Book Review: Allow Of Law (A Mistborn Novel) - Brandon Sanderson

Probably one of the books I was most looking forward to reading this year was Brandon Sanderson’s new steampunky Mistborn novel ALLOY OF LAW. Well it came out last week and like you might expect I got right down to devouring it. 

Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first. Is it good? You’re damn right it is. If you liked his previous Mistborn novels at all, then you are in for a treat here as well. Both Allomancy and Feruchemy are evenly used within the pages and add the aspect of guns and iron and girder 1800’s style city and you have the makings of a blast of a good time. Are there some flaws? Yes, albeit very minor stuff that didn’t bother me too much.

Basically this is the story of Waxillum Ladrian (descendant of Breeze’s house from the original series) and it takes place 300 years after the end of HERO OF AGES. The heroes from those books have passed into legend and even days of the week are named for them (Vinuarch), or cities (Elendel). The society is again split into nobles and not-so-nobles, and various religious sects based around the events in the first trilogy. Wax, after having been unable to prevent a death early on in the book, ends up leaving his home and job as a Lawman in the Roughs (wild west-ish style setting on the outskirts of civilization) to come to the huge prospering city of Elendel . The city is coated in railways and large buildings, lavish estates and caters to any city-dweller’s need. Wax is meant to try to bring the bootstraps up of his House, that his Uncle left in shambles and poor, by marrying into a richer family and giving up life as a Lawman. Everything seems to be going according to plan until Wax’s old friend Wayne shows up from the Roughs, the woman he is meant to marry is too serious, there is a spat of robberies by a group of people known as the Vanishers, and someone is trying their damndest to kill Wax. Thus begins the rollicking good time that is ALLOY OF LAW.

For those who love Sanderson’s magic systems, and especially alomancy, shouldn’t be disappointed as not only does he give us allomantic gunfights, but he adds an ability here and there that is new. Wayne, for example, is able to make time bubbles in which he and Wax can have private conversations, or allow them time to organize themselves. It’s really nice that Sanderson found a way to add some new stuff to classic alomancy and I will say that Wayne’s ability especially made for some breathtaking moments during action sequences.

Wax as a main character is very well laid out, in a way I wasn’t expecting. He’s roguish and his metal vials are filled with whiskey or some other alcohol. That made me chuckles, because I mean how else would a cowboy lawman ingest his metals? Whisky! He does a good job at playing the line between Rough’s guy and noble without sacrificing who he is in the process. He’s also incredibly honest with himself about just what is going on in his life. Wayne is probably my favourite character. Always ready with a hilarious quip or comeback. The cockney-accented deputy is a barrel of fun all the way through, is on the ball in every situation, and is even a master of disguise. A great addition to the story and a perfect foil for Wax’s more serious nature.  A true duo in every sense of the word.

The love story is very interesting, and while I’d rather not give anything away I want to congratulate Brandon for not shying away from doing something that makes sense. The complexity of Wax’s character comes to the forefront for the love story and went in a few directions I wholly wasn’t expecting and that made it utterly fresh and engaging.

Now, what would a Sanderson story be without twists and revelations. Are there any? Yes indeed, some doozy’s. Am I going to tell you anything about them? No way! As Sanderson is wont to say you need to RAFO (ReadAndFindOut) that.

There is a very minimal expositionary bit in the middle that slowed the pace down a tad, but it really is not that long and is worth getting through. There are some repeated phrases or words that end up in the overused territory, and a few bits that seemed superfluous to the overall story, but in the end my complaints are VERY minor and truly didn’t affect my reading experience much at all.

If you want to see how Brandon’s Mistborn world has grown in 300 years, then you really need to get this book, as it is pretty much an absolute treat from beginning to end, and it will certainly leave you wanting more. It’s quite nice to have read the previous trilogy and have that base to work off of while the world grows up around you. It will be awesome as time moves forward even further in the two future trilogies (one in urban modern time, and one in the future) and how technological growth will affect the planet of Scadrial, and then to go one further and see how that affects the overall cosmere that Brandon has created. I’d be lying though if I didn’t want at least one more book starring Wax and Wayne, as they are a stellar duo that are a joy to read.

