A review by larkspire
The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson

4.0

I have to admit that despite hearing good things about Mistborn Era 2, I was a little apprehensive at first. Aside from a new cast of characters, I don't generally enjoy fantasy set in this sort of era as much as I do others, and I wasn't certain that allomancy and feruchemy would work quite as well. I shouldn't have doubted! This is everything I could have wanted and more, including references to the first era.

The setting might even work better with the magic systems of Mistborn better than the pseudo-late Middle Ages did in the first era. Wax and Wayne are pretty interesting, and I think it's an asset to the story and the world that neither are Mistborn. I generally find that the more limitations a character has, the more interesting they are, and that holds true here. (I would have added "and they don't have to be pitted against near-immortals for the stakes to be meaningful", but then Sanderson did that anyway. Oh well. At least it isn't a near-immortal with all the other allomantic and feruchemical powers on top of it.) I especially like Wayne and the way he embodies his characters/disguises. And then Marasi is terrific, of course.

Sanderson's writing is as on-form as usual, and he continues to find ways to make just about everything mentioned in the story useful. It's something of a guessing game with him at this point - "in what unexpected ways will this be useful?" - but one I'm not tired of yet. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that even aluminum and duralumin mistings have some kind of key useful role to play with their useless powers. I'm also consistently impressed with Sanderson's plotting in itself. I enjoy his direct style, but it always sort of lulls me into a false sense of security - he's so clear and reveals so much that it's hard to remember he enjoys good twists and also likes to hide things. I was even more apprehensive about the planned modern-day Era 3, but for now I think I can relax.