Reviews and Comments

I love how this one starts to explore some of the more interesting ways the Scadrial magic systems can be utilized. Mistborn and the Cosmere at large work with hard rules that make the magic systems feel intuitive and understandable. It's opening the doors for some really interesting technology coming out of this world in the future.

The original Mistborn trilogy has a traditional fantasy setting, maybe as late as Victorian, but this one is a bit more modern than that. Alloy of Law is set a couple hundred years later when they've discovered things like electricity and trains. Sort of a western vibe, though most of the story takes place in the city. This was actually only supposed to be a one-off story to showcase how things have progressed on Scadrial, the Mistborn planet, but people loved reading it, and Sanderson loved writing it, so this accidentally became the first in a series of four books.

Having decided to extend Wax and Wayne's tenure well beyond the initially planned single story in Alloys of Law, this book takes an opportunity to dive into characters' histories and personalities to flesh them out for the coming ride. It's pretty great.

This didn't seem like epic fantasy two books ago, did it? Well turns out there's be some serious s...tuff brewing in the background this whole time, and it's coming to a head. This is a great conclusion to the trilogy, and it's the first time you get a good look at how things work in the Cosmere.

So things went great in the first book, but turns out there are consequences for eliminating the sole source of true power in the world for the last millennium. I didn't really expect this sort of sequel, but it was an interesting look at what comes after "victory", and I can't turn down more Mistborn.

There's not a book in the whole Cosmere I've read that I didn't love, but this is always where I suggest newcomers start. It has a way of gripping you and dragging you through the book to make sure you finish, and then you're hooked.

Best book you'll ever read about a man and a gorilla having a series of borderline telepathic conversations about the nature of man as an animal.

It views human behavior through the lens of animal behavior as observed in nature, and it makes a lot of sense. It makes some of our worse traits like a capacity for war and murder seem reasonable if not necessarily excusable.

Haskell is a rather unusual programming language compared to what most people learn starting out. It's not that hard to use, but it can be difficult to teach it in an approachable, digestible way, and this book did that. I've heard some say it's not quite enough to fully grasp it, so you may want to supplement with something extra, but I think it's a great start.