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Send Allomancers, guns, and money
Dec. 25th, 2022 08:41 pmThe fourth book of the second series in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn saga was recently published, which means that that series is complete and it’s safe for me to start reading it. To that end I picked up The Alloy of Law from the library–and was quite surprised to find it at little over 300 pages! By Brandon Sanderson standards that is practically a short story.
This series takes place about three hundred years after the end of the last series, and things on the reborn world are steampunkifying rapidly. Our hero is a nobleman-turned-lawkeeper by the gooftastic name of Waxillium Ladrian, who has an almost preternatural capability with guns. Wax has spent most of his career busting skulls in an attempt to bring law-n-order to the Roughs, but has returned to the capital city of Elendel to do his duty as house heir following a series of personal tragedies, such as the death of his uncle and sister (thus leaving the house lordship vacant) and the fatal shooting of his girlfriend (thus fucking him up emotionally). A series of very mysterious train robberies is scaring the city, and despite Wax’s attempts to stay away from sheriff shenanigans and only due lordly things, circumstances conspire to draw him back in. Thus does Wax, in concert with his Roughs buddy Wayne and a young criminology student named Marasi, end up engaged in a high-octane combination of magically fueled shootouts and investigative crime-solving.
Many things about this book are what I am finding to be typical of Sanderson’s work. The magic system is very much a hard one, although interestingly, some of it is a bit different than it was in the first three Mistborn books—the in-universe “science” of understanding and wielding magic has clearly advanced. The plot twists are meticulously developed and deployed for maximum twistiness, occasionally at the expense of a coherent theme or politics (the plots cohere just fine—the twists all add up perfectly square, as far as I remember). The fight scenes are hella good; what (thankfully) little romance there is is pretty thin. The characters are fun and funny, although the degree to which I am emotionally attached to any of them is limited (except Steris, who I have a great deal of sympathy for). The banter is excellent if you like banter and would probably get annoying if you don’t.
The most fun thing for me about this book (besides Wayne’s obsession with hats) is seeing the changes in world-building from the last series. In addition to the general fun steampunk/Wild West vibe, which is always a good time, it’s fun seeing the events of the previous books rendered into history and religion, with varying degrees of accuracy. In the three hundred years since one person was definitively established as God, popular understanding of what went down has splintered into a variety of different faiths—including one that worships Ironeyes (clearly Marsh), who has otherwise been rendered into a sort of devil or bogeyman in the popular consciousness.
The setup for the sequel, which obviously I will not reiterate now, is intriguing enough that I have put in a hold for the next book at the library even though I had to do some weird system search shenanigans to find it. Hopefully it gets here soon and is nice and long.
This series takes place about three hundred years after the end of the last series, and things on the reborn world are steampunkifying rapidly. Our hero is a nobleman-turned-lawkeeper by the gooftastic name of Waxillium Ladrian, who has an almost preternatural capability with guns. Wax has spent most of his career busting skulls in an attempt to bring law-n-order to the Roughs, but has returned to the capital city of Elendel to do his duty as house heir following a series of personal tragedies, such as the death of his uncle and sister (thus leaving the house lordship vacant) and the fatal shooting of his girlfriend (thus fucking him up emotionally). A series of very mysterious train robberies is scaring the city, and despite Wax’s attempts to stay away from sheriff shenanigans and only due lordly things, circumstances conspire to draw him back in. Thus does Wax, in concert with his Roughs buddy Wayne and a young criminology student named Marasi, end up engaged in a high-octane combination of magically fueled shootouts and investigative crime-solving.
Many things about this book are what I am finding to be typical of Sanderson’s work. The magic system is very much a hard one, although interestingly, some of it is a bit different than it was in the first three Mistborn books—the in-universe “science” of understanding and wielding magic has clearly advanced. The plot twists are meticulously developed and deployed for maximum twistiness, occasionally at the expense of a coherent theme or politics (the plots cohere just fine—the twists all add up perfectly square, as far as I remember). The fight scenes are hella good; what (thankfully) little romance there is is pretty thin. The characters are fun and funny, although the degree to which I am emotionally attached to any of them is limited (except Steris, who I have a great deal of sympathy for). The banter is excellent if you like banter and would probably get annoying if you don’t.
The most fun thing for me about this book (besides Wayne’s obsession with hats) is seeing the changes in world-building from the last series. In addition to the general fun steampunk/Wild West vibe, which is always a good time, it’s fun seeing the events of the previous books rendered into history and religion, with varying degrees of accuracy. In the three hundred years since one person was definitively established as God, popular understanding of what went down has splintered into a variety of different faiths—including one that worships Ironeyes (clearly Marsh), who has otherwise been rendered into a sort of devil or bogeyman in the popular consciousness.
The setup for the sequel, which obviously I will not reiterate now, is intriguing enough that I have put in a hold for the next book at the library even though I had to do some weird system search shenanigans to find it. Hopefully it gets here soon and is nice and long.