Go out and get this book. You know you want to, and you won’t be let down by it. I'd also like to point out how hardworking Brandon is. The man is a machine. He is currently finishing the WOT series, he wrote his first in the ten book Stormlight series, and found time to write this book as well. And the best thing is the consistency in his writing. I can't say I have ever not enjoyed anything he has written. He is easily one of my favourite authors.

Book Review: HERO OF AGES by Brandon Sanderson

The third book in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy.

HERO OF AGES was also previously reviewed by the Scottness, those of you who are interested in balanced reviewage can read that review here.

(Those of you who are interested can get your click-on here and here to read my opinion on the first two entries.)

By using the Well of Ascension and relinquishing the power it contained Vin has released the dark god Ruin into the world.

A chaotic force, Ruin’s sole desire is to destroy the entire world and all those who live upon it. His freedom causing chaos and anarchy to ripple across the land.

Crops are failing, buried under a blanket of ash, kings and heads of state are infected by madness and Steel Inquisitors stalk the earth, leaving only death and destruction in their wake.

Meanwhile, the remnants of Kelsier’s thieving crew (for whom it takes a Herculean amount of effort for me not to refer to them as ‘rag-tag’) and newly minted emperor, Elend Venture, are racing across the Dominances shoring up defences and searching for the former Lord Ruler’s hidden caches.

Each cache contains clues about various Allomantic metals and provides supplies to be used by the populace in case of an emergency.

In the struggle to unite the disparate parts of the Empire under a single banner the crew find themselves flung across the Dominances, each trying to beat back Ruin’s influence in their own little corner of the world.

Damaged in body and soul Spook, the former thief, prowls the streets of the canal city of Urteau in search of a hidden cache and keeping a watchful eye on the dangerously unbalanced leader known as the Citizen. When Spook is caught trying to assassinate the Citizen he finds himself visited by the ghost of Kelsier and mysteriously able to burn pewter.

Sazed, the eunuch Terrisman, disheartened after the death of his lover Tindwyl (just roll with it), scours the teachings of ancient religions in the hopes that one of them will provide the answers that he needs to bring closure to his grief. But as he continues to eliminate religions he falls deeper into a dark depression.

In the secret homeland of the kandra, TenSoon tries to convince his brethren to take up the fight against Ruin. Imprisoned and abandoned his task seems hopeless, especially since the Second Generation seems so determined to maintain their isolationist stance by silencing him forever.

Elend may have taken the role of emperor reluctantly, but that’s not going to stop him from doing everything he can do protect his subjects. With an army of koloss at his command he throws himself into his duty, risking life, limb and the woman he loves in order to unravel the mysteries left behind by the Lord Ruler and defeat Ruin.

Vin is trapped in the city of Fadrex by the upstart King Yomen. Her supply of metals are exhausted, Ruin whispers constantly in her ear, a constant reminder of her own failures, and time is rapidly running out as the very planet seems to be dying around her. Out of time and out of options Vin must make a choice between giving up or fighting with her last breath.

Yowza! Pretty heavy stuff.

Unfortunately I don’t have much to add for the actual review portion of this summary sandwich.

If you liked the previous entry in the Mistborn trilogy, WELL OF ASCENSION, then you probably won’t find much here to put you off. By building on the sturdy foundation of his previous two novels Sanderson is able to cut right to the chase and do away with any unnecessary setup. This book has a faster, more action oriented pace here and considering Sanderson’s tendency to overwrite a bit the two forces counteract each other to set up a well paced story.

And there’s some good payoff here, the biggest of which has to do with the heretofore unknown secret origins of the kandra. But there are other little treats layered in throughout the book about the true motives of the Lord Ruler, the balance between Preservation and Ruin and mysterious history of the planet.

I just wish that Sanderson had been able to maintain this pacing throughout the previous novels.

