Shadows of Self is a Gun-Slingin’ Good Time for Mistborn Fans

The Final Empire introduces Luthadel, the ash-choked capital city of the eponymous empire, ruled over by the iron-fisted Lord Ruler. Times are not good—mistwraiths stalk the night; Inquisitors, enforcers with metal spikes in place of eyes, keep a frightened public in line; and slavery is only one wrong move away for most citizens. Vin, a young street urchin, and Kelsier, an ambitious gang leader, believe that even the mightiest of powers can be toppled. With Allomancy—a form of magic powered by ingested metals—at their fingertips, they launch an assault against the Lord Ruler that could change the world forever.
Thought the trilogy completed the story, the series hardly ends there. In 2011, Sanderson released The Alloy of Law, the first in a series of planned spin-offs that will gradually transition the books, and their setting, from epic fantasy into sci-fi. Set in a quasi-1920s steel age, Alloy follows Allomancer lawman Waxillium “Wax” Ladrian and his partner Wayne as they investigate intrigue among the high-powered gentry of the bustling metropolis of Elendel. It’s great fun, if clearly (if based only on page count) lacking some of the heft of the original trilogy.

Now comes Shadows of Self , launching a new three-part series starring Wax and Wayne, and it’s an even better novel than its predecessor: the perfect amalgamation of zany, gun-slingin’ action and the deep lore and gravitas of the trilogy. A year after the events of The Alloy of Law, Wax is still learning how to navigate life in Elendel—the city of his birth, but one he left as a young man to pursue life as a lawmaker in the Roughs. His fellow enforcers (and many citizens) are resistant to his radical form of vigilante justice, but he may be the only one who can save the day when a deadly magic-user appears, wreaking havoc and cutting a swath through the city’s political leaders and criminal masterminds. There’s a mystery afoot, and Elendel will (of course) never be the same.
In this volume, Sanderson builds upon Wax and Wayne’s spaghetti Western quirks, transforming them into complex, multi-layered characters. Wax’s past haunts him in shocking, relatable ways, and Wayne, who was chiefly a comic sidekick in the first book, earns a much more prominent role, proving to be just as interesting as his partner. By giving his characters more room to breathe, Sanderson seizes on opportunities to turn this trilogy into something much bigger and more intricate than expected.

If The Alloy of Law felt like an experiment in world-building (none too surprising, considering it began as a writing exercise), Shadows of Self is a full-blown epic. Its overarching plot promises to be as intricate and harrowing as anything else in this world. Sanderson has truly hit his stride; even at with a lighter tone and a relatively slim page count, he manages to explore dense magic systems within the kind of twisting, complicated plot his fans have come to expect.
Is this a good introduction to the series? I think so—newcomers will find it an enjoyable, blazingly quick read, full of engaging characters, tense magical action, and a page-turning plot that grows more complex with every page. Even better, longtime fans of Sanderson’s Cosmere will find a lot to love, especially in the way the author provides answers to many of the questions left hanging at the end of the Mistborn trilogy, and won’t have to wait long for more—the next book, The Bands of Mourning, releases in January 2016.