Wednesday, February 15, 2023

The Lost Metal - The Mistborn Saga #7

 

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.       

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