I’ve touched on the emo-elements of the two main characters, Vin and Elend, in my previous reviews. But in this novel, Sanderson tweaks the relationship slightly, creating lovers tortured by circumstances beyond their control rather than TWILIGHT style romances based on teenage angst and hormones. It’s a subtle change but one I whole heartedly embrace. I’m fine with conflicted protagonists, hell, I embrace them, I just don’t need them to remind me of that fact every time wander off alone.

And again, I give the Sanderson props for not putting his characters up on pedestals, protected and untouchable. It makes for much more interesting reading to know that any character, big or small, could suddenly find themselves shuffling off their mortal coil when faced with a stabby situation. No one is safe.

Quibbles? I have a few. I still think Sanderson spends too much time laying out the ground rules of HOW THINGS WORK (big booming god-like voice optional) and he often gets bogged down in describing what characters are thinking and feeling and ruminating about. He also has an unfortunate tendency to slow the story down a bit by unnecessarily describing everything around his characters.

(Yes. I know. They are living in a world beset my mist and falling ash. But if the aforementioned mist and ash are so bloody important at least bust out a thesaurus and use new words to describe them, like fog or cinders or something. Once you’ve described one ash choked landscape you’ve pretty much described them all.)

On the whole I enjoyed the series, was interested in the series; but I wasn’t particularly engaged in the series. While I can point to individual elements of the books and say, these things didn’t really work for me, in truth none of them were so egregious as to prevent me from enjoying the story or recommending it to others. There were things present here that I was genuinely interested in, it was just the execution and presentation that tripped me up.

I guess there was just something about this trilogy that just didn’t resonate with me. In the end I think I was reading it out of habit and not out of a burning desire to know what comes next.

Book Review: WELL OF ASCENSION by Brandon Sanderson

WELL OF ASCENSION (WoA) is the second novel in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy.

Those of you with enough time on your hands can read my review of the first entry, MISTBORN, here.

WoA picks up roughly a year after the events of MISTBORN.

Elend Venture has freed the skaa, brought stability to Luthadel and the Central Dominance and managed to cobble together a working government with himself as King.

Most days Elend has enough problems just trying to keep his government from tearing itself apart due to its own naked self interest. When two warring armies deposit themselves outside his front door he finds himself struggling to keep control of his Assembly, who would rather quietly surrender then fight for it. But who should they surrender to, the bloodthirsty Straff Venture, who just happens to be Elend’s father, or the crippled and enigmatic Lord Cett. Elend cobbles together a plan with the help of the remnants of Kelsier’s former crew to keep the Assembly occupied and play the two besieging armies off against each other.

Meanwhile Vin continues to develop her own Allomantic powers, honing them on her nightly patrols of Luthadel. Burning pewter to stave off exhaustion she still manages to spar with the mysterious Watcher who haunts the rooftops of the capitol city. Vin senses a change in the mist and all around her she perceives a great Allomantic pulse rippling through the city.

In the Southern Dominance Sazed, Vin’s former teacher and steward, is approached by Marsh to explore an abandoned Canton of Inquisition building. The two men find the building deserted, but Sazed locates a metal inscription that purports to be the chronicle of Kwaan, the Terrisman Worldbringer who first predicted the rise of the Hero of Ages.

(Look, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that you’ve read the previous book, because all the recappery in the world isn’t going to help that last sentence make sense unless you’ve got previous experience with the story.)

Leaving Marsh behind Sazed decides to return to Luthadel. On his way he notes a pair of disturbing observations, that the ubiquitous mists are now coming during the day and that an army of koloss, bloodthirsty semi-human savages, are on the march towards the capitol city.

Back in Luthadel Elend has been deposed because of his refusal to surrender the city. Freed from the restraints of royalty he casts about for other ways to serve his people and begins to fortify the city against the attack that he knows is coming. But time is running out, the armies are growing restless and it seems that no one has the will to stand-up for the skaa.

Beset by enemies both inside and outside their walls Vin, Elend and their allies must work quickly to put a plan in place that will return Elend to the throne and protect the people of Luthadel.

