Alloy of Law Reactions *spoilers*

[Ryan]

Posting my reactions before reading anyone else's. Sorry if I echo what everyone else said.

Knowing how long Brandon took to produce this book, it is far better, and far deeper, than it has any right to be.

It is mind-blowingly awesome to be able to watch how Scadrial develops post-Final Empire. The allomantic gunfights are incredible, and almost make up for the lack of mistborns (allomantic or otherwise) in the world. But more than either of those things, I absolutely loved the depiction of faith and religion in the book. It's the most honest and realistic depiction of faith I've seen in (non-religious) fiction, and it is subtly, almost deviously done. I see this book as the story of many people of faith doing the best they can by their religions and their gods.

I about died laughing when "High Imperial" turned out to be Spook's indecipherable eastern slang. Even now it makes me chuckle.

As much as the hopeless romantic in me would have loved to see a Wax/Marasi relationship work out, the way things actually unfolded feels far more honest and realistic. This single thing really made the characters come to life for me. It is a little sad, but so is life.

Now, if I may indulge in a bit of gloating, I totally called that Suit was Wax's uncle. I had him bang to rights from his second appearance. There's a Mysterious String-Puller archetype where a character is shown to pull the strings from the shadows, without either us or the characters knowing their identity—the point being to eventually reveal who they are, to the shock of all involved.

The archetype has a flaw, though, and that is that, in order for the big reveal to mean anything, it has to be somebody known both to us and to the main characters, and this usually reduces the set of who it could be to one or two characters. In this case, the choice was between Harms and Uncle Ladrian, and the latter fit the profile better.

Lastly, Mr. "There's always another mystery" just couldn't wrap everything up, could he? He just had to leave a bunch of loose ends lying around at the end. This is either setup for trilogy 2, or setup for AofL 2. I'd laugh if Brandon wound up writing an AofL trilogy between the first and second trilogies...Wait, did I say laugh? Actually, that would be fantastic.

[Kurtharsis]

RE: Kandra as constable, I believe in the Ars Arcanum it says somewhere that the Kandra mostly serve Harmony. So the cop-killer-kandra might be a rogue on someone else's payroll.

[Guest Jacob Santos]

Knowing how long Brandon took to produce this book, it is far better, and far deeper, than it has any right to be.

Meh, honestly, it is simply a Sherlock Holmes clone with a mix of Agatha Christie for good measure. Well, at least the two characters are a mix of Sherlock Holmes. I think the story draws on far more than simply those two, besides the obvious influence of his own Mistborn story.

As much as the hopeless romantic in me would have loved to see a Wax/Marasi relationship work out, the way things actually unfolded feels far more honest and realistic. This single thing really made the characters come to life for me. It is a little sad, but so is life.

I agree. I would have been frustrated and angry if Wax did end up with Marasi. I still like to think that he has her on the side tho. If I was writing it, then they'd be having threesomes every night and he would be breeding with both of them. It wouldn't make for a great story and actually it would be porn, in book form, which is terrible, just awful.

Lastly, Mr. "There's always another mystery" just couldn't wrap everything up, could he? He just had to leave a bunch of loose ends lying around at the end. This is either setup for trilogy 2, or setup for AofL 2. I'd laugh if Brandon wound up writing an AofL trilogy between the first and second trilogies...Wait, did I say laugh? Actually, that would be fantastic.

I don't know. I think he wrapped up the loose ends pretty well. That some plot points are open is, I think, great, because you can decide for yourself how it ends. I'd like to think that Wax after several years of tracking down leads and foiling his Uncle's plans that he finally captures his Uncle after a glorious battle.

By glorious, I mean he rips out his Uncle's spine and beats him to death with it. All because it is left open as to how the Uncle is captured or even if the Uncle is captured. Part of me doesn't want him to be captured. Part of me hopes that Wax spends some of his adventures going after his Uncle and in the end doesn't succeed in saving the kidnapped girls leading to the events in the second trilogy.

[CrazyRioter]

Brandon has said he'd like to write more about Wax eventually, so the loose ends will probably be tied eventually. Unless he does a prequel instead of a sequel.

[HiccupGreyjoy]

SORRY MARIO BUT OUR PRINCESSES ARE IN ANOTHER CASTLE!

So, what to say about this. I think we can agree on the fact that this was probably the most "Troperiffic" book Brandon has ever writen. You can very well recognize that it was acidental project but it was great to return into Scadrial... Which obviously was so much rebooted by Ruin and Sazed that IMHO I wished for kinda more fanservice in this case. In the current state there was nothing that would surprise me except... Koloss having become sort of stand-ins for Native Americans? Awkward. Or maybe I just am taking the wild west atmosphere too much seriously. Was Sazed changing Koloss as well?

Action was somehow better than story itself. Allomantic/feruchemic abillities are more and more similar to straight comic book superpowers, but if there´s someone who can make them organic part of fictious world in not so cheesy way, it´s Brandon.

