Mistborn: The Alloy of Law by: Brandon Sanderson

Writing a time skip in your series is a very difficult thing to do accurately and can be done either one of two ways.  First, you can make it a short skip so you can keep the same characters who are now older and more experienced or second, you can make it a large skip and keep the same world, but introduce a whole new set of characters.  In continuing Mistborn, Brandon Sanderson goes with the latter approach, jumping forward three centuries and introducing an entirely new cast of characters in The Alloy of Law.  The existence of this novel is interesting as Sanderson never intended the second era of Mistborn to be this early in the timeline, instead wishing for what is now to be known as Era Three.  The book was written to be a transitory novel and as such does not like the first book in a series, but a complete standalone tale.  As such it’s a much shorter novel than the initial trilogy, only coming in at about 380 pages and providing a relatively quick read.  Sanderson makes the correct decision to introduce a smaller cast of characters and play in the sandbox of an idealized Wild West version of Scadriel before wrapping things up in enough of a bow that the next era of Mistborn could begin straight away.  Of course, this isn’t how it turned out as The Alloy of Law begins Mistborn Era Two which has already published three volumes, with a fourth coming at some point in the future (probably 2021).

The Wild West theme in this novel is taken to full effect as Scadriel has become industrialized, much further than it was in the original trilogy.  There are early automobiles and trains, and a police force not unlike the Victorian police as Sanderson sets things up, while the main characters don’t represent cowboys so much as lawmen.  Both main characters use guns, something that Sanderson clearly has thought about how it would work with Allomancy and Feruchemy working together.  There’s a decent portion where the main characters are receiving special guns which allows Sanderson to go hard on explaining how this technology works with the magic system he has in place.  Hemallurgy seems to be one part of the magic system which has been forgotten or at least left in the past with the new technology.  There are also trains, the trains are fun and oddly just work in with the setting incredibly well.  It’s impossible to deny that Sanderson’s setting is one of a romanticized Wild West: there is an unspoken code of chivalry and the tropes of a Wild West story are played around with throughout the novel.  If you’re looking for realism, this isn’t the book for you, but if you’re looking for an escape into a fun fantasy pastiche of the Wild West, this may be the book for you.  The plot of The Alloy of Law is a fairly standard hero kidnaps a damsel in distress tale of this type of Wild West story, but Sanderson does make up for the lack of depth in introducing some really fun characters.

Sanderson introduces a double act of main characters who bounce off each other brilliantly.  First is Waxillium Ladrian, the main point of view character, and the one with the most focus throughout the book.  The prologue sets Wax up as a lawman in grief over a lost love being forced to marry due to his status as a lord, his fiancé becoming the victim of a kidnapping by a band of Allomantic robbers.  He’s the straight man of the pair, with a dry way of speaking and a distant personality, affected greatly by the grief of losing his love.  He’s also a character who is restraining himself to fit into society, hiding a more adventurous nature and an itching to see justice served to evildoers.  He is the heir to his royal house and doesn’t really know what to do with that information.  Wayne is the other half of the pair and he is straight comedy.  Lovable rogue comes to mind when discussing Wayne, but he’s a bit more than that.  He’s a master of disguise, adopting several throughout the novel to Wax’s own chagrin.  He’s also kind of a criminal and general bad influence, but Sanderson gives him such charm that everything works really well.  Both characters are Twinborn, a new kind of magic user on Scadriel, essentially Mistings which can use one Feruchemical talent, creating new and interesting combinations of power sets.  The Alloy of Law is not a book where the godlike strength of Vin, Elend, and Sazed is present, instead opting for people who are skilled, but still regular people.  Wax’s fiancé is really the weaker character: Steris is a proper lady and that’s really it.  She’s the damsel, the thing for Wax and Wayne to reluctantly save (they aren’t really in love, both are just marrying for power).  The marriage contract is interesting and at least on the surface not predatory.  Her illegitimate sister Marasi is much more interesting and works really well with Wax and Wayne.  Not romantically, but just as a group of three misfits attempting to save the day.  Sure she’s really insecure at the beginning of the novel, but that’s where her character arc is growing out of.

