The Alloy of Law is a refreshing addition to the Mistborn series, set in a Wild West-inspired world where Allomancy and Feruchemy play significant roles. The story follows Waxillium Ladrian, a lawman from the Roughs who returns to the city to claim his inheritance but gets entangled in a kidnapping case involving his fiancée. The book blends elements of mystery, action, and magic, creating a fast-paced narrative with well-developed characters and a compelling plot. Readers praised the innovative combination of genres, the detailed magic system, and the witty banter between characters, making it an enjoyable read for fans of fantasy and steampunk.
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From The Publisher:
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, the Mistborn series is a heist story of political intrigue and magical, martial-arts action.
Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is now on the verge of modernity, with railroads to supplement the canals, electric lighting in the streets and the homes of the wealthy, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds.
Kelsier, Vin, Elend, Sazed, Spook, and the rest are now part of history-or religion. Yet even as science and technology are reaching new heights, the old magics of Allomancy and Feruchemy continue to play a role in this reborn world. Out in the frontier lands known as the Roughs, they are crucial tools for the brave men and women attempting to establish order and justice.
One such is Waxillium Ladrian, a rare Twinborn, who can Push on metals with his Allomancy and use Feruchemy to become lighter or heavier at will. After twenty years in the Roughs, Wax has been forced by family tragedy to return to the metropolis of Elendel. Now he must reluctantly put away his guns and assume the duties and dignity incumbent upon the head of a noble house. Or so he thinks, until he learns the hard way that the mansions and elegant tree-lined streets of the city can be even more dangerous than the dusty plains of the Roughs.
Ratings (127)
Incredible (31) | |
Loved It (54) | |
Liked It (30) | |
It Was OK (9) | |
Did Not Like (1) | |
Hated It (2) |
Reader Stats (166):
Read It (131) | |
Want To Read (27) | |
Did Not Finish (1) | |
Not Interested (7) |
7 comment(s)
Characters: 9
Atmosphere: 10
Writing: 8
Plot: 9
Intrigue: 9
Logic: 9
Enjoyment: 9
Avg: 9 = 5 Stars
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[b:The Well of Ascension|68429|The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, #2)|Brandon Sanderson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1619538925l/68429._SY75_.jpg|2120474] ★★★☆☆
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What does Brandon Sanderson do right? He grabs your attention in the first chapter and he never lets go. I will start a book because of recommendations from websites and people, but I finish them because the author wrote something worth the paper it is printed on or the bandwidth it was downloaded from.
This book starts off running and never stops, with a fast pace but not at break-neck speed. This has been a disappointing year for books for me so far, and Alloy of Law is only one of two books that has made me happy to have been able to read. I know that this has been out for a couple of years, but my queue has 400 books in it right now.
As for Alloy of Law, it has all of the things that made the Mistborn trilogy (first of three) so fun and interesting, only this time, we have a frontier-style gunslinger in addition to the magic system. It works and it does it quite well. So many novels are great ideas but the author loses sight of telling and good story and spends 100 pages setting things up. Brandon Sanderson sets you up with the details, while telling a story. the Action/Reaction cycle is very smooth and at no time did I feel that the story sagged in the middle.
Fantasy Novels need to accomplish a few things to be good in my HUMBLE opinion. They have to be in a world that I could see living in, even if only for the time of the novel, but more important, I must want to RETURN. Fantasy should also have enough believable set-pieces, that the events COULD happen IF all of the qualities are met in magic, people, and places.
My new favorite thing to find right now is novels with Magic and Guns and make it work. Alloy of Law is this novel and it is a success.
Alloy of Law is set three hundred years after the end of the Mistborn trilogy. Technology has developed (including weaponry) and society has....well, society is mostly the same, except instead of slaves outside the city, we have a Wild West situation. Waxillium is something of a sheriff in the Roughs when his lover dies under tragic circumstances and he is called back to Elendel to inherit his noble estate. He tries to ignore the need to be free and investigate crimes, but a series of mysterious robberies draw him back into the lawman's role.
The action scenes in this book were very well done, as good as the best of the original trilogy. Working with the nearly infinite subset of powers available in Sanderson's worldbuilding (and it looks more complicated now, with different races mixing blood and powers) can make an action scene basically impossible to follow. This wasn't the case because Wax is limited to two powers, unlike our old friends Vin and Kelsier, who could and did do everything. The romance took an unexpected but realistic turn that I really appreciated. I think you could jump into the series here without being too confused.
When I decided to start this book, I wasn't sure how it could possibly compare to, or live up to, my expectations set by the original "Mistborn" trilogy. Now I know that you can't compare the two. "The Alloy of Law" was different enough from the previous books that I was able to wholeheartedly enjoy it without comparing it to the previous books.
I enjoyed the occasional switch in POV, as I feel that always gives the reader a firmer grasp of the cast of characters, their motives, and their emotions. The characters were memorable and well-rounded, and I never found myself bored by reading about them individually.
The world of this story is much changed, but it also has connections to the previous books that makes the reader nostalgic for the past. For example, the mist still rolls in occasionally, and our main character (Waxilliam) feels the same connection and peace that our previous protagonist (Vin) felt in the mists.
I thought the connection with the past cast of characters through them being religious figures was interesting, although I wish that it had been a bit more clear on which deity was a representation of which character. For instance, I understand that Harmony is one of the original cast, but I'm not 100% sure WHO Harmony is supposed to be. I thought at first that perhaps Harmony was Vin, but Vin has a different religious title. Harmony was also referred to as someone's (I won't say whose, for the sake of avoiding spoilers) brother at the end of the book, so that means it must be someone who had a brother in the previous series. So perhaps Kelsier?
I can't wait to read the next books in this series!
Dec. 2022 Re-Read Review: I’m listening to the audiobooks of the first three entries in the series to get ready for book #4. Man, this series is so good. I told Maddy “it’s like if Batman was in the Wild West”, and then I saw my previous review and laughed. The mix of action and detective work is spot on. The world-building and characters are so stinking good and I laughed out loud on many occasions. Bumping this up to 5 stars, because I feel like it.
Original Review 2020: One of the press quotes on the book calls it “Sherlock Holmes meets the X-Men”. That’s a better description than I could come up with. Interested to see where the second trilogy goes from here.
A good combination of fantasy and detective thriller. Set in same world as Mistborn 1st series, it makes it very interesting to read how the magic of metals can interact with metal guns. Overall fun read.
I think Standalone Western Detective Novel is my favorite flavor of Mistborn.
What can you read after
The Alloy of Law?
About the Author:
Brandon Sanderson grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. He lives in Utah with his wife and children and teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University. He is the author of such bestsellers as the Mistborn® trilogy and its sequels, The Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, and The Bands of Mourning; the Stormlight Archive novels The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance; and other novels, including The Rithmatist and Steelheart. In 2013, he won a Hugo Award for Best Novella for The Emperor's Soul, set in the world of his acclaimed first novel, Elantris. Additionally, he was chosen to complete Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time® sequence.
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