I found the six-year time jump at the start of The Lost Metal super effective. It emphasizes our main cast's growth throughout the entire series and lets the finale stand as its own important moment. And boy is there a lot going on. Expect the usual high-octane allomancer fights we know and love from the series, and the moral quandaries only get bigger and messier. In this review, there will be mild spoilers for the beginning of the book given the time jump but certainly not the end.

I want to start by talking about my faves. For the whole series but especially for this book, Marasi and Wayne have my heart. Here, we get to see Marasi emphasized as a foil to Wayne-- she calls him on his shit but also supports and values him as a partner. We love a bitch that calls out misogyny and power imbalance when she sees it... and is also casually a sniper, it's fine. She uses her resources wisely and looks to the big picture where Wayne lives large and sees each person clearly. They're the new best buddy cops of the series. Before I delve into Wayne a bit more, I also want to shout out the anxiety rep in Steris. She's come so far, and we finally get to see her receive a bit of the recognition she deserves.

One of my favorite things this book did for the series as a whole is demonstrate the personal growth of both Wayne as a character and Sanderson as an author. First of all, Wayne's honestly confirmed as queer in my mind-- from his playfulness around gender for himself to his genuine appreciation of a lover's fluidity. It was hinted at in the previous book and now here we ARE. Wayne's also now friends with his past crush Ranette, and he's improved enough as a person to actually listen to her advice instead of hearing what he wants to. I love that Ranette and her partner Jaxy appear in their cameos as full people rather than a vague "they're lesbians" comment. Basically, this is the most and best queer representation I've seen in a Sanderson book bar none. I hope this is a positive sign of things to come.

Because people, the Cosmere is growing. As readers we know it, but to see the characters gain an awareness of it feels like a big milestone. The scale of everything makes the stakes higher, the drama weightier. Like you know things are intense when even their god doesn't know what's coming. And the way the action scenes are written, you can feel how close a shave things are. Because not only is it a colossal fight, but also our heroes aren't who they were once. They live fuller lives now and have broader concerns. Big firefights of the allomantic variety are no longer the center of their world, but they'll need to draw on those skills again if they're to avert global catastrophe. Literally.

I admit I started to get a bit stressed that I was missing tie-ins and references since I haven't read several books in The Cosmere recently enough to remember in detail (and then there's the fact that one major series still sits on my TBR, but that's soon to be rectified). There were two references to Sel I only barely caught (Elantris, The Emperor's Soul)-- enough to inspire some frantic googling that I hoped wouldn't end in spoilers. But once I confirmed the details of the crossovers, it was invigorating to feel in on the secret. It also made me feel like some rereads are in order-- but in a fun way.

My last comment is that even though I had one particular guess about the end, self-satisfaction didn't save me from crying my eyes out when it came to fruition. This is everything I want for the end of a series, even when I don't get exactly what I want in the particulars, see: sobbing. It gives us closure while leaving us with the sense of more to come for Scadrial despite being our last adventure with this set of beloved characters. Thanks to Tor for my copy to read and review!

Well I can't review this one right now because apparently it is book 7 and unfortunately I haven't even read the previous books.

The Lost Metal is a pretty good ending to Mistborn Era 2, and is a fun read. I do think people will have some specific things to complain about and it won't be universally loved. There are things the book didn't do that are some missed opportunities, and the plot didn't come together completely for me. It suffers a bit because it's setting up the next Mistborn eras. But, it does wrap up the things it needs to do to be a satisfying conclusion. There are extremely cool moments, fantastic character work, and some really killer cosmere stuff that we will be talking about for ages. It's pretty good, but not my favorite.

I believed I would finish reading half the Cosmere books before The Lost Metal was published, which was a ridiculously ambitious plan. Now that I've finally had a chance to catch up on Brandon Sanderson's various series, all I can say is: The Lost Metal is one of his top works to date. The way he has interwoven specific references to other series while wrapping up Wax and Wayne's story so well is a testament to Sanderson's skills as an author. I'll be thinking about this book until his next Cosmere title launches (hopefully soon!).

Brandon Sanderson is an excellent writer. I can’t wait to read the next installment. Sanderson’s expansion of his mistborn series was exciting and interesting.

All this book did was make me mad that it was only an excerpt and not the finished copy. I need more dammit.

4.5 like most Sanders so it’s VERY long and sometimes the battles with metals, while interesting, can get tedious. That said the way he is starting to interweave Mistborn with Way of Kings is fascinating. I love Wax and Wayne as characters and appreciate how they have grown in each book. I really enjoyed the more side characters Steris and Marasi getting a good character arc. And I was very surprised by old characters that returned!

I requested this one by mistake. I did not realized that it was number 7 in an ongoing series. I do love Brandon Sanderson though

Brandon is my favorite author and I was more than excited to get a copy to review for the lost metal. Mistborn has been a huge discovery for me, one of my favorite series now and I’m also really enjoying Era 2. I was thrilled to read, I actually binged read it on the plane and I cried reading the end while landing. Amazing! This book was a ride for emotions and also very satisfying. It felt nice to get back to these characters and have closure for them. Definitely recommend era 2 if you have not picked it up yet

Sanderson does it again! This excerpt has made me SO EXCITED to read the final book of Mistborn Era 2 that I went straight out and bought it! This is the fourth book following Wax and Wayne and several years have passed since the events of book 3, but the characters are still the same old people that we know and love. I can never get enough of Wayne and I am honestly so sad that this adventure is coming to an end.

If you haven't read the first 3 books in Mistborn Era 2, starting with "The Alloy of Law", then you should absolutely do that, and then get on to this one, it's aboslutely amazing! I cannot recommend this series enough.

A fun romp with familiar characters, with more cosmere-aware readers enjoying the book more. Possibly a bit more abstruse for readers only following along with the Mistborn series. A bit muddy in the pacing at the middle but with a solid finish for those we've followed over the series.

Thanks for the preview.

I enjoyed the step back into Wayne's history and the backstory. Look forward to reading the rest of the story.

The Lost Metal is a great follow up to Sanderson's Mistborn series. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys science fiction and stories that have a continuous storyline.

Great read, shame only few chapters from whole. I like Brandon's style and know the series. Interesting follow up of Wax and Wayne life and bit info about Wayne's childhood (loves this bit - his Ma was a character).

The Lost Metal surprised me - I'm a huge Sanderson fan, but also not a huge fan of westerns or detective mysteries, and Era 2 is basically a giant western detective-mystery plotline, so take this with a grain of salt. I got through the story and I found the plot interesting, but at the same time, was surprised by the characters. Maybe its because I was largely reading via the audiobook, but I felt like the characters were caricatures of their previous selves. Everything was overexaggerated, characters were extremely predictable, and did Wax really name his kind Max??

Some great new lore to absorb but I just couldn't get into this one... will look forward to Era 3

This book was amazing. Sanderson knows how to builds worlds and characters and oh my goodness this book as everything I needed in this series!!!!! I have been looking forward to this story since Mistborn. It did not disappoint!!!

The world of Mistborn just keeps getting bigger and better. Brandon Sanderson is my Favorite author. I was really impressed with how he was able to add new ideas to the mistborn world with The Lost Metal while maintaining what made Mistborn special. This is a Truly special book!

This one was an amazing ride!! A fitting end to Era 2!! I thoroughly enjoyed spending more time with Wax and Wayne. I am also a big fan of some the Cosmere discoveries that were given to us in this book.

I flew through this book in a couple of days & it was a 5 star read, how could it not be. Great characters, the story was fast paced & this wrapped up Mistborn Era 2 perfectly.

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.