Alloy of Law is my favorite Mistborn

[Mr. Misting he/him]

So I have heard in the fandom a general agreement that Alloy of Law is the weakest era 2 book. I have very differing opinions on this topic. When I first read Brandon Sanderson I went through all of the mistborn and easily thought Alloy was my favorite. Even though it's a much smaller book, in terms of plot and stacks, I still love the characters and arcs seen in it. The fight near the end in the warehouse is so cool, and getting to explore era 2 for the first time was also pretty great. 

Shadows of Self is also pretty good, but the high pace speed was a lot for me. I liked a lot of the plot and it was a cool thriller, high stakes detective thing. Parts of the kandra stuff I didn't love and other elements just didn't land right for me. Still an awesome book but not as good as Alloy in my opinion. Bands of mourning... I kind of got lost in all the sci-fi stuff. The second half of the book I was confused and it felt totally off of the style of the other two books, I still like BoM but it is low on my favorite Brandon Sanderson books.

So, in conclusion I think of Alloy of Law is one of my favorite Brandon Sanderson books, probably top three, but easily my favorite Mistborn. So you see why I was confused when every was down on it. Please explain to me why you think the other Mistborn books are better or if you think this is the best one also.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Mr. Misting

[Mr. Misting he/him]

And while I'm making hot takes I might as well make another controversial opinion. Some people really dislike the Wayne chapter on BoM before he jumps on the train. That happens to be my second favorite chapter of all time (the first is chapter 73 in Wise Man's Fear, but only the first section)

[I think I am here. he/him]

I’m with you there. I love Westerns and there was just something quintessentially awesome about a Mistborn Western the first time I read Alloy of Law. Miles was a super cool villain and a great way to introduce compounding. I remember really enjoying Wax’s fight with the Push/Pull agents on the rooftops, too.

I think the whole Western thing got lost slightly as the series went on, but I still heavily enjoy the other books. I actually really dug the whole Kandra thing in SoS and how it could be anyone. BoM I think I enjoyed for the implications on the wider Cosmere.

But something about Alloy of Law just feels classic to me. It’s short and sweet.

[Mr. Misting he/him]

Yeah! That’s exactly what I was thinking, you just said it a lot better

[cometaryorbit]

On 8/6/2022 at 2:50 PM, I think I am here. said:

I think the whole Western thing got lost slightly as the series went on, but I still heavily enjoy the other books. I actually really dug the whole Kandra thing in SoS and how it could be anyone. BoM I think I enjoyed for the implications on the wider Cosmere.

I think each Era 2 book so far is pulp inspired, but a slightly different genre/subgenre: AoL is a western, SoS is a thriller, and BoM is an Indiana Jones style adventure.

[I think I am here. he/him]

13 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I think each Era 2 book so far is pulp inspired, but a slightly different genre/subgenre: AoL is a western, SoS is a thriller, and BoM is an Indiana Jones style adventure.

I never really considered that before, but now that you mention it, it makes sense in a way. Makes me wonder what style Lost Metal is going to be. Slipstream sci-fi? Dinosaurs?  

[+Invocation]

13 minutes ago, I think I am here. said:

I never really considered that before, but now that you mention it, it makes sense in a way. Makes me wonder what style Lost Metal is going to be. Slipstream sci-fi? Dinosaurs?  

Mistborn 7: Allomantic Dinosaurs
I'd read it.

[Returned]

I like all of the books, and feel that era 2 gets a bad objective rap but a fair relative reputation. I think that they're better books than they are often rated but are still less good than era 1. There are a few reasons I feel Alloy is the weakest of the Mistborn novels (and era 2 is the weakest grouping in that series):

 

• The pulp stylings are interesting to me, but getting the stories into that form sometimes comes off as a bit shallow and gimmicky (pulp has some characteristic shallowness to it, and I perceived some of the writing choices as being motivated more by "this book is a Western, so this detail is here" rather than "these details are organic to the story, and also fit a Western, so this story has a Western vibe"). And I don't love pulp enough for excitement about that form to compensate for things I like less.

 

• Most Sanderson books take cool, original ideas and then extend them naturally and logically into the world of that book. We got glimpses of how Allomancy and Feruchemy shaped the very original setting of the Final Empire, how a Soother might think of a problem compared with a Pewterarm, how becoming a tin savant would change the way you experience the world, and things like that. In era 2, we have a setting defined by the trappings that relate it to the genres it's aiming for (the Roughs are obviously "Old West" towns and deliver little beyond what you'd expect from any Western) and magic powers are just sort of... there, for the most part. Some of this is by design, as Allomancy and Feruchemy are both weaker and less common in era 2, but the effect is the same regardless. BoM breaks with this in describing South Scadrial, where Feruchemy is all but necessary for life and civilization, but that's only in the tail end of three novels.

