Review: Alloy of Law

I am pretty sure I’ve mentioned Brandon Sanderson in other posts.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that I’ve compared other novels to Brandon’s works, whether or not I was fair in my comparison.  So, if you’ve followed my blog, you would be right in assuming that I am a fan of Brandon Sanderson.  So, when I received Alloy of Law for a Christmas gift a few Christmases ago, you’d assume I would just hop right into the book and devour it.  Well, I’ve been nervous–very nervous–about this book because I knew I would compare it to the original Mistborn trilogy. I knew Mistborn before the title was changed to The Final Empire, first book of the Mistborn series. I was shocked when certain characters died, when other characters betrayed them, and I enjoyed every high-fantasy twist and turn.  So when I heard that the next trilogy (quadrology, soon?) would be a Western-style Mistborn, I was excited, but wary.

Beatrysel by Johnny Worthen

Beatrysel, by Johnny Worthen, is a very interesting novel.  Set in Portland, Oregon, it centers around dark and occult deaths caused, if not by the self-made Mage Julian Cormac, then by someone close to him.

Julian has just come out of a drug-filled stupor prescribed by his psychiatrist after he exited a mental hospital to find that something is very wrong.  His friends the Crabs, so called because they frequent a quaint bookshop called the Crabtree, are being targeted by a serial killer that kills by luring their victims to their deaths by Magick.