The Lost Metal Book Review

The Lost Metal Book Review 

Big thanks to MacMillan Publishers for sending me an advanced copy of this book—a physical hardback copy along with an audiobook version and a cool set of Bluetooth earbuds. They also sent me some cool little vials with metals in them so that when it's time for me to burn some metals and practice my metallic arts, I've got those! These two and probably three, four, five, or six others—not all 16, not all 20, including the god metals.

Don’t worry, this is going to be a spoiler-free review. I’m not going to give any spoilers because I want you to experience it for yourself. Being the fourth book in the Wax and Wayne series and the conclusion of Era 2, I don’t want to get into the nitty-gritty. But I do want to give my overall feelings and thoughts about the book, and I want to do it this way:

Up front, I want to give you my quick summarized opinions of my experience with The Lost Metal so that if you don’t want to stick around until the end, you can get the highlights. After that, I will go into more detail, still spoiler-free, talking about my feelings at large, the plot, the characters, and everything else I want to dive deeper into.

Up front, I just want to declare that Sanderson has done it again, and it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise for those of you who have been following Brandon Sanderson for some time. In my opinion, he always succeeds, though to varying levels. Not every one of his books is a five-star read for me, although he’s one of my favorite authors of all time, and I think he’s probably the best contemporary fantasy writer.

I love each of his works, but not equally across the board. However, The Lost Metal is near the top of his catalog. Here in The Lost Metal, you’ve got high action, tons of questions answered, incredible character moments, and a satisfying conclusion. In my opinion, The Lost Metal is hands down the best book in the Wax and Wayne series. In fact, it’s the only book in the second era that I gave a full five stars.

Now, into the actual review. The Lost Metal takes place six years after the events of Bands of Mourning. I felt Bands of Mourning was a bit of a low point for the series, but I wasn’t expecting this book to start six years after the fact. I think Wax is either nearing or in his 50s—he’s becoming an older man and has stepped back from the action that Wax and Wayne were involved in before. He’s more involved in the political sphere of Elendel.

However, the Set, a devious shadowy organization that has been in the background for the past few books, is still at work. They are creating something terrible for the city of Elendel, and Wax must step up once again and become the sword for Harmony. Along with Wayne, Marasi, Steris, and even MeLaan in a big way, they have to step up to stop the Set and face the rising power of the mysterious dark force known as Trell. As Trell’s power grows, Harmony’s authority and vision diminish, making Wax, Wayne, Marasi, and Steris more essential to the story.

The Lost Metal is the most Cosmere-aware book to date. The Cosmere, as you probably know, is Sanderson’s shared universe where many of his stories take place across different planets, with different magic systems and plots. In this book, it’s more interwoven than ever. You’ll hear about other planets, magic systems, and characters that aren’t from Scadrial. You can’t enjoy this book without at least some awareness of the Cosmere, but even with that, you may get lost at times and have questions.

I strongly encourage you to read the original Mistborn trilogy and Secret History first. These are non-negotiables if you don’t want to be confused. If you want to fully appreciate where every character comes from and what they’re talking about, I recommend reading Sanderson’s works in publication order. Books like The Stormlight Archive, Elantris, and The Emperor’s Soul are also helpful for grasping everything, though you’ll still need to theorize a bit.

As previously mentioned, the action in The Lost Metal is plentiful. The threat is introduced near the start and isn’t resolved until the very end. From the beginning to the end, the plot drives forward like a missile, with a few pit stops along the way. Every chapter moves the story towards a resolution. There are tons of fight scenes, with Wax and Wayne meeting their match multiple times, providing some very cool Allomantic battles. Sanderson’s mastery of the metallic arts magic system is on full display here, and I love how it has evolved in Era 2.

Despite the non-stop action, there are also plenty of moments for meaningful character development. We get some great interactions between Wax and Wayne, Wayne and Marasi, Wax and Steris, and others. Marasi, by the way, gets a lot of screen time in this book, which is great because she became one of my favorite characters by the end of the series.

Our characters are often split up, so we get different points of view. Wax and Wayne spend time together, Marasi is off with a different group, and Steris is back home, handling political maneuvering. While I found Steris’ chapters a bit slower because they focus on politics, nothing drags. The chapters are short, and Sanderson is great at balancing intensity with quieter moments.

We also get answers to many long-standing questions. Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen Reddit threads discussing different chapters, and virtually every question posed has been answered. Sanderson does an excellent job of providing answers without making us wait until the end. You’ll get many of them right from the start. By the end of the book, you may have a few questions, but they’ll likely be about the future of the Cosmere, rather than unresolved plot points.

While I still prefer Mistborn Era 1 to Era 2, this was an incredibly fun sandbox for Sanderson to play in. It was a great experiment to take a world and a magic system, advance them a few hundred years, and let characters and lore from the original series influence the new one. Sanderson’s success here makes me excited for Era 3, which is rumored to take place during the computer revolution, with a young Terriswoman hacker in a spy thriller setting.

What did you think of The Lost Metal? Did it meet, exceed, or fall short of your expectations? Let me know!

Also read: The Alchemist book review for Assignment

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