THE LOST METAL
BRANDON SANDERSON
*****
Orion Publishing Group - Gollancz have very kindly asked me to participate in their blog tour for the latest book in my favourite fantasy series - The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson which is part of the Mistborn series! I cannot tell you how excited I am to join in - I'll start by telling you all about the book and then share my review!
THE BOOK
Return to #1 New York Times bestseller Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn world of Scadrial as its second era, which began with THE ALLOY OF LAW, comes to its earth-shattering conclusion in THE LOST METAL.
For years, frontier lawman turned big-city senator Waxillium Ladrian has hunted the shadowy organization the Set - with his late uncle and his sister among their leaders - since they started kidnapping people with the power of Allomancy in their bloodlines. When Detective Marasi Colms and her partner, Wayne, find stockpiled weapons bound for the Outer City of Bilming, this opens a new lead. Conflict between the capital, Elendel, and the Outer Cities only favors the Set, and their tendrils now reach to the Elendel Senate - whose corruption Wax and his wife, Steris, have sought to expose - and Bilming is even more entangled.
After Wax discovers a new type of explosive that can unleash unprecedented destruction and realizes that the Set must already have it, an immortal kandra serving Scadrial's god, Harmony, reveals that Bilming has fallen under the influence of another god: Trell, worshipped by the Set. And Trell isn't the only factor at play from the larger Cosmere - Marasi is recruited by offworlders with strange abilities who claim their goal is to protect Scadrial...at any cost.
Wax must choose whether to set aside his rocky relationship with God and once again become the Sword that Harmony has groomed him to be. If no one steps forward to be the hero Scadrial needs, the planet and its millions of people will come to a sudden and calamitous ruin.
MY REVIEW
*****
Whenever anyone has asked me what my favourite fantasy books are over the past few years, it has always been, without any hesitation, the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. Although the last one came out 6 years ago, the series as a whole has always held a special place in my heart. So, when I was asked to review an ARC of the brand-new instalment - ‘The Lost Metal’, I jumped at the chance!
However, as it has been so long since I read the rest of the series, I did need a refresher and I do recommend that you do this even if you have read them before. I wanted to read all six, but my deadline was looming and the first series is very long! So, I read the first and part of the second to remind myself of the magic system and the initial characters of Era 1 before jumping to read 4, 5 and 6 which are part of Era 2. If you are unaware of the series, the two eras are set in the same world, but Era 2 takes place 300 years after the previous series, where the events that have gone before are now stories of myth and legend or the basis for new religions. Although Era 1 is a more traditional fantasy setting, Era 2 is in a more steam-punk industrial revolution type setting with a bit of a Wild West flare in places. You can just jump straight into Era 2, but particularly for this latest addition, there are lots of characters and events referenced from the first Era in here so it might be a good idea to read them all – plus they are all fabulous books, so you are really missing out if you don’t read them!
I have always really loved the characters of the Misborn series, and they all feel realistic and are defined in great detail, with witty dialogue and great character progression which happens throughout. In Era 2 Wax and Wayne are our two (unlikely) heroes and they are both given some fantastic progression in this book. Wayne has always been a firm favourite of mine and some of the dialogue for him in particular is brilliant. I also like that there are strong female leads as well and also that all of the heroes are flawed but this just makes them more relatable. I particularly found myself empathising with Steris in the last 2 books which I wouldn’t have guessed from her introduction in book 4!
There didn’t feel like a 6-year gap between this book and the last one – it feels very much a part of the extended trilogy. There is more emphasis on the Cosmere, including other worlds and other Gods in this book which perhaps is setting us up for Era 3 and certainly some loose ends that I can’t wait to find out more about. From other reviews it seems there is some crossover from Sanderson’s other series’ into this one as well which I’m sure will delight lots of hard-core fans. I have only read this series and Skyward but everything was very clear so don’t feel like you have to read any other series’ to make this book make sense.
Although the book is quite long at 500 pages, it never drags and Sanderson is an expert, assured and experienced writer. There are some scenes which had me crying with laughter and some which just left me crying – a good balance of character progression, action scenes, religious and political drama as well as a tension-filled plot which kept the stakes raised throughout.
My only small criticism would be the newspaper articles which are interspersed throughout the book. I have the official released versions of the other books in the series, and the newspapers look pretty but are unreadable on the Kindle as you can’t zoom into them. I only have the ARC of The Lost Metal but the newspaper sections are just plain text but they feel very jumbled and some are mixed in to the plot which makes them quite hard to read. You can easily skip these if it’s too confusing though and hopefully it’s been sorted out for the official release.
Mistborn still remains my favourite fantasy series with fantastic characters, tense drama with light humour effortlessly mixed in, a well-designed magic-system and brilliant world-building. The Lost Metal is more of the same and I cannot recommend it highly enough – this series displays storytelling at its finest. Thank you to NetGalley & Orion Publishing Group – Gollancz for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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