I honestly fear for a world with both alomancy and machine guns… But that would be interesting, I haven’t seen a setting that has been looked at in such a wide time range before.

The comparisons are hard to ignore between these two considering both trilogies came out roughly at the same time. I like both quite a bit and as completed series, both are extremely high on my personal favorites list.

Re: Urban Setting
It’s funny you mention that. I’ve been reading Sanderson’s annotations as I complete each chapter, and just today I read on that contained the following passage:

‘One of the problems created by my writing style is that it’s hard to give a real feeling of scope to a kingdom or landscape. When you read something by Robert Jordan, for instance, you get to see a whole world full of peoples and places, since the characters travel all about. I prefer to set my stories in one or two locations, usually a large city, since this lets me focus on the political wrangling, and it also lets me give a strong sense of place to that area.

I don’t regret the way that I write. However, I am aware of the issues involved in the choices I make. I think that’s what you have to do in a book—you make trade offs, choosing to focus on some things and not others.’

Obviously, it looks like Sanderson’s aware of his strengths/history as a writer, so it will be interesting to see how this aspect of the final WoT books turns out. Still, at this point in the series, there should be little world-building left to do, and Sanderson should just be able to have fun in Jordan’s world. This is also one of the reasons I don’t really want to see Sanderson (or anyone) go after the Outrigger trilogy.

My biggest concern for The Wheel of Time after reading this book and Elantris, is that at their core both these books are essentially urban in nature. While there are brief interludes that take place in more rural settings, like the caves in Final Empire, Sanderson’s world-building seems to be confined to cities. So I’m a bit worried about how well he’ll capture the expansive breadth of the world of the Wheel of Time.

Keith – I’ll assume you know about the other two novels in the trilogy, The Well of Ascension and The Hero of Ages. If not, that’s the next step. Otherwise, Sanderson has talked a couple of times of writing another series of books set in the Mistborn world, but many years in the future, when technology has caught up to a modern level.

‘I will, someday, write a follow-up trilogy to Mistborn. It will be set several hundred years after the events of the first trilogy, after technology has caught up to where it should be. Essentially, these will be urban fantasy stories set in the same world. Guns, cars, skyscrapers–and Allomancers.’

A question for you, one of the problems I have with Sanderson’s writing is that I have trouble figuring out how to pronounce some of the characters names – specifically Sazed (Sayzed – rhymes with raised? Sah-zed?) and Kelsier (Kel-seer? Kel-sea-eh?). can you help me out, having listened to the audiobooks?

But I definitely agree with you, the magic is extremely well thought out and shows much more depth than the typical fantasy. Though at times I do think that there’s a little too much focus spent on the allomancy.

I’m curious: are there any more Mistborn books in the works/planning?

I think this becomes a more important issue as the series progresses. Starting in book 2 and continuing to one of the major POVs in the last book. It isn’t confronted in any kind of “very special episode” kind of way but the element of trust with regards to emotional allomancy and the effects of relying too much on a specific metal are definitely discussed as the series progresses.