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.
I read The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson in May 2021 as part of the Cosmere Conquest book club, which has now become The Oasis, an SFF themed book server on Discord. Consider joining us!
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About the Book
The Alloy of Law
The Mistborn Saga Book Four
by Brandon Sanderson
Published 8 November 2011
Tor Books
Genre: Epic Fantasy, Western Fantasy
Page Count: 332
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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.
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My Review
My Rating: 4 Stars
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I read The Alloy of Law along with a book club in May 2021 after reading the first era of Mistborn in February-April.
The Alloy of Law is the beginning of a new era in the Mistborn series. The world was set right and thee centuries have past. Everything we just read is now history, myth, and the foundation of religion. Allomancy and feruchemy are still found and used among the population, and many characters we’ll meet have abilities we’ve never seen before.
Wax was born with the ability to use both types of magic, and he has a reputation for being a bit of a ruffian vigilante, but as we meet him in this book he’s trying to adapt to a quieter life taking over as head of house at his family’s estate in Elandel. That is, until old friend Wayne shows up pretending to be some eccentric family member to fool the household that Wax is needed elsewhere.
What Sanderson has done with this transition is absolutely fascinating and not something I’ve seen other authors do well. While staying within the great realm of the fantasy genre, we’ve jumped subgenres. The original Mistborn trilogy is medieval-esque in setting, in a world without mechanized power and transportation. It’s the sort of world one expects from high fantasy. This new era, 300 years in the future, has a post-industrial revolution feel to it and it’s very new world western in style. Almost gaslamp fantasy, definitely fantasy western. Whether you love or hate the new era, you’ve got to admit Sanderson does both subgenres well and he made them both work flawlessly for the same world. That isn’t done! Nobody else does this well!
Like most of this series, I chose to listen to the audiobook, and I was worried at first that I wouldn’t be able to get through this. The character Wayne is a bit of a master of disguise and the narrator chose to adopt different accents, pitches, tones, etc. to represent Wayne in various forms. I’m not sure if the narrator did it less as the performance went on or if I just got used to it, but it drove me up the wall at first. I didn’t like listening to some of the voices and was glad they weren’t the chosen default voice for Wayne, but I also just found it extremely difficult to keep track of what was truly another character and what was just Wayne in a wig. I doubt first-read readers who were reading it for themselves had the same trouble.
It often surprises people who know me well and know how much I love horses and western riding culture, and that I’m a history buff, yet I don’t like the western genre in general. Not in book form, not in film. I genuinely can’t tell if my normal distaste for “the classic western feel” in western fantasy contributed to me not loving this book as much as the first trilogy or if I just genuinely don’t like it as much, but I’ll admit right here I’m one of the Mistborn readers who prefers Era 1.
Although Alloy is set in the Mistborn world and the new “god” of this world occasionally speaking to certain characters in this book is a familiar voice from the first trilogy, the Wax and Wayne books as they’ve come to be known are almost entirely separate books. I do think I have a better understanding of the way this world’s magic system works having read the original trilogy first, but other than that this could easily be a starting point. I believe Mistborn has two points of entry, The Final Empire or The Alloy of Law. If you’re going to start here, you could continue forward as far as the series goes when you read it and then go back, or you could jump back immediately from here and finish this later era after, but be warned you do need to read the first trilogy in order.
Regardless of how I feel about western fantasies, Wax and Wayne are a great pair! They are each other’s perfect foil and the effect is comical in the best way. This era of Mistborn might prove to be a great introduction to the fantasy genre or to Sanderson specifically for readers who don’t normally do fantasy, since it feel so much like a classic western. I’m tempted to call it gaslamp fantasy, but some might argue the industrialization of the world has advanced a little too far past that.
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Want more? Check out my 5 star review of the previous book, The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson!
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