The fifth Mistborn novel and second Wax and Wayne novel is fairly different from the previous one; while The Alloy of Law was a short, fun adventure that largely stood alone, Shadows of Self is longer and more invested in the "lore" of the Mistborn world in a way that Alloy of Law was not.
Shadows of Self: A Mistborn Novel by Brandon Sanderson |
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Originally published: 2016 Read: July 2025 |
Consequently, I liked it less. As soon as an omnipotent voice turned up and began narrating to Wax stuff about the conflict between Preservation and Ruin, I knew that this one wasn't going to do the stuff I enjoyed. I think the weird thing about the Mistborn novels is that Sanderson sets up this incredibly complicated system about allomancy... but seems largely uninterested in it, it's just background to all this other stuff that makes my eyes glaze over. Imagine if the Avatar shows had all this stuff about bending as background but the benders weren't even main characters in the show. I just don't get it.
People praise Sanderson for his worldbuilding, but I feel like that mostly comes down to the "magic systems" themselves; what the books don't really do, I think, is compellingly explore how the magic would change the world. Here, the Mistborn world has advanced to the nineteenth century... but it's basically our nineteenth century, just some people are allomancers. I don't really see how allomancy has actually affected the structure of their society, and as a result, the magic rings hollow.
Wayne is great, though. I love Wayne. Wayne keeps me going.
Every nine months I read another novel of the Cosmere. Next up in sequence: Mistborn: The Bands of Mourning
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