Review: The Alloy of Law

The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I loved the steampunk/fantasy setting of this, and the characters are fun, but the plot doesn't really hold up to Sanderson's usual standards. The book does an amazing job of depicting superhero battles... but depicting superhero battles seemed to be the entire point of the book. Sanderson seems to have a whole complicated system of magic worked out behind-the-scenes - which I enjoy, because it adds a sort of realism, but I am glad that he didn't explain it at length. The side-effect of that, though, is that we the reader are walking around with an incomplete view of something that is apparently common knowledge in his world, so I'm going to be annoyed if he pulls too many Gotchas! out of his hat. The weird interaction between feruchemy and allomancy for a single character in this book is a great example; if such combinations are so powerful - and the character in question is basically immortal! - then you'd think the combinations would be well-known, and anyone who had them would be world-famous.

I am ashamed to admit that I was well into the second book before I noticed the pun of the main characters' names: Wax and Wa(y)ne.

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