Overall, The Alloy of Law isn’t at all like the first Mistborn trilogy, however, there is enough to like here that it is a worthwhile read.  What it lacks in plot, it makes up for in characters, who are incredibly fun.  7/10.

The Dying Days by: Lance Parkin - A Re-Review

The Doctor Who fandom doesn’t really appreciate how good the Virgin New Adventures run was.  Running from June 1991 to April 1997, this series of 61 novels were the primary source of new Doctor Who stories once the show was taken off-air in 1989.  Sure, there was a rough start but by the final novel’s release date in April 1997, the novel line had a system and was ready to go out with a bang.  The previous novel finished the Seventh Doctor’s adventures with Lungbarrow completed the Cartmel Master Plan and wrapped many of his threads up, and the final book works to set up the continuation separate from Doctor Who.  The Dying Days is the first original novel to feature the Eighth Doctor, Bernice Summerfield, Ice Warriors invading England, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and Brigadier Bambera.  Lance Parkin writes a novel that demonstrates how even with a story that could easily be on television in the era.  There are only ever three Ice Warriors in a room at one point, much of the special effects could easily be done with models and minimal CGI, and there are plenty of action sequences and chases to keep things going.

 

The structure is also an obvious send-up to the Pertwee era with UNIT as a driving force of combating the invasion.  The Brigadier is called out of retirement and Brigadier Bambera is there for support.  If there was one complaint it’s that while Bambera is used well, she is still relegated to a supporting character for the novel.  There’s some great stuff early on with Bambera: catching up with her relationship with Ancelyn, and attempting to get to the bottom of the conspiracy with the Ice Warriors.  Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, on the other hand, gets to have one final spotlight as UNIT is brought to 1997, after Battlefield, and with a compromise in the team.  The Brigadier has to help Alexander Christian, an astronaut who worked with UNIT, apparently responsible for murdering his crew on a mission to Mars.  There is a real connection between the two men: both have seen real horror in their time, and that horror is almost coming back to haunt them.  There is also something amazing about the Eighth Doctor meeting the Brigadier: they immediately create a rapport between each other, helped by an unseen adventure which is in the Doctor’s future, and there really is a sense that the Brigadier would do anything for the Doctor.

 

Bernice Summerfield, however, really is the start of the show.  Since Happy Endings, the Virgin New Adventures has been wrapping up her character.  She found her father in Return of the Living Dad, said goodbye to Roz in So Vile a Sin, and prepared for her own series of adventures in Eternity Weeps, but The Dying Days is where those adventures start.  Several sections of the book are told from her perspective which makes her really see what she can do as a professor on Dellah, the beginning of her own series after this novel.  Her relationship with the Eighth Doctor also allows Lance Parkin to really create a dissociation with the characters.  The Eighth Doctor is not the Seventh Doctor: there isn’t a master manipulation and he’s really just making things up as he goes along.  Parkin does an admirable job of characterizing the character from only having the TV Movie to work off.  There is no doubt that Paul McGann is the Doctor from this book, and while the BBC Books would go in a very different direction, this allows a glimpse into an Eighth Doctor era that never was.

 

Lance Parkin is also incredible at writing a book from an alien perspective.  The Ice Warriors in the novel get their own points of view throughout the novel and these sections are written as if they are by an alien and translated into English.  The spelling of the sections, especially in referring to the human characters, are done using English translations of Martian, often replacing ‘s’ with ‘x’, and ‘ai’ with ‘y.’ It’s a small detail in the prose, but its inclusion makes the experience of reading it much more immersive.  The Ice Warriors are also characterized incredibly well: warlike, yet honorable to a fault.  They don’t necessarily understand humanity, and are only invading because of humanity’s own disruption of Mars.  Parkin also includes a human villain in Lord Greyhaven, a power-hungry man working to become Prime Minister by getting the Ice Warrior Xznaal crowned the king of England.  He has been playing the long game which makes him a perfect match for the Seventh Doctor, and an even better foil for a novel that doesn’t include the Seventh Doctor.  It never becomes parody of the Seventh Doctor, but it is enough to make it interesting.  Overall, The Dying Days is a brilliant end where Lance Parkin is allowed to give the range an ending with a bang and get back at comments made by Philip Segal about how you can’t do an invasion on a BBC budget.  9/10.

