The Alloy Of Law

I was excited to watch the growth of this book, chronicled on Twitter and Facebook,  as it rapidly grew from a short novella to a full on novel. Although still a 'short' story by Brandon Sanderson's standards, it is a worthy entry into Brandon's world of Mistborn. The prior trilogy of novels dealt with Min and her adventures, while this new book jumps ahead in time hundreds of years. In this novel, it is akin to a Western novel set in the Mistborn world. The hero, Waxillium (Wax) Ladrian,  is a bounty hunter type who works on the fringes of society, in a Wild West setting with a Steampunk flair.

After a devastating event in the first scene of the book, Wax returns to the main capitol and we find out that not only is Wax a bounty hunter, he is also a noble with lands and an estate with lots of money. Wax gives up his bounty hunting and tries to live a respectable life, settle down and get married. Well, this new lifestyle for Wax doesn't last long as a new mystery develops and Wax jumps into the thick of things to try and resolve this new conflict.

While the story of The Alloy of Law is entertaining and fast paced, the most entertaining part of the story is the advancement of the magic system - Allomancy.  There are some new twists with Allomancy and Wax is a creative genius with these powers at his disposal. Wax demonstrates his expertise with Allomancy throughout the story and shows an intelligence that is not dependent solely on Allomancy.

Not only has the Allomancy progressed but the civilization has as well. Electricity, trains, and guns play a major part in the story.  These new advancements in technology not only stand on their own and play a part in the story, but combined with Allomancy, this technology brings about scenarios that could not occur in the original Mistborn trilogy. This makes for a very entertaining story.

These new technological and magical advancements take a back seat to Brandon Sanderson's writing. As usual Brandon brings his fast paced, easy to read and well written style to this novel. He creates a great main character in Wax, and the secondary characters are well developed for the amount of storytime they are given. The plot is well developed, easy to follow and makes sense throughout the narrative. My only complaint of the story is that it is too short! I'm used to the sprawling and lengthy novels that take weeks to read that Brandon has written in the past.  This novel took me about two days to read (reading after work) and when I was done I was left wanting more.  Primarily due to how good the story was and how fun it was to read. However, I guess that is one of the goals of the writer; to create a story that when it is done, the reader is left satisfied but yet wanting more which was definitely the case with Alloy of Law.