The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson

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 Elendel and the Outer Cities only favors the Set, and their tendrils now reach to the Elendel Senate―whose corruption Wax and 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.

welp the ending totally destroyed me...

unexpectedly this book jumped into my top 3 cosmere books and not going to lie, my favourite mistborn story. the amount of cosmere connections was enough to make me entirely grateful for reading the entire cosmere before this. also Wayne is a top 3 all fantasy favourite for me now.

Truly a rusting good end to era 2, I look forward to Stormlight 5 and Mistborn Era 3.

A great end for era 2 of the Mistborn saga, inviting the readers to go deeper into the Cosmere and preparing future installments for a more interconnection with the other stories in this universe.

3/5

Hmm, did not anticipate my rating being this low for a Brandon Sanderson novel. I think this one suffered from being less of a Mistborn sequel and more of a Cosmere expansion. Another factor in my rating was definitely the time gap between novels, both in my own reading and in real life - six years have passed since Mistborn #6 Bands of Mourning was released, and this timing is also reflected in the novel's characters.

We pick up with Wayne and Marasi as a constable duo with a solid track record, and Wax and Steris sitting well-established in Elendel's politics. Our entire cast is still working towards uncovering the plans of shadowy organisation The Set, and their strange other-worldly God Trell. Harmony and the Kandra aren't doing the best job, and no progress has been made on finding The Survivor.

It took me a while to get into this one, as the Part 1 really takes it's time in showing us where the characters and world are. The emotional maturity of our cast and discovery of the Southern Continent has meant a lot of off-page development between the books, but rest assured Sanderson sets our quartet up with satisfying and impactful arcs over the course of the story. By the end of Part 1 I was fully hooked into the story and its threat, with Sanderson taking smart cues from human history (especially photography and WWII).

However, I found myself losing interest during Act 2. Firstly, I felt there was a bit too much monologuing and questioning by our cast. Secondly, this book definitely opened the Cosmere up. Having only read Mistborn, Elantris and Emperor's Soul at this stage, I found myself overwhelmed with information that didn't exactly excite me. On a different note, I was pleasantly surprised at how in-depth and scientific the magic systems were, especially when Sanderson compared real-world science and other Cosmere magic against each other. The Cosmere as a whole is definitely a rigorous, if less interesting, science system.

As expected, the Sanderlanche was fantastic. All of the action in Act 3 was awesome, even if the emotional moments were not as impactful for me personally. When I can follow what is happening and the stakes are clear, our characters become superhuman beings of power and destruction.

I look back on Mistborn Era 2 with fondness. You didn't blow me away the same way Era 1 did, but I appreciated your lighter approach and inventive action. Thank you to Wax and Wayne for your adventures these past years, and I need to give full credit for Sanderson actually developing his fantasy world realistically by steadily adding technology into the mix.

I will be catching up on the rest of the Cosmere before the real big-scale battles begin in Era 3.