Of the three books, the first one was the best IMO. It was extremely fun to learn about Allomancy with Vin, and the politics of the balls was very fun to read. The secret to the Lord Ruler’s power was very cool, and the ending was very satisfying.

The Well of Ascension was good but not quite as good. There were not as many exciting allomancy discoveries, but there were some. Vin and Elend’s relationship issues were dumb. I felt a bit let down after learning that the Lord Ruler correctly took the power at the Well for himself rather than release what was imprisoned there, and it felt like the monumental realizations and achievements of the first book were suddenly cheapened. It did not leave me feeling satisfied, although maybe that was the point.

The Hero of Ages was better. Gradually learning about Hemalurgy was interesting, and the numerous plot twists were quite fun. The revelation that Vin’s earring was a hemalurgic spike all along and that Ruin had planned to have her kill the Lord Ruler was pretty great, but it was a bit unsatisfying that she never figured it out for the whole book until after Marsh removed it for her. The end was pretty good, but it leaves me with a lot of questions including why Sazed would leave humanity in a field rather than building a city for them. Presumably they will have time to plant and harvest some crops before winter. Having a main character become God leaves me wondering how much God is planning on interacting with humanity.

Also I wonder how Preservation was able to plan to accomplish what he did, at least a thousand years in advance. Did he plan for Ruin to escape? So he was bluffing, trying to get Ruin to think that his escape was his own doing? This all gets pretty complicated pretty fast.

Now I need to look up the other books in this universe and read them, too!