Back when I read The Alloy of Law, I said it was a feature that my brain had already erased everything except the broad outlines of what had happened in the Mistborn trilogy. This is because the characters are living 300 years in the future created by their new god, and most of what happened in the short months or years during which the old empire fell and he rose are already the stuff of half-remembered legend instead of researched historical fact.

Well, now that I’ve read Shadows of Self (at a glacial pace that reflects how busy I’ve been these past months[1] rather than anything about the book or my enjoyment thereof), I can safely say that is no longer a benefit. Because the characters definitely remember things like kandra, which are a race of shapeshifters that require other living things to not be formless balls of glop (at least I think that’s right), and also they need metal spikes to have intelligence. And they are also god’s butlers or angels or something, serving both the old god and the new. I mean, not right now, but respectively[2]. Oh, and one of them has maybe gone crazy.

This is the first book of a trilogy, I guess? Or maybe the second of a quartet, I’m not sure how to tell the difference yet. It’s definitely good, and good to see Wax and Wayne and Marasi back in action. Both because I already liked them and because they continue to grow and backfill and change. On top of both plot and characters I approve of, it’s a book about identity, class politics, and freedom vs. servitude. And maybe even alien invasion?

I mean, probably not the last thing.

[1] What with losing a job, then maybe not losing the job, then continuing at said job while waiting for a new job, then losing the job again, then finally getting a new job after all, oh and also getting married. (Plus witnessing the plausible collapse of an inclusive, just society.)
[2] Don’t get me wrong, I apparently picked up on all that eventually, but it definitely felt like I shouldn’t have been playing catch-up.

I should have finished this book weeks ago, right? But at 75% through it (and, as I later discovered, right at the cutoff before the climax started, so at least my timing was good?), I lost my tablet in a tragic accident involving angular momentum and inertia; a few hours later, I learned that the touch screen of my Kindle Touch had ceased working, which made it unusable also even though it powered on nice as you please. Both devices have since been replaced, which is nice, and in the meantime I read a paper book, as you know.

If you wonder why I roll my eyes every time someone disparages my physical collection of dead trees, this is pretty much why right here. You can say I could have read things on my phone in the meantime, but…. nope. Too small, wrong proportions, just, no.

In the meantime, though, I’ll keep buying stupidly cheap daily deal ebooks because I am Amazon’s bitch, which in this case explains why I didn’t have a physical copy of The Alloy of Law in the first place. Obviously I like Sanderson and would have bought a Mistborn sequel, right? Just, the ebook found me first, so.

As far as the book? It was interesting having the same experience as the characters, where history had faded to legend, and most of the details were probably wrong. See, the book is set hundreds of years after the Mistborn trilogy concluded, and while it has not been hundreds of years for me personally, I could hardly remember more than the broadest strokes of what went down, and the characters here thinking over the way the world used to be, it was just wrong enough for me to know they had things wrong without knowing what was right instead. I don’t know how to have that kind of experience except by sheer luck, but it made the book an extra bit cooler, no doubt.

Anyway: it’s a Mistborn book, right? People can use allomancy to take certain metals and give themselves cool powers, same as always. But now there are guns and trains and… it’s not steampunk, right? There’s no steam-based science, mainly. Magic, sure, and a Victorian period setting, but those do not steampunk make. If you’re allergic and that’s what was keeping you away, don’t worry! If you’re allergic to a world evolving over time, that’s silly. If you didn’t like Mistborn the first time around? Well, this is not epic fantasy like that was, and it may help? But it is almost certainly the first book in a trilogy rather than fully standalone. So if you’re allergic to that, I got nothing.

Otherwise, enjoy! I did.

At long, long last, I have found copies of some of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy. Sanderson, you may already be aware, is about to publish the first of the concluding volumes to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. Naturally, therefore, I’m interested in seeing how his previous writing style goes. And awesomely, I can report that Elantris was not a one-hit wonder.

The Final Empire tells the story of an indentured people that have been held down for a thousand years partially by the ruling noble class but mostly by the Lord Emperor, an immortal god-ascended man who once saved the world from a vague being known only as the Deepness, and by that man’s Inquisitors. It doesn’t help the enslaved skaa that the nobles are not only propped up by the regime, but that some of them also have magic powers derived from burning ingested metals and related alloys, such that they can see better or have more strength than normal people, or even influence emotions. Skaa women with whom the nobles dally are immediately killed to prevent the talents from entering that population, though of course it’s not a perfect system…

And then, there are those who have not the power to burn one metal, but the power to burn them all. These Mistborn are virtually unstoppable, except in combat with each other, or with the Lord Ruler’s Inquisitors. A skaa Mistborn would be the most dangerous creature the Final Empire has ever encountered. And though I bet you can guess what happens next, the story has twists and turns galore to keep you guessing at every moment. And after a full-blown stand-alone conclusion, there are still two more books worth of supposed awesome ahead of me!