The second arc of Brandon Sanderson’sMistbornbooks are a delightful evolution of the gritty urban fantasy that was the hallmark of the first part of the series, but, suprisingly that was never the original plan. Fromthe epic beginning ofThe Final Empireto the heartbreaking end ofThe Hero of Ages, the first arc ofMistbornis a brilliant story of love, revolution, and unintended consequences – and the series only gets better from there.
The second series of books set on Scadrial, which take place after a three-century time jump, tookthe world’s incredible system of metal-based magicand took a good, hard look at what would happen if that kind of magic interacted with an Industrial Age society, one where metal (and firearms) was almost ubiquitous. The first book in the era,The Alloy of Law, felt like an exciting take on the idea of the Weird West – supernatural adventures on the American frontier – and introduced a compelling protagonist in Waxillium Ladrian.
Wax’s adventures, alongside his intrepidly obstreperous companion Wayne, continued on through three more books, with an ending that dovetailed withMistborn: Secret Historyto deliver a surprise with consequences that resonated not just across Scadrial, but throughout the Cosmere. It’s amazing to think, then, about how the entire second arc ofMistbornalmost never happened.
Brandon Sanderson’s Original Mistborn Plan Didn’t Include The Era 2 Books
The Original Series Map Was A Trilogy Of Trilogies, But The Best-Laid Plans Of Fantasy Authors Oft Go Awry
The original plan forMistbornwas a trilogy of trilogies, and was all pitched together from the very beginning. The first trilogy was always meant to be the original three books in the series:The Final Empire,The Well of Ascension, andThe Hero of Ages, all of which looked at Scadrial as a dystopic, dying world. The second trilogy – what is now confirmed to be the third arc,Ghostbloods– was to be set much farther ahead in Scadrial’s future, when technology had advanced to something equivalent to our own 1980s' computer boom.
The third and final arc ofMistborn, meant to deliberately tie it into the interstellar politics of the Cosmere at large, was to be set amid Scadrial’s era of space exploration – a fascinating concept, given the way that Allomancy and Feruchemy could come into play as ways to simplify space travel (to say nothing of how Feruchemy specifically could make deep space much more survivable). Yet nowhere in Sanderson’s initial drafts of howMistbornfit into the Cosmere included Allomantically-driven gunfights or lawmen with dashing mustaches; instead,The Alloy of Lawcame together by happenstance.
As With Most Writers, Sanderson Found Inspiration While Working On A Completely Different Project
The Alloy of Lawwas an unplanned return to Scadrial that Brandon Sanderson began working on while he was in the middle of finishingThe Wheel of Time. Initially, the idea was for one or two short stories to explore Scadrial’s version of the Wild West, but as so often happens with authors, a handful of short stories snowballed into a full novel, andThe Alloy of Lawwas released in 2011 (viaBrandonSanderson.com); it was intended to be a standalone book, but of course that plan failed almost immediately.
Between his own ideation and the inspiration of fan-artist-turned-series-artist Ben McSweeny, Sanderson saw significant potential in the pseudo-steampunk vibes of Scadrial circa 340 PC. Sanderson first encountered McSweeny’s fan art after the release ofThe Hero of Agesand was immediately hooked on the man’s art style:
I found him throughMistbornfan art, that’s how I hired him in like 2008 or 2009, whenever it was. And he came up withallthese ideas that are really cool for melding some science and fantasy and, you know…how does this feel different from other urban fantasies? We don’t just want to do our world, but there’sMistborn. We want it to feel like Scadrial. So that’s been a lot of fun. That’s changed how I play and interact with that. (viaWinter is Coming)
As a result of finding so much inspiration inThe Alloy of Law, Sanderson followed it with a full trilogy of books, and worked more than one part of his original plan for theGhostbloodsarc into Wax’s story; the most notable part of that, at least according to Sanderson, is the villain fromThe Shadows of Self, the book that immediately followedThe Alloy of Law. That supernatural serial killer proved to be the perfect foil for Wax, which makes me wonder how the beat would have played out if it had remained inGhostbloods.
Magical Computer Nerds Are Great But I Loved The Brief Stopover In A World Of Wild West Whimsy
WhileGhostbloodsand the promise of magic-users existing alongside technologyequivalent to the dust-covered Apple II that lived in the corner of my third-grade classroom has piqued my interest since I first heard Sanderson talk about it in interviews years ago, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t quite content with how the series wound up playing out. There’s a powerful, gritty romanticism to the notions of a barely-industrialized frontier, andThe Alloy of Lawand its sequels play off those genre conventions – and even subvert them – amazingly.
Mistbornhas long been my favorite series in the whole of the Cosmere, not just because I sometimes dream of waking up and discovering I’m an Allomancer…
Mistbornhas long been my favorite series in the whole of the Cosmere, not just because I sometimes dream of waking up and discovering I’m an Allomancer, but because the core conceit that drives the world of Scadrial has always resonated with me. Scadrial is a world constantly in flux, being torn between the contrasting wills of those who wish to reshape it in their image; watching how the Metallic Arts drive technological advancement is as like catnip for my interest in anthropology as the thrilling Allomantic fights are for my love of cinematic action.
