The following is commentary, written by Brandon, about one of the chapters of MISTBORN: THE HERO OF AGES. If you haven’t read this book, know that the following will contain major spoilers. We suggest reading the sample chaptersfrom book one instead. You can also go to this book’s introduction or go to the main annotations page to access all annotations for all of Brandon’s books. For those who have read some of MISTBORN 3, any spoilers for the ending of this book will be hidden, so as long as you’ve read up to this chapter, you should be all right.

Spook Sees Kelsier in the Burning Building and Burns Pewter

How, exactly, does one write from the perspective of a deranged, exhausted, dying man in the middle of a burning building? This is my attempt. Reading through it now, I particularly like how the imagery and Spook’s disorientation come across. It works as a nice component to the previous Spook chapter.

Yes, Kelsier appears to him. Yes, Spook can burn pewter. One of the reasons I decided to soften Spook’s craziness in his first two chapters is that I wanted this chapter to stand out in more stark contrast. A sizable number of my alpha readers, after finishing this chapter and the next one, couldn’t decide if Spook was in fact burning pewter, or if he had gone insane.

My hope is that since I made Spook easier to relate to in the first two chapters, he’ll be considered more trustworthy by readers. The fact that he can burn pewter is very important to the plot’s development from this point on.

My other worry with this chapter is that people will read it and think that I’m pulling a “Swiss Army magic” trick on them—inventing new powers and abilities just to get my characters out of trouble. I can assure you that not only is what’s happening to Spook here logical and built into the magic system, but you’ve seen these things happen before in the series as far back as early portions of book one.