This is a much better book then the first entry into the series. Gone is the idiot primer that helped readers understand the properties of Allomancy. This leaves more real estate to actually tell a story.

Unfortunately, the romance novel motifs from the first book are still at play. Vin and Elend spend a LOT of time staring off into emo-space, questioning their abilities, their partner’s love for each other, their place in the world and so on and so forth. A little self doubt and uncertainty make for flawed characters and good readings. Too much self doubt makes Vin and Elend sound like whiny emo crybabies and bring the story action to a halt.

(It’s clear why Sanderson makes such a great replacement writer for Robert Jordan’s WHEEL OF TIME series, some of his inner monologues could be lifted directly from the Rand ‘al Thor school of self doubt.)

There was more than one occasion when I wanted to shout ‘Just get on with it’ as we evidenced, for the umpteenth time, just how conflicted these characters were. A little more restraint on the depiction of their inner turmoil would have gone a looong way to heightening the inter-character drama.

I also feel that a lot of conflicts for the main character group smacked of similarity. One invading army is tense, two invading armies has the potential for multi-pronged conflict, but throwing a third invading army into the mix, no matter how scary and frightening, just seems repetitive. Especially when you consider that for the bulk of the novel the armies just sat there and didn’t DO anything.

But I have to give Sanderson kudos for not being afraid to shake up his supporting characters. A number of his larger second tier characters, ones I would normally identify as being safe from any real harm, actually end up dying in the book’s final conflict. Rather than using the threat of death as a toothless danger he lets readers know that no one, well, almost no one, is safe. Seeing supporting characters dispatched in these numbers is a rarity for an ongoing series and I admire him for the choices he’s made. A lot of these deaths will clearly have ramifications for his surviving characters and could make for interesting growth in the next book.

An interesting read and I’m looking forward to the series final entry.

Book Review: MISTBORN by Brandon Sanderson

A thousand years ago the Lord Ruler fought against The Deepness at the Well of Ascension. He won and in his victory he retained a tiny sliver of Godhood for himself. But the battle changed the Lord Ruler from a cautious, but decent, warrior into a vicious, bloodthirsty tyrant.

Uniting all the kingdoms of the world under his banner the Lord Ruler burnt religion from the land and turned many of its people, the skaa, into slaves.

Today the skaa are beaten down and trodden upon, afraid to lift a hand against the God who rules them or the gathered nobility who carries out his every whim.

That is until Kelsier the Survivor of Hathsin arrives. Kelsier, along with a skaa thieving team, begins to put together an ingenious and seemingly impossible plan that to overthrow the Lord Ruler and free the skaa.

The team slowly cobbles together an army, fabricates a war amongst the nobility and plans for the day their people will finally be free.

Tasked with infiltrating the nobility in order to acquire valuable intelligence is Vin. Raised from the slums of the Lord Ruler’s capital Vin discovers she has the power of Allomancy, which allows her to ‘burn’ certain metals and temporarily acquire unique physical or mental abilities.

Vin attends the balls put on by the nobles and monitors the shifting alliances and loyalties of the Great Houses. It is here she meets the disillusioned Elend Venture, heir to the Venture seat. Elend is bored with the nobility’s endless politicking and yearns to change the world, but how?

MISTBORN, the first in a trilogy of novels, sets the foundation for a well thought out fantasy universe. The author, Brandon Sanderson, has clearly put in a lot of time constructing a universe with a rich and detailed history where every story element has a purpose.

But in the rush to make sure every tree in the forest fits into the overall narrative just so, Sanderson at times loses track of the dramatic thread of his work, needlessly explaining back story when he could be developing events in the here and now.

Show, don’t tell, is an essential truth when writing for the screen and it’s a lesson that would serve Sanderson well in this book. Essentially MISTBORN is an extended heist story that morphs into a standard swords, sandals and sorcery book by the end. Sanderson spends a considerable amount of time early on in the book laying out Kelsier’s plans. Plans are mad and remade and contingency plans are layered overtop just in case something unexpected to happen. But, by the time you make it out of this planning session the general thrust of the novel has been laid bare and any air of mystery about the heist has faded like the mists that permeate this world.