The ending was unworthy of anyhing that can be even for a moment called stand-alone. To be honest I really haven´t cared until about two thirds in the book. Solution for crafty author? Write more chapters after where it ended and throw away some stuff in the beginnig.

As it is, I would still give it about 7/10.

[Wetlander]

Also, where is Hoid? Peter has said it should be obvious (to us), but the only person who I suspected was the beggar in black who is at the Yomen Wedding, talking to Joshin and Mi'chelle.

Your guess is correct; I confirmed it with Brandon at the Seattle signing

[Aranfan]

I find it interesting that Koloss can have kids with people. Now the question is if Tarson could have kids or was shoting blanks like a mule.

[happyman]

I feel like the ending was unsatisfying in much the same way the ending to Well of Ascension was unsatisfying. I'm not certain whether I want a sequel in the "interim," or if I'd rather see how it all falls out for the "official" second trilogy.

[Aldric]

There was one thing I didn't really understand. If you're a twinborn and you are burning your feruchemical metal allomantically, will you get the allomantic effect also? That makes the most sense to me, but that isn't what Miles seemed to do. He didn't get the allomantic-gold effect all the time when he was healing himself. At least he didn't seem to.

Also: I loved the the aluminum-foil hats also. It was the first thing I thought of, but somebody else earlier on this thread already said it, heh.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

SORRY MARIO BUT OUR PRINCESSES ARE IN ANOTHER CASTLE!

So, what to say about this. I think we can agree on the fact that this was probably the most "Troperiffic" book Brandon has ever writen. You can very well recognize that it was acidental project but it was great to return into Scadrial... Which obviously was so much rebooted by Ruin and Sazed that IMHO I wished for kinda more fanservice in this case. In the current state there was nothing that would surprise me except... Koloss having become sort of stand-ins for Native Americans? Awkward. Or maybe I just am taking the wild west atmosphere too much seriously. Was Sazed changing Koloss as well?

Action was somehow better than story itself. Allomantic/feruchemic abillities are more and more similar to straight comic book superpowers, but if there´s someone who can make them organic part of fictious world in not so cheesy way, it´s Brandon.

The ending was unworthy of anyhing that can be even for a moment called stand-alone. To be honest I really haven´t cared until about two thirds in the book. Solution for crafty author? Write more chapters after where it ended and throw away some stuff in the beginnig.

As it is, I would still give it about 7/10.

We learned today in the Tor Chat that following Stormlight 2, he may do a followup book about Wax!

#TorChat @BrandSanderson what comes after AMoL: Stormlight 2, the sequel to Alloy of Law, or something else?

2 hours ago

in reply to ↑

@BrandSanderson

Brandon Sanderson

@AshleySMoser Stormlight 2. If I feel good about the progress there, once it is done, I will do another Wax book. #torchat

[Decado]

There was one thing I didn't really understand. If you're a twinborn and you are burning your feruchemical metal allomantically, will you get the allomantic effect also? That makes the most sense to me, but that isn't what Miles seemed to do. He didn't get the allomantic-gold effect all the time when he was healing himself. At least he didn't seem to.

Also: I loved the the aluminum-foil hats also. It was the first thing I thought of, but somebody else earlier on this thread already said it, heh.

I was pretty confused by this too, it seemed to me that what he was doing was hemalurgy and not allomancy or feruchemy. Can anyone clarify this?

[FeatherWriter]

I think what was decided was that when one is a twinborn, you can choose to burn the metal allomantically, or you can choose to "burn" the feruchemical power. There was something about this in another thread, but I don't remember where that was.

[CrazyRioter]

I was pretty confused by this too, it seemed to me that what he was doing was hemalurgy and not allomancy or feruchemy. Can anyone clarify this?

he wasn't doing any hemalurgy, at least as far as we know, he had his metalminds embedded in his skin to stop people from Pushing or Pulling on them, but as far as we know they weren't hemalurgically charged.

[Decado]

I think what was decided was that when one is a twinborn, you can choose to burn the metal allomantically, or you can choose to "burn" the feruchemical power. There was something about this in another thread, but I don't remember where that was.

So he can burn the metals embedded inside of him without ingesting them and at greatly increased power? Am I getting this right?

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

So he can burn the metals embedded inside of him without ingesting them and at greatly increased power? Am I getting this right?

Something to that effect. It's exactly what TLR did with age in the original Mistborn books, he would store the age Feruchemically, then burn that Feruchemically invested chunk of metal slowly to gain an exponential amount of stored age a.k.a. youth...

[Thor]

So he can burn the metals embedded inside of him without ingesting them and at greatly increased power? Am I getting this right?

Kind of. Afaik to burn a metal Allomantically it must be in your stomach. The metals that are embeded in him are all metalminds full of Health. When he doesn't need to worry about fighting he can store Health in small beads of gold, swallow them and then burn them for a ten to one return and refill his horde of metalminds with the excess. During a fight, he probably has a few gold metalmind beads swallowed so if he gets really injured (gunshot to the head) he can burn the metalmind for a really quick surge of Health, in addition to his ~30 gold metalminds.

