Good morning, Cosmere chickens! It’s November 15th, and you all know what THAT means?
LOST METAL RELEASE DAY! ::confetti::
Ross and I had a ton of fun with the non-spoiler review a few days ago, but we were having to be VERY careful about what we did and didn’t say. Here…not so much. This is the full-spoiler review, so we’ll be giving you our unfiltered opinions on the book as a whole. There WILL be spoilers. You have been warned. If you don’t want to be spoiled about things, for the love of Wit turn back NOW. (Please note: in addition to Mistborn, we may be mentioning some things from The Stormlight Archive and The Emperor’s Soul. If you haven’t read those, tread carefully.)
Now, you may be wondering who we are. My name’s Lyn! I got my BA in English Literature with a minor in Creative Writing way back in 2004. I’ve written five novels and self-published one of them; still working on edits to the rest. I have a smattering of short stories and novellas as well, but novels are really where I shine. Never could get the hang of short-form storytelling. I’ve been a beta/gamma reader for Brandon since 2013, and I’ve worked on over 20 projects for him in that time. I’ve also written a ton of articles here on Tor.com, and for the last two years I’ve been running a storytelling variety act at renaissance faires in the New England area (we use one of our sets to teach people about the Hero’s Journey in a comedic manner, it’s quite fun). I’m also a cosplayer (since 2003), fire performer, and make hand-carved magic wands as a day job. (Explaining my life to the tax people every year is a ton of fun.)
And I’m Ross! I’m a software developer by day, but I do some writing on the side, and have been one of Brandon’s beta readers for several years. In fact, this book has a special place in my heart, because Shadows of Self and The Bands of Mourning were the first two books I beta-read for Brandon. I’m feeling like this is the end of an era even more than most!
Buy the Book
The Lost Metal
Lyn: We’re bringing you this article today from Dragonsteel 2022, where Ross is volunteering and I’m selling my novel in the exhibitor hall. Please excuse any rambling on our parts; we’ve been working on this while simultaneously doing a reread of the book and getting ready for the con, so we may be a bit unhinged. But that’s half the fun, eh?
Lyn: So! Let’s begin with an overview. Broadly speaking, was the book worth reading? Did it stand up as an ending to Mistborn Era 2? Are we satisfied with the character arcs, plot arcs, Cosmere connections…? How does this series differ from Sanderson’s other works? Ross, why don’t you start us off.
Ross: Okey doke! Was the book worth reading? Absolutely. Did it have a compelling self-contained plot that resolved perfectly while wrapping up all of the loose ends from Mistborn Era 2 and also digging its roots into the broader Cosmere as a whole, without ever stumbling? Not exactly. But yes, overall I really enjoyed it, and it was definitely full of surprising twists and turns.
Lyn: I agree. Now granted…I am a bit biased here. I adore Era 2. Shadows of Self is one of my favorite Cosmere books. I love the setting, I love Wayne and Marasi, I love the bro-mance between Wax and Wayne. It’s all so much fun. This said, Bands wasn’t exactly my favorite book ever, and I did feel that there were a few things in Lost Metal that weren’t quite…ideal, shall we say? We’ll get into specifics in the later parts of this review. I think, were I to rank the books in this series from personal favorite to least, I’d place them as follows: Shadows of Self, Alloy of Law, The Lost Metal, Bands of Mourning.
Ross: Oh yeah, I’d never bad-mouth Era 2. Wax and Wayne have a buddy vibe that’s top tier, and Steris is on the tippy top of my changed-my-initial-opinion-about-this-character list. I mostly just wished that some of this Era’s conclusion had been a little more…conclusive?
Lyn: We’ll get into specifics on our critiques down below, but for now I’ll just say I agree. Overall I’d say that this book—and the series as a whole—is well worth reading, for sure. It’s a great jaunt through a fun and engaging world, and I love what Sanderson is doing with the magic system and how we’re watching it evolve along with technology. I also liked the atomic weaponry parallels, and the way the book shows us the very real fear that inspires. From a purely technical standpoint, The Lost Metal is exactly what you’d expect from Sanderson, if you like his other works. Strong characters and a great plot with an engaging and explosive finale. Fun dialogue with a distinctive voice. Fascinating worldbuilding and magic-system work that displays the amount of thought that went into both. Prose that is clear and engaging without straying into the overly poetic.
