Review: ‘The Alloy of Law’ by Brandon Sanderson

Centuries after the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is on the verge of modernity — railroads, electric street lights, and skyscrapers. Waxillium Ladrian can Push on metals with his Allomancy and use Feruchemy to become lighter or heavier at will. After 20 years in the dusty Roughs, in the city of Elendel, the new head of a noble house may need to keep his guns.

The Alloy of Law is the fourth book (of six) in the Mistborn series, but — because the series is divided into two trilogies — it’s actually the first book in the second trilogy. As a result, you don’t have to have read the preceding three books in order to make sense of this one (though the religious references won’t be as interesting if you don’t).

I’m in more than a little awe of Sanderson. The first three books were a somewhat traditional (though not really) epic fantasy series. The Alloy of Law is set 300 years later in the same world — a world where technology has advanced to something resembling the 19th century. There’s still magic, in the form of Allomancy and Feruchemy, the metal-based Mistborn magic system. But there are also guns, trains and electricity. As a result, in some ways this book defies characterisation. Is it steampunk? Fantasy? An alternate world Western set in the big city? I don’t know … and that’s always an exciting thing to find!

Wax is your traditional Western action hero (with superpowers): highly competent and with a tragedy in his past that means he shies away from love. Wayne is a hilarious and crass master of disguise who “trades” for things rather than stealing them (although the trades generally occur without the other party’s consent). Both of them are fun characters, though I didn’t enjoy them as much as Sazed, Breeze or Elend from the first three books.

Lady Marasi, the noblewoman who is studying to be a legal attorney, is a lot more interesting, to my mind. She’s easily embarrassed but also a crack shot with a rifle, and she has a crush on Wax from before she meets him. She and he are well-matched in terms of both their interests and their intelligence, so Wax’s denial of the fact she’s clearly perfect for him is a little frustrating.

Overall, this was a fun book, though a little bit more predictable and less compelling than the first trilogy was. There was only one plot twist I didn’t see coming, and I wasn’t as invested in it as maybe I should have been. (That could be a result of the fact I listened to this book on either side of my son breaking his arm and spending a night in hospital, though — I had other things on my mind!)

Still, I enjoyed The Alloy of Law and have already started on the next book, Shadows of Self.