Mistborn: The Final Empire (Brandon Sanderson)

Mistborn: The Final Empire
(The Mistborn trilogy, Book 1)
Brandon Sanderson
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: One thousand years ago, the Deepness threatened to consume the world until the Hero of Ages vanquished it. Since then, He has reigned as the immortal Lord Ruler... but His Final Empire is anything but a joyous paradise. Plants grow withered and brown under an ash-reddened sun. The streets are stained black with soot and filth, and strange mists swirl through the starless nights. Noblemen treat the skaa peasantry as less than property. But, despite centuries of abuse and ill will, none have been able to stand up to the Lord Ruler and his Steel Inquisitors.
Now, one man means to.
Kelsier is a minor legend among the skaa. He alone has survived slavery in the Pits of Hathsin where the Lord Ruler harvests atium, a rare metal on which the empire's economy is based. The brutality he endured there woke in him the gift of Allomancy, a noble-born skill allowing one to digest specific metals and extract superhuman abilities from them. With it, and with a hand-picked team of gifted thieves and rebels, he aims to liberate the downtrodden skaa and slaughter the noblemen.
Vin has lived her entire life in fear. Her half-brother Reen drilled the brutal truths of life as a street-thief skaa into her with words and fists... and with the final knife in the back of betrayal, the day he vanished and left her alone in the capital city Luthadel, to fend for herself among the thief crews. About the only thing that's kept her alive so far is her Luck, an ability she hardly understands but which has helped her squeeze past Death more than once in her short, hard life.
Kelsier notices Vin's gifts at about the same time the Lord Ruler's monstrous Inquisitors - charged with purging all hints of Allomancy from the lesser classes, among other unpleasant tasks - detect her. While offering her sanctuary, Kelsier draws her into his bold plans for revolution, grooming the girl for a very special role in his plot. The more she learns about that plot, and the man behind it, the more Vin starts to wonder: is the Survivor of Hathsin the liberator the world has waited generations for, or a madman as brutal as the Lord Ruler Himself?

REVIEW: I've seen this one recommended numerous times by numerous people, so I finally decided to give it a try. Sanderson crafts a pleasantly different fantasy world, more of a post-apocalyptic dystopia than the usual pseudo-medieval landscape. His Allomancy has specific abilities and limitations, which the characters use to great effect. Both Vin and Kelsier undergo profound transformations as the realities of inciting social changes collide with their preconceptions. Action and intrigue intertwine in more or less equal measure, weighted somewhat toward the action end. Since this is Book 1 of a trilogy, some threads are left dangling at the end, but a surprising portion of the plot wraps itself up here. A good, gripping read, and the start of a trilogy I actually want to follow.