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Tress of the Emerald Sea
Fans of Brandon Sanderson know about his incredible Kickstarter campaign last year that became the biggest of all time, doubling the previous high, for his Four Secret Novels project. The first of those novels has been released and is now available on Amazon.
Contributors to the campaign received their electronic and audio copies at the beginning of January. Tress of the Emerald Sea is Brandon’s most profound novel, for a very simple reason: Page after page, chapter after chapter, it displays Brandon’s wisdom, all within a deceptively simply story that reads like a light and humorous fairy tale.
Why wisdom, rather than informed opinion or knowledge? Not because of Tress, although she is a marvelous character. No. For fans of his Cosmere, it’s because of the narrator.
Through the narrator, Brandon cannot help but reveal himself behind the character, for it is the character that most IS Brandon in so many ways.
If you are a fan and have yet to read it, the time is now. Yes, many reviewers think it is a lighter romp.
But read more closely. Brandon is surpassing J.R.R. and Lewis and so many others of the Epic fantasy greats. You may disagree, but I think he is genuinely unsurpassed. And truly wise.
Enjoy!
Published in Literature
Mark- If one is new to Sanderson (I think he wrote the last WOT) and a huge fan of Lewis and The Professor, where would you start in discovering Brandon’s work?
The Mistborn Trilogy, which starts with The Final Empire.
But Tress is a standalone novel that could also work as an entry point. And then after getting through more Cosmere book, it would be even more amazing to reread.
Here’s a link to the Ricochet post on the Kickstarter:
https://ricochet.com/1197489/brandon-sandersons-surprise-announcement/
And here is Brandon’s recommended reading order:
https://faq.brandonsanderson.com/knowledge-base/what-order-should-i-read-them-in/
Also, here is an interview where Brandon explains how he was chosen to complete The Wheel of Time.
https://www.gamesradar.com/interview-how-brandon-sanderson-ended-the-wheel-of-time/
It is a really fun read, with I think some genuinely wise insights into what it means to be human. I read it the day it came out in ebook format, in one sitting. But…
I do think that’s a step too far, especially in regards to Tolkien (I wouldn’t say Lewis is really an Epic Fantasy author, so much). In part because I suspect I disagree profoundly with the theology underlying Sanderson’s cosmere. But I also think Tolkien is just a better writer.
Nevertheless, I enthusiastically recommend anything written by Sanderson, if you are a fan of the genre. I think I’ve read everything he’s ever published aside from the graphic novels (not my bag). And I agree that Tess is his best work yet.
Thank you, I think he did an excellent job on finishing that series.
I’m a big fan of Brando Sando. Writing-quality-wise, I don’t think he’ll ever pass Tolkien. Sanderson’s writing quality isn’t consistent enough. He’ll write something like The Way of Kings or A Memory of Light or Tress, but then also churn out a bunch of averagely written books in between. Average as in prose and character work. I’m with you on what he’s building with the Cosmere though. It’s like finally getting a multiverse that’s actually great (unlike what the MCU has turned into).
Still love the guy and throughly enjoyed Tress and The Lost Metal (despite some questionable writing decisions in the latter), but Sanderson is getting closer and closer to working on too many projects.
It’ll have to wait until I’m through the Wheel of Time. It’s nice to have a backlog of new material to read. (:
When someone asks what they should check out first with Sanderson’s original stories, I usually recommend The Emperor’s Soul. It’s short since it’s a novella, but it captures his writing style, worldbuilding, and just the way he writes about magic so well.
I’m going to put a pin in this discussion and get back to it. I opted for the e-books, and discovered that my Kindle needs a new battery. So be warned that I’ll be resurrecting this thread whenever it is I get that situation resolved and can actually read the book.
Right, the Kindle situation took longer to sort out than expected, and then I was reading other things until last week, where I was cramped into the back seat of an overpacked sedan on a long road trip.
I enjoyed the book, but I didn’t think it one of his stronger works. You have to be pretty deeply invested in the cosmere to follow a great number of the things that make this book interesting. Case in point, the narrator. When I started reading I saw the jerk narrator and I go “Okay, that’s a cheap gimmick, I could see doing it for the fun of it if you’re writing for the drawer, but I wouldn’t want to do it for publication.” Then a couple chapters in I’m thinking “Yeah, this is getting old” until the narrator casually mentioned that he was named Hoid. Then it’s okay, I’m in for it because I know the character. but if I hadn’t already read The Stormlight Archives then I wouldn’t have come in with the expectation of what dealing with Hoid was like, or his stories, so I’d have been more annoyed with it throughout.
