a store did I see my errors.

To my ears, narrator Michael Kramer calls one of the creatures a Kondra (or perhaps Condra). The book reveals the name is actually Kandra. The same can be said of one of the main antagonists which is Ruin - I heard Ruan (Roo-ann). This one is important as the character was named for a reason which only became obvious much later than it should of.

Anyway. A great end to a great series. I need a lie down.

A different take on the classic fantasy trilogy

I don't think it's giving anything away to say that I was lulled into a false sense of 'I know how this works out'. I didn't. A refreshing twist on a classic fantasy framework.

An end to the trilogy - but no more

Having thoroughly enjoyed and given five star ratings for the first two books, I approached this book with great expectations; however, I was left feeling underwhelmed.
This is NOT a bad book; indeed, I very much enjoyed it. However, it seemed purely functional, as if the series had to be a trilogy. Two was not enough, four was too many. A bit like Monty Python's Holy Hand Grenade.
As with the previous two, the naration is outstanding, and the story is well written - it just feels forced.
If you've listened to the first two, then you will have to listen to this one. It brings the story to a conclusion and answers many questions, raises many more, and answers them too for good measure.
The trilogy is five stars. The first two books are five stars. The naration is five stars. This book just falls short of the mark. I have still recommended all three audiobooks to a friend.
DON'T LET THIS RATING PUT YOU OFF STARTING THE TRILOGY, IT'S GREAT OVERALL.

Incredible

Michael Kramer is an excellent narrator and truly brings the characters to life in this epic trilogy.
A very satisfying ending to a great story. Brandon Sanderson has kept me gripped for nearly 80 hours following this story of good vs evil. Creating a world, history and purpose to a story without any dips in quality. I'm looking forward to getting on with his back catalogue!

Absorbing book, beautifully crafted. Masterfully narrated.

Listened to all three books in this trilogy, the story, the characters and the coherence of what is a pleasingly complex plot continue to develop from the first chapter of the first book right through to the epilogue of this third and final instalment. The main protagonists in this instalment struggle from crisis to crisis as the world is brought to ruin all around them. The story is excellently paced. The ending is not your typical "Bilbo returned to the Shire" and is well worth the investment of time listening to the three volumes in sequence. The narration was, in my opinion, fantastically matched to the story and to the characters. I will undoubtedly be buying and listening to more books in this series.

I Shouldn't Have To Sell This To You

If you're reading this, then you've already completed the first two books, I really shouldn't need to sell this to you. If you haven't, then go on with you! Go read the first book!

My GoodReads review went like this:
*SLOW CLAP*

What a mother f#£%in' ending.

4/5 simply because I lost interest in places, I think this is mostly down to my inability to stay attentive through epic fantasy but I haven't read enough of them to be sure yet.

I stand by everything I said. If you've read the other two books, you need to finish the trilogy. Audiobook is a good way to do it if, like me, you struggled reading the physical copy of the second book.

Also, if you're a writer, goddamn read this. The ending... dear lord, Sanderson knows what he's doing.

End of an Epic

I listened to this in under 48 hours. I barely did anything. I ignored my friends, I only stopped to eat - I hardly slept because I just had to know what was happening and where this was going. This trilogy was incredible and while a little predictable in places I absolutely loved it.

I would recommend this trilogy to anyone - especially if like me this is typically not their bag.

The growth in Spook was much needed, I think his name was perfect and made much more sense upon reading this, he was a peripheral character who came in to his own. Sazed remained my favourite character throughout the series, his internal struggle in the the final book and his subsequent resolution of that was frustrating in some respects but frustratingly realistic. The growth of Vin and Eland was once again amazing. The important thing is I cared about them all, I cared so much.

What I loved most about this series is that it kept me guessing. Come the end, everything added up, everything that happened had reason and I understood but it was just great that it wasn’t overly predictable like many series can be! Even the bits that involved battle didn’t bore me, which is an achievement in itself! And it made me well up a bit. I didn’t want it to be over. I couldn’t cope with some of the final scenes. I spent two weeks in this world and I wasn’t ready for it to be over, I wasn’t ready for the end, I wasn’t ready for the inevitability of what was going to happen to some of my favourite characters… It was hard but equally great.