 

• The characters are relatively static and flat, especially in Alloy. They're largely the same people at the beginning of Alloy as they are at the end, which is fine because they already had and were all of the things they needed to have and be to deal with the obstacles in the plot. Major character points tend to have already happened off-camera (like Wayne's manslaughter) and internal doubt about what they're doing and why is rare. This isn't 100% the case across the books, especially for Wax in SoS and BoM (he grows quite a bit). It also happens, to a much lesser extent, with Marasi and Steris, but most of that is achieved by a character's own declaration ("I was that way, which wasn't suitable, so now I'm this way instead"). But there is less growth and change in characters than was the case in the first set of Mistborn books, and even that lesser degree of growth takes far more pages to come to pass with only modest development along the way. I still like the characters (especially Steris!), but this is a problem for me.

 

• The characters are almost flawlessly good at their (non-overlapping) specialties and expert at when to deploy them, while complications tend to be arbitrary and orthogonal  to the tasks at hand. In other words, the characters nearly always succeed at what they're trying to do and the complications would always have come up regardless of what they did. These led to me having a hard time getting invested in the stakes of any particular conflict in the books. A few examples:
  • When Wayne puts on a disguise, regardless of the situation or goal, the disguise works perfectly and accomplishes whatever the objective was without issue.
  • When Marasi considers statistics, she always identifies the correct details and comes to the right conclusions in time to make a difference.
  • Worst of all, Wax is more or less a Mary Sue-- he's irresistibly good at everything, and saying "a lawman in the Roughs needs to be good at a lot of things" is a weak lampshade.

 

• The era 2 books are more strongly serialized than era 1 but paced a bit awkwardly (for my tastes). Too many pages are used explicitly setting up things that don't matter much now and won't be addressed until a later book. The Set is a pretty persistent antagonist group and gets a lot of screen time and discussion, yet very little information about them has come across except to underscore that. And even then the protagonists deal with them mostly indirectly and reluctantly, despite being aware of the Set as their major enemies. Era 2 feels more like Batman vs. the Joker to me-- the Joker is the villain in this book and will be the villain in the next one, and nothing Batman does will influence that or affect in any way what the Joker tries to do or how he tries to do it. The era 1 books have connections that link them and are apparent on re-reading but each volume stands fairly well on its own.

 

I still like the era 2 books, and am very excited for Lost Metal. But while the era 2 books are exciting and fun I, personally, also find them shallower, less compelling, and containing fewer novel ideas than era 1. The genre details that undergird much of era 2 are fun and often interesting, but not enough so for my personal tastes to offset those. Era 2 barely even approaches era 1 in my esteem slightly because era 2 is a little bit awkward, but mainly because I think so highly of era 1.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Returned

[cometaryorbit]

I agree there is less character development and depth than Era 1, but I am not sure I see that as necessarily a bad thing - they're shorter books in a more pulp/action-driven style.

But then this is from the perspective of someone who genuinely enjoys, and re-reads, a lot of old pulp writing which was generally much more action over character development than Era 2 is. I can totally see that it could be a letdown after Era 1 Mistborn, though I didn't see it that way.

Actually when I first read the first Mistborn book, part of what really hooked me was that the main plot of the first book was actually resolved in the first book. I knew it was going to be a trilogy so I really didn't expect the Lord Ruler to die in book 1.

 

Edited August 10, 2022 by cometaryorbit

[AquaRegia he/him]

Nothing anyone says about why they like or dislike a work of art can be refuted; we each like what we like, and we're different.  MB Era 1 was epic fantasy, thus people who prefer that genre prefer those novels.  MB Era 2 was intended to be something different, shorter, funnier, "pulpier".  I love them all, but when I want to read for just an hour and really have fun, I'll always choose Era 2 over Era 1.

I agree that Wax is implausibly good at everything, but despite all his expertise he's still flawed, haunted by his past and fighting his own character defects.  For me, this makes him a relatable character who is a lot of fun to read.

Based on the progression of Scadrial shown in the first three novels (roughly 1880 - 1920), my guesses regarding the style would include 1) WW1-era political/spy thriller, 2) roaring '20s adventure romp, including early Northern Scadrial aircraft, or maybe even 3) WW2 type race for the ultimate Allomantic weapon, a la the Manhattan Project.  I expect inspiration from Sherlock Holmes, Indiana Jones, and possibly a little James Bond.  I also expect it's going to make me laugh out loud a number of times.

[Uncreation]

On 8/6/2022 at 0:50 PM, Mr. Misting said:

 but easily my favorite Mistborn. So you see why I was confused when every was down on it. Please explain to me why you think the other Mistborn books are better or if you think this is the best one also.

I say this often. Yet I am usually shouted down (on reddit). I think the Wax and Wayne books are the best entry point into the Cosmere. They are by far the most accessible Cosmere books.