If you enjoy Sanderson’s other books, you’re probably going to like this one, though I have heard some say that the setting doesn’t work for them, as it’s not your typical high fantasy setting. That’s very much a “your mileage may vary” opinion though.
Ross: Era 2 has been one of the most rollicking literary accidents ever, and I’m overjoyed that Brandon decided to go there.
***
Now, let’s get into a bit more of the nitty-gritty, and go over what we liked—and didn’t like— specifically, starting with the very best bits…
Ross: My favorite thing about this book is that Wayne has, through callous disregard for and lack of attachment to wealth, become perhaps the richest person on Scadrial. He has the best brain for monetization opportunities and zero interest in seeing what happens, and it’s hilarious. Running away from Mysterious Suited Figures, getting caught, and it all being because they needed to discuss his finances, was so very Wayne.
Lyn: 100% agree. Wayne was far and away my favorite part of this book…fitting, as it was his swan song. He really shone here, and I think this was such a perfect send-off for him as a character.
“Wayne sometimes pretended he was a hero. Some rusting old figure from the stories, off in some nonsense quest about slaying a monster or traveling to Death’s domain.”
Ross: Well, the good news is that his death was quite well telegraphed, if you were paying attention. In fact, when I got to the end of the Prologue on my first read, I was really worried. And then, when his attitude in every PoV dealt with separation and death, I kind of saw it coming. But it still hurts.
Lyn: Oh yes. I think that even the least observant readers could see this coming a mile off. I never thought that Wayne was going to make it out of this one alive…I was just hoping that he would get a good send-off. And his death certainly lived up to that for me. No “getting killed at the last minute” gut punch here. Wayne had an amazing, perfect (for him) death. I’m glad that he got his awesome huge explosion, glad that he got to be the hero, glad that he got the recognition that he deserved afterward. He’s remembered as a hero, and that’s beautiful. And his character arc was just…fantastic. And since I brought up character arcs…let’s talk about the other main characters.
Ross: Then we should definitely start with Wax. The Wax and Max show early on in the book was very endearing. I think this book also had the clearest and most poignant view of Wax’s dual nature, of his internal conflict between destructive force and nurturing figure. I’m very happy with the way his story was wrapped up.
Lyn: Completely agree, Ross. The journey from Roughs lawman to politician was engaging for me, especially since his revelation was that he didn’t have to be one OR the other, but a mix of both.
“It’s not politics or Allomancy. … It’s never been either/or. That part of your life isn’t over merely because you didn’t need it for awhile.”
Lyn: Even more than the career aspect, though…I loved seeing him become a family man. His relationship with Steris was a beautiful evolution, and one of the more realistic romances in Sanderson’s books. It was a gradual realization that the flaws we see in one another may actually, in the right circumstances, be features instead, and worthy of love and admiration.
Ross: One hundred percent agreed.
Lyn: Watching Steris evolve and realize her own self-worth was pretty amazing over the course of the series, too.
Ross: I still love Steris, and the way she continues to epitomize Brandon’s excellent habit of showing the ways that neurodiverse characters often exceed the abilities of their more “normal” peers in ways that either advance the story or literally save the day. I have a ton of neurodiverse friends who identify with one or more of these characters, and the associations have almost universally been positive and helpful.
Lyn: And of course, we have Marasi. What an awesome character. I’ve always liked her and her quest to try to better the lives of the people, but she felt so much more…mature in this book.
“Lock a man in prison, and you might stop him from committing crimes. Teach a man to respect himself and his community, and you stopped everyone he might have taught, recruited, or bullied. She didn’t want to focus on individuals. She wanted to change the world.”
And turning down the offer to become a worldhopper? Good job, Marasi. Sometimes the most exciting decision isn’t the right one.
Ross: As for an aspect of the book I didn’t like, I was wishing for deeper insight into the reasons Trell is interfering in the Scadrian system, and while we got significant Trell representation, we don’t really have any greater idea what’s going on behind the scenes.
“She has an army,” Telsin said, looking away. “Men of gold and red… waiting for me to fail.”
