For the most part, it’s a combination that works and breaths fresh life into Sanderson’s series. It reads less like an attempted ‘subversion of genre tropes’™ and more like a cross between the original template for the Mistborn trilogy slammed headfirst into Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, noir mystery and even a more contemporary twist by introducing forensic elements that wouldn’t be unfamiliar to fans of schlocky crime shows like CSI (though, obviously, in a setting with much lower tech). Almost.Ī self-defined post-modernist Fantasy writer, Sanderson continues to redefine the boundaries of the genre with The Alloy of Law, a new Mistborn novel set three hundred years after the conclusion of the original trilogy. Had Sanderson stripped the two novels down and combined them into one, we’d have one of the finest Fantasy duologies of modern times as it is, however, we are left with a trilogy full of wonderful highs, turgid lows and much wasted promise.īut now, finally, there’s a Mistborn sequel that equals the promise and quality of the first novel. Ultimately, each novel ends with some of the genre’s strongest storytelling, but the first three-to-four hundred pages are generally difficult. Those sequels faltered by exchanging The Final Empire’s dense, tightly plotted narrative and dashing lead, with an over-long, wordy tale full of tangential storylines and character arcs, a meandering pace and a male lead that takes too long to to evolve from a nervous, self-righteous boy to a confident, believable saviour. Unfortunately, it’s sequels, The Well of Ascension and The Hero of Ages were never able to capture that magic.

It’s been over two years since I finished The Final Empire, and it’s stuck with me since, constantly asserting itself as a recent Fantasy novel against which I judge the rest of the genre’s new faces. It did so by taking chances with the tired tropes of the genre, subverting those tropes and character archetypes without feeling forced (as is the current soup du jour in Fantasy) and telling a memorable, vast story in one volume. That’s not to say it’s perfect, just that it has clearly carved out a well deserved niche in the Fantasy conversation. By Aidan Moher October 26th, 2011 The Hero of Agesīy my estimation, Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: The Final Empire is a modern classic of Fantasy literature.

The alloy of law series