Like all of Brandon Sanderson's books, it took me a while to get into this one. However, once it hooked me in I needed to find out what happened next. Set after the original Mistborn trilogy - in a "wild west" type setting - the events of the previous books are only briefly alluded to, in tales of legends and religion. There are also new allomantic powers, and thus this book works perfectly as a standalone even for somebody new to the Mistborn universe.