annieb123's Review of The Lost Metal (Mistborn, #7) (Mistborn: Wax and Wayne, #4) (Cosmere Universe)

by Brandon Sanderson

Return to #1 New York Times bestseller Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn world of Scadrial as its second era, which began with The Alloy of Law, comes to its earth-shattering conclusion in The Lost Metal.

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.

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

The Lost Metal is the 7th Mistborn western fantasy adventure by Brandon Sanderson. Released 15th Nov 2022 from Macmillan on their Tor/Forge imprint, it's 528 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback format due out 4th quarter 2023. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats.

One of the difficult things about having a huge, overarching, intricate, and long running series is the sheer intimidation of attracting new readers to the fold without scaring them off with the literal *thousands* of pages of precursor books. Luckily, Sanderson is a pretty darned gifted writer and though new readers will not have the depth of experience of the True-Fans® who are already familiar with every scintilla of the canon, neither will they be lost at sea from page 1. He manages to carry everyone along in the same boat (more or less). And what a fine boat it is. This is a fantasy western featuring a pair of adventurers and an ensemble cast of secondary partners and support staff.

The setting of this world covers, as previously stated, literally thousands of pages of stories including a trilogy, a related follow-up tetralogy (of which this is the 4th and final novel), as well as many related stories of varying length. The overall quality is impressively high. It is *full* of explosions, gunplay, and a large helping of sarcastic humor.

Although this tetralogy is self contained, it follows on the first trilogy (a few centuries later), and the author has announced a future trilogy without any definite projected publishing dates. It would make a superlative binge/buddy read.

Four and a half stars. Excellent read. Not great as a standalone, but possible.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Reading updates

15 February, 2023: Started reading

15 February, 2023: Finished reading

15 February, 2023: Reviewed