The Hero of Ages, by Brandon Sanderson

And thus I reach the end of the trilogy. I can't say that I loved this book as much as many people seem to have, but I'm inclined to attribute that more to an overload of fantasy than anything else. Though, as I mentioned before, the particular kind of "magic" in this series is totally original, the core concepts cover fairly well-tread fantasy ground. Good versus Evil, Life versus Death, Despair versus Hope; all of this has been done before. Sanderson does it well, true, but his main message - the power of trust and love - is only a slight deviation from a fairly standard theme, plus the reader is practically beaten over the head with it, there is little subtlety. The puzzles in the book are quite interesting, and I did enjoy figuring things out as the story went along. I just wish the fantasy genre could push the boundaries a little further, go a little darker like some of Garth Nix's short stories have done. The Mistborn trilogy is epic, no doubt about it, and generally a good read, but it does little to make itself stand out from the rest of the pack.