Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Mistborn: The Alloy of Steel

Completely knacked from Tor.com




Tor Books has just released lots of new details on Brandon Sanderson’s next work, Mistborn: The Alloy of Law, including the revelation of Chris McGrath’s steampunk-ish cover for the new title! (Oh, how we’re clamoring to get a peek at the manuscript....)

For those yet unaware, The Alloy of Law came about from a short story that Brandon Sanderson wrote last fall while taking a well-deserved break after writing The Gathering Storm, The Way of Kings, and Towers of Midnight. Of course, fantasy stories being what they are, what was a short story soon ballooned into a proper novel. (A novel that, funnily enough, takes Mistborn out of the epic fantasy genre it started within.) Sanderson still reportedly intends on crafting a follow-up trilogy to the original Mistborn trilogy after his current projects are completed.

A longer synopsis for The Allow of Law has emerged, as well.

The short synopsis (mild spoilers for the Mistborn trilogy):

Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is on the verge of modernity, with railroads to supplement the canals, electric lighting in the streets and the homes of the wealthy, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds.

Kelsier, Vin, Elend, Sazed, Spook, and the rest are now part of history—or religion. Yet even as science and technology are reaching new heights, the old magics of Allomancy and Feruchemy continue to play a role in this reborn world. Out in the frontier lands known as the Roughs, they are crucial tools for the brave men and women attempting to establish order and justice.

One such is Waxillium Ladrian, a rare Twinborn who can Push on metals with his Allomancy and use Feruchemy to become lighter or heavier at will. After twenty years in the Roughs, Wax has been forced by family tragedy to return to the metropolis of Elendel. Now he must reluctantly put away his guns and assume the duties and dignity incumbent upon the head of a noble house. Or so he thinks, until he learns the hard way that the mansions and elegant tree-lined streets of the city can be even more dangerous than the dusty plains of the Roughs.

The fourth Mistborn novel is currently set for release in November of this year in hardcover and ebook.

As soon as I saw mention of this book on Brandon Sanderson's blog last year, the book immediately climbed up my list of anticipated 2011 books. I like that the design of the hardcovers, in terms of border and fonts, is retained from the original trilogy and I can understand why Tor utilized Chris McGrath for the artwork, since he did the covers for the mass market paperbacks of the original trilogy. The art is good, but I *loved* Jon Foster's art on the original hardcovers.

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