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Series · 4 books

Mistborn, Era 2: Wax & Wayne

Brandon Sanderson · read by Michael Kramer

They tell a story. Hardcover files every book in this run as fiction, and their readers there call them funny, mysterious and adventurous. Facts, not factors: neither plays any part in our call.

Listen to it

Every book we have judged on how far the recording outruns the page: 201 of them, the page's answer at the left-hand end and the recording's at the right. Marked for scale: All the Light We Cannot See, To Kill a Mockingbird and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This one sits in the top 3% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. −0.40, where we start backing the page; 0.40, where we start backing the recording.Mistborn, Era 2: Wax & Wayne
emphatic · 2.01 clear of the line where this would stop being a listen

Both halves point the same way: 52 readers call it fast and only 5% of the reviews we read called it demanding, and Michael Kramer’s reading is better received than the book it came from (in the top 6% of our shelf of books, on 11,589 ratings of the narration). About as clear as this gets.

Length does not decide this

57h 32m to listen, at 1×46h 02m to listen, at 1.25×38h 21m to listen, at 1.5×32h 53m to listen, at 1.75×28h 46m to listen, at 2×about 55 hours to readabout 42 hours to readabout 33 hours to readabout 26 hours to readabout 21 hours to read

The runtime is Audible’s, 4 recordings added together, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 1,663 pages in total at 30 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s, 4 recordings added together, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 1,663 pages in total at 40 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s, 4 recordings added together, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 1,663 pages in total at 50 pages an hour, which is about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s, 4 recordings added together, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 1,663 pages in total at 65 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s, 4 recordings added together, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 1,663 pages in total at 80 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.

Slot → chore-safe

About as demanding in audio as The Little Prince.

All the books we hold · 222

Easier to hear than 92% of the books we hold.

Fiction · 176

Easier to hear than 90% of the fiction we hold.

Doorstoppers · 54

Easier to hear than 96% of the doorstoppers we hold.

Reading load against listening load

Every book we hold placed by how much work it asks on the page, left to right, against how much it asks in your ears, bottom to top: 222 of them. Easy both ways is the bottom left corner, hard both ways the top right; above the dashed line the ears work harder, below it the page does. Marked for scale: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of a Young Girl. This one is in the bottom 16% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the bottom 6% of our shelf of books for effort in your ears.
The dashed line is where a book would be same effort either way. This one sits below that line (the page asks more of you here than audio does), in the bottom 8% of our shelf of books for extra work in audio.
On the page−0.77
In your ears−1.41
Audio disadvantage−1.50

Where that puts this one among the books we hold: in the bottom 16% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the bottom 6% of our shelf of books for effort in your ears. The middle of the scale is not the middle of the shelf (most books sit below the average on both), so a book at 0.00 is already in the top 43% for effort on the page. Each of the three is measured against the whole shelf separately, so the bottom figure is not the top two subtracted. It is this book’s own distance from the middle.

What the audio disadvantage is made of. Two things and no others: how fast readers say this one moves, and how demanding the reviews we read found it. There is no third: the structural one has no data source, so it contributes nothing rather than being guessed at. Both directions are declared priors we have never fitted against a real verdict, which is the weakest-evidenced part of the whole model.

Every book we could measure both features on placed by pace, fast to slow, against how demanding the reviews we read found it, plain to demanding: 166 of them. The easiest listens are the bottom left corner and the hardest the top right, which is the shaded one. Marked for scale: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of a Young Girl. This one reads faster than most books we hold and easier going than most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the recording.
This one reads faster than most books we hold and easier going than most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the recording.

How the call was made

Where a bar carries ticks, the grey one is the middle of our shelf and a coloured one is a line we publish, cool where we start backing the page, warm where we start backing the recording. The evidence squares at the foot are a different thing: how far each of our four sources went, hatched where there was nothing to measure at all.

The audio case
2.41It sits in the top 3% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Past the line where we start backing the recording.
Narration payoff
0.90Michael Kramer’s reading is better received than the book it came from: in the top 6% of our shelf of books, on 11,589 ratings of the narration. This is a difference, not a score: it sets the reading against its own book, so a much-loved book with a merely good reading sits low on this shelf even where nobody disliked either.
What is at stake
0.56It sits in the top 32% of our shelf of books for how well the print crowds think of a book: well enough regarded that a wasted first encounter costs more, so we lean towards protecting the page. Blended across 885,680 Goodreads ratings and 6,542 on Hardcover, each scored inside its own population first, and never added together.