Mistborn: The Hero of Ages by: Brandon Sanderson

The first Mistborn trilogy ends with The Hero of Ages as its final installment where the stakes are raised and Brandon Sanderson promises that not every character will make it out alive.  While the first two novels in the trilogy include a gradual power incline in terms of their heroes and villains, but this is turned up to eleven in the final novel as the villain is an anthropomorphized personification of the concept of evil itself.  “Ruin” like the other two villains in the trilogy follows the same format of being off the page for much of the novel’s page count, but its effects are still felt by the characters and through their actions.  The world of Scadriel is literally turning to a ruinous state as the mists are invading, ash is falling more than ever, and people are falling ill.  Sanderson sets this book as characters in a time of plague, perhaps explaining why it took far too long to finish reading.  “Ruin” as a character allows Sanderson to explore religious themes as the “Hero of Ages” is eventually revealed to be a literal translation for the concept of a God.  By God, Sanderson explicitly states an omniscient, omnipresent, and all-loving deity through his wordplay, which is where the book perhaps falls down in its theming.  There is a success in the novel where the misdirection on who the Hero of Ages is, as it is a final twist for the story, and at least poking fun at the ‘fantasy hero becomes a god’ trope in fiction, however, it is the weaker apologetics in the book which brings things in The Hero of Ages to leave the reader wanting.

Sanderson does succeed in making “Ruin” work as an amoral force of nature, avoiding becoming an analogy to the concept of Satan.  “Ruin” is a fully fleshed out character who only seems to be tormenting Vin in the second half of the novel because we are seeing its actions through her eyes.  It’s also what pushes Vin to the completion of her own arc: it is only in The Hero of Ages where she really can recover from the abuse that her brother put her through as a child; it is only here where she truly can love Elend, in what is essentially his final moments.  Vin has gained power and much like the Lord Ruler in The Final Empire, she is starting down almost the same path.  She wants to see everyone saved, which is what brought the Lord Ruler into his tyranny, and the reader hangs on to see just how her character arc will conclude.  On the other hand, Elend essentially serves as Vin’s own foil.  His growth to leadership in The Well of Ascension has grown here as he has found himself to be a Mistborn, and he serves, for the first time, as a primary protagonist for the series: leading his troops and acting as a general throughout the novel.

The worldbuilding is also a point where the novel shines as Sanderson really explores the origins of his fantasy creatures as either of “Ruin” or of “Ruin’s” opposite “Preservation”.  Much time is spent with the kandra, eventually culminating in the reveal of how the kandra and koloss came to be.  Sanderson lets his horror muscles fly as there is quite a bit of body horror here as spikes being driven into people to put them under someone’s power are described in detail.  Marsh gets his own point of view which creates a disconnect for the character as he has lost all of his humanity at this point.  He is not acting in his own manner and does horrendous acts, yet is redeemed in the end by being allowed a quick death.  There’s also deeper themes of making men into idols, with apparitions of Kelsier being shown to Spook, implied to either be part of “Ruin” or of “Preservation” in this novel.  Spook is one of those interesting background characters, who Sanderson uses for several purposes throughout the trilogy, from comic relief, to being given his own story of growth.  The Hero of Ages may have more issues than the previous installments in the trilogy, but it does provide a satisfactory end to the story.  Yes, there are more Mistborn novels, but they tell different stories set further in the future.  As a book, it makes the trilogy worthwhile and if you have read the first two there really is no reason as to not pick up this concluding installment.  8/10.