Is "The Bands of Mourning" Brandon Sanderson's Best Book?

Not counting the last three books of “The Wheel of Time” the first Brandon Sanderson books I read connected to were in the Stormlight Archive. Because of that, I went into Mistborn looking for something similar. Sanderson like any author brings similar styles and voice to everything from Stormlight Archive to Mistborn wasn’t as smooth as one might have liked.

It took me most of the first book in the Mistborn series to connect to the characters. Even then I compared them and rarely favorably to Mistborn. Still, by the end of the three books of the first Mistborn trilogy, I was hooked.

What happened next was entirely predictable. When I returned to Mistborn, I was looking for the same feeling from the first Mistborn books. It took me most of the first book to connect to the characters. Even then, I was comparing them to the characters in the first part of the series.

The later Mistborn books feel like an entirely different series. The setting is quite different, the tone feels like a different genre, and most interestingly the conflict is effectively the reverse of the last time. Now the heroes are on the side of the government and the villains are the rebels who want to take it down.

“Bands of Mourning” by Brandon Sanderson is the book where everything felt as if it came together. “Bands of Mourning” has a lot more connections to the first Mistborn books and the cosemere. That makes it feel more like part of the same series of books. And for the first time, the new trilogy of books became more enjoyable than the first Mistborn books. And while I still prefer the Stormlight Archive, they have drawn much closer together. Before Mistborn books were a stopgap. A way to pass the time until the next Stormlight Archive book was released. Now, I’m stuck waiting for the release of another book.

What Happens in “The Bands of Mourning”

The previous two books in the second age of Mistborn had Waxillium Ladriam and Wayne trying to solve a seemingly unrelated mystery while also looking to understand what is happening with Wax’s family. In this the third book, Wax’s family becomes the main point, though something even bigger is happening. Though it begins with Waxillium trying to move on from the events of the last book.

It begins with Wax on his wedding day. He and Steris are about to give their vows when a nearby water tower collapses, flooding the church and postponing the wedding. It turns out that Steris had expected something to go wrong and planned for it. We also learn the water tower’s collapse was because of Wayne, who knew Wax wasn’t ready to get married yet.

At the same time, a kandra arrives to recruit Wax for a mission from the god Harmony. Wax (who is still angry at Harmony) refuses so she goes to Marasi who agrees, wanting to prove that she can do it, though even then it’s clear she was chosen to push Wax into doing it. And the kandra isn’t done. She shows them a picture that proves that Wax’s sister may be in the city they need to investigate.

What they’re investigating is no minor thing. It is an artifact from before the world was remade. The titular Bands of Mourning, which the Lord ruler from the previous age used. Magical items that give the wearer all the alchemical and feruchemical powers and make them as powerful as the lord ruler had once been. Something even more impressive since the strength of both powers has been reduced in this age, so even the average user of those is weaker than they used to be.

Things continue to go wrong as they try to make their way to New Seren where they will start the investigation as their train is attacked by robbers who have a powerful device that lets you store alchemical abilities for a short while using it as a sort of grenade for their powers. This makes Marasi’s power to create a bubble of slow time far more useful as she can use it on other people rather than herself.

Continuing to investigate his uncle’s plot, the group discovers an airship that has crashed and been captured by his uncle, who is using the more advanced science of those on the ship to increase his own power. This makes the organized and clear use of magic in Sanderson’s stories useful as he can treat the magic systems as a sort of science since we know the rules but there is still room to expand them.

Among the tortured bodies of the people who were flying the airship, they find a survivor while fighting an overwhelming force and rescuing Wax’s sister. The man who they rescue leads them to a smaller flying ship and they just barely escape. They want to return home but they realize they have no real choice but to go to the temple where the Bands of Mourning are trying to beat his uncle who can’t be trusted with the massive power that the bands would give him.

The kandra who is still with them sets off the many traps that are guarding the room and as they are trying to figure out how to open the door that will lead to the room where the bands are, Wax’s uncle approaches. He has enough men to trap them, but will make a deal. He wants to go in with them. Everyone is naturally skeptical but they have no other option so agree.

They carefully make their way into the room where they find that the Bands of Mourning are already gone. Someone it seems has already gotten into the room and stolen them, then reset the traps so that no one knows they have it. Realizing he has gotten what he wants, Wax’s uncle, along with his sister, turn on them. Both of them have been given powers by using hemelurgical spikes and using that edge and the element of surprise they quickly overwhelm them and while Wayne escapes the rest are shot.

Things seem lost, as they should at the end of a good book, until Marasi realizes they actually have found the bands. They were simply hidden by having them melted down into a spear tip Wayne had taken, assuming it was important. While bleeding out, she grabs the piece of metal and gains all the abilities of the Lord Ruler, including healing.

She fights for a moment with it, but realizes she isn’t the one who should use it and finds Wax, who has actually died and is having a conversation with Harmony in which it is revealed that Wax has been blaming the god for a decision that he made and wanted to forget. In the previous book he had killed a kandra who was also the woman he loved, and he blamed Harmony for letting it happen. But Harmony explains Wax wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to kill her and he wouldn’t have wanted her to go on because with her spikes damaged she was insane. And in another timeline, he asked Harmony to allow him to kill her.

While this is happening, Marasi puts the bands of mourning into Wax’s hand and he heals from his wounds. Then, using the massive power of the bands, Wax overcomes the odds that were previously overwhelming. He captures his uncle while his sister, who it turns out was the real mastermind escapes. Wax then only has to deal with the previous hostages from the other kingdom. His first reaction is to tell them that everything is his, but he makes a better deal. In exchange for a trade agreement that will include airships, Wax will give them the airship so they can return home and give the bands of mourning to the kandra so that he is no longer so overwhelmingly powerful that the rest of the series would be less interesting.

The story ends with Wax finding a coppermind he can use which holds memories that tell him that the person who he assumed was the Lord Ruler was actually Kelsier, the Survivor which puts the entire story of what is happening into question.

Conclusion

Having read this just after “Rhythm of War” was interesting, as I made a few connections to the cosmere on my own rather than having to wait for someone more versed in it to tell me. The most important naturally being that Kelsier is important. But even without the bigger implications, this is a good book. I still found Wayne to be the standout character. He is funny, useful and deeper than he appears all at the same time. But Steris really got to become more interesting in this book as a person who is simply trapped in the insanity of all of this but beginning to enjoy it in some perverse way. The most entertaining part were the lists of things that might go wrong that she kept not because she could do anything about it, but because knowing she had planned for it made her feel better. This included giving a seventeen page list of things that might happen to the innkeeper they were staying in.

With a reasonably good mystery, plenty of action and characters that I am growing to like more in every book this is certainly worth reading and if you’ve been lukewarm on the previous books, I think this one changing things up enough that it’s still worth reading. For me this isn’t Brandon Sanderson’s best work, but for me it’s the best of the Mistborn books and that’s impressive enough.