I suppose it makes sense that Brandon doesn’t want to tip his hand on Trell too much right now, as there might end up being some business that goes down in Stormlight book 5 that will shed lots of light on the Shardic State of Things for all of MB Era 2 (if you weren’t aware, Dear Reader, Brandon has said that these Mistborn Era 2 books take place in the gap between Stormlight books 5 and 6).
Lyn: I’m also not a big fan of how nebulous a lot of the Autonomy stuff was. I was left with a lot of questions, and not in the good “wow I can’t wait to read the next book and find out the answers!” way. I’m glad that Sanderson did give us some very blunt explanations (ie, Trell is just a name of an old religion that Autonomy decided to co-opt), but even so, a lot of it left me very confused as to what we’d just seen and who was doing what.
Ross: The Cosmere-connectedness was the most surprising aspect of this book for me.
Lyn: Yeeeaaaah…same here, and not in a good way.
Ross: I expected to get Kelsier stuff, and more insight into the Ghostbloods. I was not expecting Shai, and definitely wasn’t expecting aethers to make their first canonical on-screen appearance. I know Brandon’s initial idea for the interconnectedness of the Cosmere was that every story would stand on its own, and that worldhoppers and such would only exist as Easter eggs, and I also know that position has evolved over time, but wow. I was certainly expecting a Kelsier sighting, but I didn’t go into this expecting for the secret organization to be composed of main characters of books from other Cosmere planets and people wielding magic tech from other unpublished works.
Lyn: I think this could be the book’s biggest potential failing. For die-hard Cosmere fans, it’s going to be a smorgasbord. But for casual fans, I worry that they’re going to be confused, or feel as if they’re missing out on things. I suppose time will tell on this one…it’s hard for us to judge, since we’ve read all of Sanderson’s published works. But I can’t help but feel like, with this level of interconnectivity, that’s going to leave a subset of fans in the dark. And that does kind of make me sad. It’s a hard line to walk…much like the MCU, managing to weave all these stories together in such a way that both die-hard and casual fans enjoy is very, very difficult. I’m not sure if he managed it in this instance. There were also a few plot holes (looking at you, “Wayne surviving a hundred-foot fall when he barely had enough healing for one bullet wound”) but I’m willing to let those slide in favor of the rule of cool. I wasn’t entirely sold on the doppelgängers, either, to be honest. They felt a bit too much like generic B-list villains in a video game that you have to defeat before you get to the main boss. I wanted to hate them, wanted to really be rooting for them to fail, but I never did. Nor did I ever feel as if they were a real threat to our heroes.
Ross: I didn’t mind the doubles nearly as much as you did. I think one thing that had really been missing from the action scenes in Era 2 was a situation where the main characters had to work against each other, and this set up a way for Wax and Wayne to really go to town on one another without relationship fallout. Plus, the overacting their doubles did was primo cringe. One that I would like to make sure I don’t leave out is a couple of minor let-downs for Steris. First, I wish that Max’s sister Tindwyl had gotten a little more screen time, and that we’d been able to see more depth of Steris’s interactions with her. And second, while Steris once again proved that her planning and organization skills are top-notch, her big moment organizing the evacuation at the end fell a little bit flat when it turned out not to actually be needed, thanks to the lack of an Elendel-shattering kaboom.
Lyn: Well…I think we’ve blathered on for quite long enough. Let’s leave off with a hat-rating, shall we? I’d give The Lost Metal four out of five hats. How about you, Ross?
Ross: Aye, four out of five here, and they’re really good hats, too. All worn in and comfortable, with just enough nicks and stains that folks know they really get worn.
Let us know what you thought of the book—share your theories, your favorite bits, and thoughts about what you’d like to see as we learn even more about the Cosmere and how its worlds connect…
The Lost Metal is published by Tor Books.
Read excerpts from the novel here.
Lyndsey wrote most of this review from her hotel room here at Dragonsteel 2022. If you enjoy queer protagonists, snarky humor, and don’t mind some salty language, check out book 1 of her fantasy series. Follow her on Facebook or TikTok!
Ross also wrote most of this review from the hotel just before con, surrounded by friends and fans. He’s still working on his first novel, but that’s been the case for seven years, so don’t hold your breath just yet.
