Welcome to my liveblog of The Lost Metal! Intro post here, beware of spoilers.

Prologue
Well, that’s the Tinweight mystery solved. Baby Wayne grew up there. 

I was going to say that young Wayne sounds too much like adult Wayne, but after a paragraph or two, I can see the difference. He’s a bit more carefree here in his narration, or perhaps candid. At least, that’s my initial impression.

“One-window home” is a clever descriptor. It gets the message across, and also hints at both the time period and the society.

Quote

“Terris always do what they’re told. So what’s wrong with me?”

Ouch. That is doubly painful, and I’m not sure whether the cultural blindness or the adolescent anxiety digs harder. They feed into each other so well, and this could easily be the start of a feel-good coming of age story if it were a TV show aimed at teens. 

“Don’t swear like that!” →Okay, I’ll change my accent and pronunciation, but none of the words. I love it.
 

Quote

“One more year and I can drink at the tavern.” 
“What? Who told you that!”
“Dug.”
“Dug is nine.”

Okay, that one got me laughing out loud. Wayne’s mom better not die in this prologue, because I’m not on board with that kind of sadfeels to kick things off.

Roll around in dirt in order to think like the ground. Only Wayne. …actually, I can see Shallan saying something like that. I’m not sure if I would enjoy a scene of Wayne and Shallan trying to outdo each other, but it sure would be something. I think I’d definitely enjoy young Wayne and young Lift arguing about the thievery vs. trading, though.

I have to admire a name like Blatant Barm. That’s a name to own, for sure. Not bad for villain of the week in an Allomancer Jak story.

Bahaha. Bastards vs “regular old turds” is hilarious to me. Dug is teaching Wayne all kinds of great stuff.

Human got a river named after him? That’s very sweet. I wonder if anyone remembers who he was? A little bit on the nose that his river separates human land from koloss land, though.

Okay, I can’t spend the whole page just repeating Wayne’s jokes, but he got me again with the “shoot a fly” thing. I don’t always love Wayne’s humor, but this sequence is working for me.

Quote

“Jak can fly, and talk to birds, and eat rocks.”

Um, really? That’s your superpower? Please tell me you’re obfuscating to hide your true abilities, because that’s… you know what? Fine. Color me impressed. For what it’s worth though, I’m not interested in getting that ability spiked into me.

I know it’s not, but the way this story is going with the names and such, I feel like the whole thing is just Ma building up to some elaborate pun. I know she’s a better mom than that, but I would crack up if she turned out to be a jokester in a twist ending here.

Well, kinda. She went for “Jak won by being a big damn pain in the ass” ending, which was almost a joke in the way she told it, but also a great teaching approach for channeling Wayne’s exuberance. I do love the back and forth of their storytelling technique, too. 

And yup, she’s gone. Leastways it happened offscreen at the mine instead of right in the middle of the domestic scene.