Jul 03, 2017isaachar rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
The 4th book in the Mistborn series takes place hundreds of years after the events in 'Hero of the Ages'. The ashmounts no longer exist thanks to Harmony changing the world to what it had been before the Deepness. The original characters exist as a mix of myth, religion, and ill documented history by this time. While mistings, ferrings and koloss still exist (of sorts), the world has moved into a late industrial level of technology. It's a novel departure for the series.
I enjoyed this book, but it isn't on the same level of the original mistborn trilogy. Alloy of Law, and I suspect the rest of the trilogy, are more fantasy westerns than the type of high fantasy the original books were. The story all but entirely focuses on 3 characters, instead of having a wide cast as the previous books did. The main character was a little too one dimensional for my tastes. The A-typical western hero was devoid of noticeable character flaws. There's nothing wrong with that, but it felt different than the heroes of the previous books. It was still a good read, and I felt satisfied with where the Mistborn stories are going. I definitely wouldn't advise reading this before reading the original trilogy. The story would feel a lot more generic without awareness of the history of the world.
One odd litle thing that kept nagging at me was the supportive reference to 'Broken Windows Theory' by one of the main characters. The book makes reference to a real life, very controversial and somewhat disproven method of criminal enforcement. It seemed to appear as an apropos of nothing, and was just thrown in as if it's a "random useful fact". This novel was written not that long ago, long after the complications and problems with this theory came to light and it was largely abandoned by law enforcement agencies. I couldn't help wondering why the author added it in. That aside, it was an amusing ride.
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The Alloy of Law