Adding to the aura of too much information is Vin’s training in the Allomantic arts. As a lifelong breaker of electronics, and analyst of everything, I enjoy delving into a number of mysteries in order to understand how they work. But when nearly every known element of Allomancy is explained in horribly intricate detail I got little frustrated.

It’s a little bit like sitting down to read a book you’ve eagerly been waiting for but being forced to read a two page executive summary first. Let me find out on my own! Let’s have some trial and error. Potential dramatic subplots about Vin’s Allomancy discoveries were seemingly tossed aside in favour of narrative expediency. Vin never gets to discover much about Allomancy on her own as its force fed to her in uninteresting information dumps.

I also found character lacking in this book. It seems inevitable that a collection of characters, who are defined by the single Allomantic trait they possess, would end up being one note individuals. But when the lead character’s development is so seriously flawed and contradictory it begins to strain reader suspension of disbelief.

Initially Vin is characterized as being a very repressed, low born thief with deep seated trust issues and anti-social tendencies. Seemingly, with little resistance at all, she casts off her former personality and quickly blossoms into a courageous, well-spoken Allomancer with scant evidence of her traumatic upbringing.

There’s a strain of torrid romance novel that runs through this story. Despite years of conditioning by her abusive brother, about the danger of trusting anyone, Vin almost immediately begins to fall for Elend Venture after a chance meeting a party. It’s the kind of forbidden affair that Harlequin novels and TWILIGHT aficionados thrive off of and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Vin’s character seems to be as pliable and flexible as Sanderson needs her to be, developing new personality traits seemingly at a whim.

These timely coincidences are unfortunately rampant in MISTBORN. In the build-up to the story’s climax Vin discovers heretofore unknown ways to maim and injure Steel Inquisitors, not using her Allomantic powers in a new and interesting way, but by simply MacGyvering common objects. Which is pretty amazing when you consider that Kelsier had been apparently been studying Inquisitors for years and hadn’t managed to come up with anything similar.

Brandon Sanderson is the author handpicked by Robert Jordan to carry the torch on his blockbuster WHEEL OF TIME series. Reading MISTBORN I can see why that might be the case. There are definite parallels between the two series that lend themselves well to a sympathetic treatment of Jordan’s work. In fact, Sanderson’s first two novels of in the WoT universe are some of the strongest and most accessible in recent years.

I can understand if you get the impression that I wasn’t big on MISTBORN. And that’s not the case at all. I enjoyed the book and the obvious affection Sanderson has for the characters and the world they live in. But too often I found myself distracted by the structural choices the author made in his writing and how it impacted my overall enjoyment of the finished product.

It's kind of like sitting down with a bunch of friends after movie night and saying “I think the film was great, but…” or “That was a really great sequence but that actor totally didn’t work for me.”

While I don’t believe MISTBORN to be the indicative of the quality Sanderson is capable of it is an interesting and enjoyable story nonetheless. I look forward to reading the next two books in the series to see if they can expand and develop the strong premise that Sanderson has set up here.

The Way Of Kings (The Stormlight Archive Vol. 1) - Brandon Sanderson - Review

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.

Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar’s niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan’s motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.


Brandon Sanderson is one of those names in the fantasy arena that we heard a fair bit of buzz about just after he released his debut novel ELANTRIS. Then more buzz as he released his first trilogy MISTBORN to a whack of good reviews and kudos. Though it can be argued that the mainstream audience of casual fantasy readers didn’t have a clue who the man was prior to him being chosen to pen the remaining three books in the popular WHEEL OF TIME series. Chosen by Robert Jordan himself (and his widow Harriet) to finish the series that Jordan knew he wouldn’t finish due to his terminal illness, Sanderson had gotten some pretty high praise just by being that choice. I only ever got five books into the WOT series, so I can’t weigh in on Sanderson’s addition to the series with the 13th volume, THE GATHERING STORM, released last year to fairly decent reviews. I believe Chris read it, so he could weigh in.