For the page

  • The print crowds think highly of it

For the recording

  • The voice beats the book
  • An easy listen anyway
  • 11,589 listeners behind it

So the case for the recording won it clearly.

A bigger dot counted for more: the voice and the ear are sized by their share of the sum above, the other two by how much stands behind them. A hatched square is a reason that did not apply here, which is not the same as one that counted for little.

Evidence
1.00How much of the picture we actually have, out of 1.00: four questions, each answered as far as the source could answer it, less anything taken off for reading fewer reviews than we aim to.The reading11,589 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 6,542 readers there: as good as it getsThe matchHow sure we are that the recording we scored is this book: as good as it getsThe reviewsWe read 1,200 reviews to judge how demanding it is: as good as it gets

What each crowd complains about

In the reviews we read, how often readers brought it up and how often listeners did, each against what is usual for that same crowd across our whole shelf, which is the grey tick. The track stops at 4×. Listeners are only ever compared with listeners.

Readers of this book bring up the pace about one and a half times as often as readers usually do, while listeners of it bring it up less often than listeners usually do.

The books in it

Showing the stars as each shop prints them. The two crowds are not measured from the same place: on our shelf Audible’s listeners average 0.35 of a star above Goodreads’ readers, so a recording that is ordinary for Audible can still out-star a book that is genuinely well liked for Goodreads. Switch the toggle to take that difference off.Showing each figure as its distance from its own crowd’s middle on our shelf, in standard deviations, so 0 is a typical book for that crowd. Listeners start 0.35 of a star up, partly because anyone who finishes a twenty-five-hour recording chose it deliberately, and this takes that off. It is not a claim that audio is better, the story figure is still Audible’s own (people rating a story they heard), and none of it moves the verdict above.

One row per book: who reads it, how long it runs, then Audible’s listeners on the story and Goodreads’ readers on the book.

The Alloy of Law
Michael Kramer10h 48m8h 38m7h 12m6h 10m5h 24mAudible 4.57+0.13Goodreads 4.19+0.04
4.62·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
69%5 stars: 69 per cent, 3,670 ratings
24%4 stars: 24 per cent, 1,283 ratings
5%3 stars: 5 per cent, 287 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 38 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 10 ratings

5,288 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.79+0.72 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
83%5 stars: 83 per cent, 3,798 ratings
14%4 stars: 14 per cent, 634 ratings
3%3 stars: 3 per cent, 119 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 14 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 11 ratings

How often this goes badly0.5% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars. Fewer than most recordings here. The middle of our shelf is 2.0%, and half of it falls between 1.0% and 3.1%.

25 of 4,576 listeners gave the performance one or two stars

The shape of the room

  • United, this one
  • Warm
  • Split
  • Lukewarm

A united room: 83% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.

4,576 ratings

4.57+0.13 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
67%5 stars: 67 per cent, 3,069 ratings
24%4 stars: 24 per cent, 1,106 ratings
7%3 stars: 7 per cent, 330 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 50 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 14 ratings

4,569 ratings

4.19+0.04 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
39%5 stars: 39 per cent, 121,088 ratings
44%4 stars: 44 per cent, 138,011 ratings
15%3 stars: 15 per cent, 47,937 ratings
2%2 stars: 2 per cent, 5,520 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 981 ratings

313,537 ratings

Shadows of Self
Michael Kramer12h 57m10h 22m8h 38m7h 24m6h 29mAudible 4.61+0.28Goodreads 4.25+0.30
4.66·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
71%5 stars: 71 per cent, 2,344 ratings
23%4 stars: 23 per cent, 769 ratings
5%3 stars: 5 per cent, 158 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 9 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 3 ratings

3,283 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.80+0.77 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
83%5 stars: 83 per cent, 2,323 ratings
15%4 stars: 15 per cent, 410 ratings
2%3 stars: 2 per cent, 57 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 6 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 3 ratings

How often this goes badly0.3% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars. Fewer than most recordings here. The middle of our shelf is 2.0%, and half of it falls between 1.0% and 3.1%.

9 of 2,799 listeners gave the performance one or two stars

The shape of the room

  • United, this one
  • Warm
  • Split
  • Lukewarm

A united room: 83% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.

