The Hero of Ages

Overall, this is a decent conclusion to the trilogy. There's a lot of good pieces here, but I felt like his plot development and internal logic fell apart a little bit down the stretch.

Spoilers

Pros:
I thought Yomen was a good addition to the landscape. He has a nice moral shade of gray, which adds to the unexpectedly charitable view of the Lord Ruler. He's also really smart, and tricks Vin and Elend a few times in compelling, thoughtful ways (so does Beldre to Spook, on a slightly smaller level).

I had some negative thoughts about the Ruin/Preservation dynamic here, but I did think it was a clever addition that Vin/Elend's drive to find the atium was orchestrated by Ruin in the first place.

I thought the overall treatment of religion was pretty good - Sanderson is a devout Mormon - in the sense that he fairly portrayed someone's time of deconstruction/doubt.
And as I mentioned in the last review, I thought the foreshadowing of Sazed being the Hero - both with the gender-neutral pronouns, but especially the rest of the prophecies like the “world on his arms” line - was a strong ending note. That line weaved together well, with all the Keepers' knowledge being used to let him properly fix the world.

Cons:
Over the course of the trilogy, his writing bothered me more and more. The common writing expression is “show, don't tell” the audience about a character. I felt like this book spends a LOT of time verbatim describing a character's internal thoughts, which is often much less interesting than watching their actions. Writing that way DOES mean that your character actions and motives have to be discernible without knowing their inner thoughts, which is a high burden to put on your plot and character development. Speaking of that...

It was a bit hard to read after experiencing the depth of plotlines and character development of Game of Thrones; feels much more cartoonish in its plot than it did when I read it 5 years ago. The plot developments in books 2-3 felt a little arbitrary in the grand scheme; I felt like 1 was a fun book and a great idea; I think 2 and 3 are still pretty fun, but the grand finale doesn't necessarily feel like it pulls the great idea together. A few questions: why is Ruin's body made of atium? Why did Vin exactly decided that trying to die would be the responsible decision? With all the Ruin/Preservation stuff in the last bit, what's the real difference in their power and consciousness, and why do they need bodies? The “power flowing” language felt pretty hokey after he did such a good job making an internally consistent and exciting magic system in Allomancy, etc. All that felt like a bad example of Sanderson engineering his plot to a conclusion he wanted (Sazed being the Hero, which I actually thought was a solid conclusion). It just all felt a bit gimmicky, not as tight of a puzzle as expected.

The best plot surprises/conclusions are when you look back and think “I really should have seen it coming.” Sanderson nails some of those: Sazed being the Hero, TenSoon being an imposter, Vin having the earring. But most of the second half of book 3 felt far too deus ex machina, instead of relying on the internal narrative.