TLR stored the excess Age in his bracers and tapped Age from them continuously for a few days before retiring to his study. Why he does this is up for debate as he shouldn't have to force himself to be older to store up Age, like a regular Feruchemist. It has been theorized that he takes off the bracers, which are Hemalurgic spikes, to escape from Ruin for a few hours, keeping himself alive through the bracers, just through physical touch, not as spikes (or another source of Age, he could be burning Atium metalminds constantly during the time he is in the building within a building.)

Would using Duralumin on a metalmind give truly ridiculous results? As in, so much Physical Speed (Steel Feruchemy) that you could move at a reasonable fraction of the speed of light? That is scary...

[Decado]

Would using Duralumin on a metalmind give truly ridiculous results? As in, so much Physical Speed (Steel Feruchemy) that you could move at a reasonable fraction of the speed of light? That is scary...

There are so many possibilities for the modern and futuristic trilogies, BS's whole metal system really lends itself quite well to something like that.

[sententiadominus]

I don't know if I just can't find the post, but it seems that no one has brought up the information Marsh gave Marasi? What was Wax beginning to discover that Harmony was concerned about? Anyone able to shed light?

[Thor]

I don't know if I just can't find the post, but it seems that no one has brought up the information Marsh gave Marasi? What was Wax beginning to discover that Harmony was concerned about? Anyone able to shed light?

It could be the Allomancer breeding program, a rediscovery of Hemalurgy, or something uglier. Either of the first two would probably upset the balance on Scadrial enough for Sazed to do something, either by himself or through an intermediary (Marsh/Wax). He would also be particularly mad, assuming his original mind is still intact, about the Allomancer breeding program as it hearkens back to the Terris Breeder program by the Lord Ruler and all the implications it brings. (Tindwyl, his being a eunuch)

[sententiadominus]

Possibly. Marsh did say "very dangerous", but nothing about Harmony/Sazed specifically being upset by this dangerous thing, only that it needs to be seen to in a particular way.

Also, did anyone notice the metal symbols on the Elendel Basin map? They run Iron, Larasium, Iron, Steel, Tin along the top and Atium, Malatium, Gold, Electrum, Chromium, Nicrosil down the side? Perhaps latitudes and longditudes are given metal symbols with the 'centre' of the world, if you will, being above the Tyrian Sea, where Atium and Larasium lines cross? This doesn't particularly fit with the traditional compass directions (see Luthadel map), although the Irongate river does run East/West, and Iron was the symbol for West.

Any thoughts?

Edited November 15, 2011 by sententiadominus

[Wispsy]

not sure where to put this rly so here it is, if wax's earing is hemalurgically charged....doesnt he get a new ability or extra power when he has it in? altho i guess if its inquisitor spikes from 350 years ago the charge may be pretty weak...is there even a point when a spike with a hemalurgic charge loses its charge completely and just becomes a spike? theoretically it would have to i guess if it is constantly decaying outside of a body...wish we knew how long that would take :/ would make calculating things much easier! xD

[pmj812]

I think the missing girls have something to do with Hemalurgy. A "Kinder, gentler" hemalurgy, maybe, that doesn't slaughter them but spikes them then lets them live out their sad, tattered-soul lives in peace.

I think "the set" is trying to use Hemalurgy to build a Mistborn. I think there's something of that in their name.

They're trying to complete the set - give someone a full set of Allomantic abilities.

[CrazyRioter]

not sure where to put this rly so here it is, if wax's earing is hemalurgically charged....doesnt he get a new ability or extra power when he has it in? altho i guess if its inquisitor spikes from 350 years ago the charge may be pretty weak...is there even a point when a spike with a hemalurgic charge loses its charge completely and just becomes a spike? theoretically it would have to i guess if it is constantly decaying outside of a body...wish we knew how long that would take :/ would make calculating things much easier! xD

Well presumably he's getting some tiny amount of power, probably allomantic power, from it, but of course, he doesn't know how that works.......

[happyman]

We learned today in the Tor Chat that following Stormlight 2, he may do a followup book about Wax!

Good thing, although I'm guessing that these events are really part of what will lead up to the second trilogy, and can't be completely stopped by the characters. I.e. I suspect there are long-term plot reasons why Wax's success was partial.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

Good thing, although I'm guessing that these events are really part of what will lead up to the second trilogy, and can't be completely stopped by the characters. I.e. I suspect there are long-term plot reasons why Wax's success was partial.

Agreed... I read somewhere else that Brandon said he couldn't write or talk too much about some of the loose ends because they are a main plot thread in the 2nd planned trilogy set in the "modern" Scadrial.

I do think that a goal is to use Hemalurgy in some form, even if they don't kill the "subjects", though what a sad person that would leave them...

I really want to know what was in the book that Marsh gave to Marasai...