The bit of the story I was most interested in was Tress using spores to seal up the hole in the ship, because she was using an iron plate to attract the growth and (as the narrator points out, “if you’re the kind of person who obsessively tracks this kind of thing”, which I am), a steel trowel to push the growth away. That tracks with the magic system used in Mistborn, as does the aluminum surrounding Tress’s cabin. Seeing as I’m intent on teasing out the serets of the cosmere I find that fascinating. (Still don’t know how silver enters into it. And yes, I’ve read the story in Arcanum Unbound.)
And that’s the problem. I don’t know if the book works if you’re not already hip deep in this stuff. In some cases it might; the Sorceress’s robots work if you treat ’em as robots without having the secret of their construction from Warbreaker. In other cases not so much; I would have been tremendously disappointed to find out the (is it too late to worry about spoilers? I’m thinking so.) Sorceress’s tower was in fact a rocket if I hadn’t been primed for it elsewhere in the cosmere.
Oh, and the magic system doesn’t work. One of the principles Sanderson laid down at the start is that salt kills the spores. Well, blood is salty. Bleeding on the spores ought to kill them, rather than activate them. If it’s not salty enough then no potable water is. Sanderson being Sanderson I suspect he’s thought this through, that there’s actually another principle at work here, that he’s reserving some mysteries for the next story in this setting. But he doesn’t even lampshade that problem. I’d count it a serious weakness in a stand alone novel.
I’ve gone on too long already, but I’ve a bad habit of telling people all about the flaws of books that I liked. So a moment while I discuss the good points. I like Tress as a character, and I appreciate the same things that Hoid does about her; that she stops and thinks things through, and doesn’t jump to conclusions. It’s easy to write people being stupid. It’s hard writing people acting sensibly. I’m not big on gimmicky world design, but this one works pretty well. I don’t know how you get the moons to hang in the sky like that, but assuming they just do then the rest of it works (in particular the ‘seas’ being gently sloped pentagons. That’s sound geometry. Pick up a soccer ball, it’ll have exactly twelve pentagons on it.) I appreciate that Sanderson took the time to make the romance that drives the adventure believable. I would have hammered the ‘Doug’ gag a little harder, but that too was pretty good. And the sorceress taking an up-front loss to avoid a low probability of a disastrous chance, that was an excellent read of how an immortal might think about tactics.
That’s plenty.
Let’s go, Brandon!
The Emperor’s Soul won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novella and, even more remarkably, deserved it.
I’ll second the Mistborn Trilogy and The Emperor’s Soul. The Emperor’s Soul still haunts in the lovely way of great stories.
I’ve been with Sanderson since the beginning with Elantris. Part of my job then was to handle the B&N newsletter, complete with book groups and reviews. After reading the “newest plot in fantasy” in ages for the 27th time, I read it. I was hooked.
Legion also is a great read. The total collection of Legion novellas is intriguing.
The newest Legendarium podcast has been released and the topic is this very book.
Haven’t read those yet. Or the Alcatraz series. Look, I read a lot of books but it’s hard keeping up with Sanderson.
Speaking of which, when searching up this post again I scrolled past their podcast on Cytonic. I’d skipped it at the time, waiting until I’d read the book. I need to go back and give it a listen.
As I’ve said elsewhere, my main thought on that book is “this would make a heck of a board game.”
I wrote a post about it some time back, in Ricochet 1.0.
I don’t know how far along you are in WOT, but the story bogs down in the last few books that Jordan wrote. If you stick with it, Sanderson’s concluding books of the series are worth the effort.
Book 11 is good. Jordan’s last.
I thought Sanderson did a great job a) keeping Jordan’s spirit alive in the last book (12?) and 2) wrapping up a lot of different threads. Jordan really got lost in the middle for a while. Almost gave up on the series.
I found it good when rereading to scan books 9 and 10 to get to better parts. The deep fans still love them.