At any rate the man has been given a daunting job to do, finishing a series that has polarized fantasy fans and casual readers alike for nearly twenty years. I have enjoyed his writing since I first picked up a hardcover ELANTRIS in 2005 and took a chance on a new author, and I was blown away by the cleverness he showed (with ELANTRIS) and the promise as a worldbuilder and magic systems (with MISTBORN). Somewhere after he accepted the WOT gig from TOR, they commissioned him to begin his own epic high fantasy series (One that’s been gestating in his head for like ten years), and he actually found time to write the first one, THE WAY OF KINGS.

The first book in a proposed ten book series called THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE is a monstrous 1001 pages hardcover. To call this a doorstopper is being generous. It is a behemoth, and is filled with maps and drawings the calibre of which I’ve not seen in any other book. In short, the book is bloody gorgeous inside and out (the cover art is done by the splendid Michael Whelan, who Sanderson says always did the best art in the 80’s covers). I knew I wanted to read this book, and when I came upon it in the bookstore I snapped it up immediately and started in on it the next day.

Oh my gods this is a stunning book. It was odd to me to be so entirely involved in a book this large from the get-go and not stopping. I read it every last chance I got. I recall the first time I read Steven Erikson’s Malazan series and how I was pretty enthralled by their scope and story...but most of the books had portions that slowed a bit for me, or were tougher to get through. That, surprisingly, didn’t happen with THE WAY OF KINGS. I was tucking my nose inside it everyday and by the midway point I found that I preferred to sit down and read a few chapters than do anything else. It became one of those volumes where it’s 3AM and you keep saying to yourself “Okay, one more chapter” and then something happens and you have to keep going. Thus losing precious sleep, but I wasn't complaining.

The characters are well fleshed out, and you care about each of them in their own way. What’s reall remarkable, however, is that Sanderson seamlessly integrates the plots of POV characters Kaladin, Dalinar and Adolin whose story is the war side of Roshar and the fighting of a vengeance pact on the shattered plains (which are...exactly what they sound like and let me tell you battles have NEVER been done so interestingly and brilliantly) attempting to revenge for something that happens in the prologue, and the POV plotlines of Shallan and Jasnah which follows a much different historical mystery study of Roshar and the great thing is that all these storylines are each compelling on their own, but as they sit as disparate parts of the world Sanderson creates they are also unified by relations, and even as a whole to what is transpiring. It’s like seeing all the pieces on a chess board arranged, and though you can’t tell who is going to win, it is unendingly interesting to watch the players make expert moves that you can tell are leading to something very big.

I think we are in for a significant treat with the rest of THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE. Roshar is incredibly realized and vivid, with its highstorms and adaptable plantlife, its various kingdoms and human lives, not to mention the huge historical backstory that is thousands of years old, but never feels like too much to handle. Sanderson has a deft hand at giving us that which we require to push forward but it never feels like he overwhelms us. He knows exactly how human beings interact and how things like love, honour, and betrayal can build from nothing to a crescendo. How the human spirit is at once a gloomy thing as well as a splendid thing. I won’t say too much about specific plot points, but sufficed to say that the last 400 pages or so of this book the pace went from fast to bloody lightning burning through my hands. The ending was a triumph that I can even explain properly in words, and left me completely salivating for the next in the series. I was sad there wasn’t any more to read, and decided that I read it too fast. I found myself wishing I could be at the beginning all over again.

This is Sanderson’s most accomplished work to date, and has all the trappings of catapulting him into the stratosphere of new fantasy authors. I actually went out on a limb when I finished it and called it the BEST BOOK I’VE EVER READ. Weeks later, as I sit writing this review, that is still true. Hands down the best.

I stand in awe of this man’s skill.

If I get you to read one book in 2010, please let it be this one. I can’t recommend it highly enough.