Minor Thoughts from me to you

The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Personal Enthusiasm: Loads of Fun

This book was a ton of fun to read. It's a heist mystery, that's almost steam punk, set in the Mistborn universe. If you're a Brandon Sanderson fan that's pretty much all you need to know. If you're not a Brandon Sanderson fan, well, you're in for a real treat. I've been waiting for this book since mid-summer and I'm happy to say that I wasn't at all disappointed.

The best part of the Mistborn universe is the magical system that Sanderson created for these stories: allomancy, feruchemy. Allomancers can "burn" various metals (which they've swallowed in trace amounts), to get various powers: increased strength, speed, ability to influence emotions, the ability to Push or Pull on steel, etc. Feruchemists can store various attributes (speed, weight, knowledge) in metal and then retrieve it as needed.

The stories are very character driven and resemble super hero stories, in the way that the characters creatively use their allomantic or feruchemic powers. This particular book is filled with a few great puns, interesting characters, mysterious heists, detective work, and some incredible fight scenes.

This book wasn't perfect. I felt like the main villain took a bit too much inspiration from Batman Begins and Renard (the Bond villain). This is still a very good book, if that's the only weakness (and I thought it was).

How does this book fit into the rest of the Mistborn universe? I'll let Sanderson explain.

I pitched my editor a series where the first trilogy is an epic fantasy series, and then years later an urban fantasy series, and then years after that a science fiction series, all set in the same world. And the magic exists all through, and it is treated differently in each of these time periods. And that’s what Alloy of Law is: looking at the Mistborn world, hundreds of years later, where society has been rebuilt following the events of the third book.

... This is actually a sort of side story I decided to start telling. ... With this one I decided to do something a little more action/adventure and a little more self-contained. So Alloy of Law is not the start of a trilogy, though I may do a little more with the characters, but in general the story I wanted to tell is told.

Now. Go forth, buy, and read.

Update (11/29): Esther Bochner, a publicist at Macmillan Audio, emailed me yesterday with a nice offer.

I saw your great review of ALLOY OF LAW by Brandon Sanderson and I wanted to make sure that you are aware that the book is also available as an audiobook from Macmillan Audio. I’d love to offer you a clip from the audiobook to post on your site alongside the review as multimedia content.

So, here's a nice preview both of the style of the book and of the sound of the audiobook.

Download the audio clip.