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the alloy of law
part western, part sherlock holmes detective novel, part high fantasy, the alloy of law is an interesting entry into the mistborn series. we have a timeskip of over 300 years here, which is especially interesting considering that the hero of ages essentially left us off with a blank slate of a re-created world, with the remaining survivors of the near-apocalypse tasked with re-creating a new society. suffice to say, it's kind of a lot to find out that this fantasy world experienced pretty much earth-like industrialization and it's the turn of the 20th century now, except magic (well, allomancy and feruchemy at least) is still a thing.
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the hero of ages
this is the third book in sanderson's mistborn series, therefore expect spoilers for the two previous books (reviews here and here).
picking up from vin following what she thought to be the instructions of terris prophecy to save the world, only to release the thing attempting to destroy the world, we're starting off in a situation that is well and truly fucked. the force slash god ruin had been trapped by the power of an opposing force slash god, preservation and once unleashed, ruin can exert direct influence on the world and some important people and creatures to make the planet uninhabitable and force everybody into death through either starvation or violence.
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the well of ascension
this is the second book in sanderson's mistborn series, therefore expect spoilers for the first book (which i've also reviewed here) in the following text.
the well of ascension starts us off in the aftermath of the first book's toppling of the not-so-omnipotent-after-all lord ruler. vin's crew put elend (vin's love interest and dreamy philosopher nobleman) on the throne of the former empire. the complications immediately start from there, with multiple factions vying for either the capital city luthadel or at least to raise their sphere of influence in the power vacuum. three of those factions get fleshed out, but the implication is that around the country pretty much every nobleman with some money to pay soldiers tries to get a piece of the cake and the situation is very chaotic. pretty much immediately, two different armies, one headed by elend's father, start besieging the city, leading to a general stalemate as nobody wants to risk losing their army by making the first move.
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katabasis
tldr: grad students will go to to hell instead of just going to therapy.
katabasis is the newest novel by rebecca f. kuang, who's known for combining her own academia experience (just casually pursuing a phd while churning out a book per year) with dark alt-history fantasy, often politically charged. the political themes take a backseat here, while the academia experience on a more personal level is the focus.
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mistborn / the final empire
originally released as "the final empire", now for the most part referred to just by the title of the series it kicks off - "mistborn" - is a high fantasy novel set in a world that clearly went through something calamitous, given that normal green plant life seems to be a thing for rich people and that there's constant ashfall from half a dozen volcanoes, yet it also was "saved" by a hero-turned-god from an even worse fate a millenium ago at the start of the plot. the society here follows a kind of feudal system, with a caste of so-called skaa essentially used as slaves by a smaller society of noblemen, who in turn are at the mercy of the aforementioned god-like "lord ruler".
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