2,799 ratings

4.61+0.28 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
68%5 stars: 68 per cent, 1,907 ratings
25%4 stars: 25 per cent, 695 ratings
6%3 stars: 6 per cent, 181 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 11 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 3 ratings

2,797 ratings

4.25+0.30 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
42%5 stars: 42 per cent, 94,744 ratings
44%4 stars: 44 per cent, 100,114 ratings
13%3 stars: 13 per cent, 29,194 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 3,006 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 544 ratings

227,602 ratings

The Bands of Mourning
Michael Kramer15h 01m12h 01m10h 01m8h 35m7h 31mAudible 4.70+0.65Goodreads 4.40+0.97
4.74·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
78%5 stars: 78 per cent, 2,358 ratings
19%4 stars: 19 per cent, 566 ratings
3%3 stars: 3 per cent, 85 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 5 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 5 ratings

3,019 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.86+1.03 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
88%5 stars: 88 per cent, 2,271 ratings
11%4 stars: 11 per cent, 273 ratings
1%3 stars: 1 per cent, 36 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 2 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 1 rating

How often this goes badly0.1% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars. Fewer than most recordings here. The middle of our shelf is 2.0%, and half of it falls between 1.0% and 3.1%.

3 of 2,583 listeners gave the performance one or two stars

The shape of the room

  • United, this one
  • Warm
  • Split
  • Lukewarm

A united room: 88% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.

2,583 ratings

4.70+0.65 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
75%5 stars: 75 per cent, 1,926 ratings
21%4 stars: 21 per cent, 543 ratings
4%3 stars: 4 per cent, 102 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 7 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 2 ratings

2,580 ratings

4.40+0.97 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
51%5 stars: 51 per cent, 106,837 ratings
39%4 stars: 39 per cent, 80,502 ratings
9%3 stars: 9 per cent, 18,341 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 1,967 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 504 ratings

208,151 ratings

The Lost Metal
Michael Kramer18h 46m15h 01m12h 31m10h 43m9h 23mAudible 4.75+0.87Goodreads 4.48+1.33
4.79·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
82%5 stars: 82 per cent, 1,573 ratings
15%4 stars: 15 per cent, 289 ratings
2%3 stars: 2 per cent, 44 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 7 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 1 rating

1,914 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.89+1.16 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
91%5 stars: 91 per cent, 1,500 ratings
8%4 stars: 8 per cent, 124 ratings
1%3 stars: 1 per cent, 18 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 1 rating
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 3 ratings

How often this goes badly0.2% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars. Fewer than most recordings here. The middle of our shelf is 2.0%, and half of it falls between 1.0% and 3.1%.

4 of 1,646 listeners gave the performance one or two stars

The shape of the room

  • United, this one
  • Warm
  • Split
  • Lukewarm

A united room: 91% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.

1,646 ratings

4.75+0.87 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
81%5 stars: 81 per cent, 1,323 ratings
15%4 stars: 15 per cent, 254 ratings
3%3 stars: 3 per cent, 52 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 10 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 4 ratings

1,643 ratings

4.48+1.33 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
59%5 stars: 59 per cent, 79,873 ratings
32%4 stars: 32 per cent, 44,030 ratings
8%3 stars: 8 per cent, 10,684 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 1,517 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 286 ratings

136,390 ratings

The verdict is for the series as one commitment (57h 32m46h 02m38h 21m32h 53m28h 46m of it), because that is the decision you are actually making.

The series

Mistborn, Era 2: Wax & Wayne

No more announced yet · One voice throughout

4 books numbered on Goodreads’ list, with 1 novella or companion filed between them. Everything Goodreads lists is published, the last of it in 2022, and nothing new is announced, which is not the same thing as finished. We start saying finished after five quiet years.

Michael Kramer reads all of the 4 books of this run. Audible files them inside a longer “The Mistborn Saga” listing that runs past this one.

From Goodreads’ own series index, checked on 14 September 2026.

Every reading we hold

One complete reading of The Alloy of Law, and it is the reading the call above leans on. If there is another, we have not found it. The shelf grows in reviewed batches, never because somebody searched for a book.

  • Michael Kramerour pick10h 48m8h 38m7h 12m6h 10m5h 24m · One voice · Audible UK and US
    • The same voice all through

    Performance 4.79 · Story 4.57 · 4,569 rated the reading · 0.5% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

The recording we mean · The Alloy of Law

Runtime
10h 48m at 1×
Read by
Michael Kramer
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B0064EI8FU · Audible UK
Rated in
Audible UK and US · 3,922 + 654 ratings of the performance
Judged on
11,589 ratings of the narration
Published
Gollancz · 2011

Audible sorts a search by newest, so ours may not be the first one you are offered. The runtime is the check: if the one in front of you says 10h 48m, that is the reading these numbers describe. “Judged on” is the crowd behind every judgement we make about this reading: the smaller of the performance and story counts, which is why it is a little under the two shop counts added. We do not link out to a shop, and we take nothing if you buy there.