Tress of the Emerald Sea

Loved this book, really liked the cozy, kinda fairy tale vibe. Great characters, loved them all, especially the main character, she was so relatable and fun to read about. I also really enjoyed the narrator I didn't know what I was getting into, so discovering Hoid is telling the story was so much fun!. Really excited to get the hardcover soon and reread it!

There is something very comforting about Brandon Sanderson's writing style. TotES takes that general coziness and dials it up to 11. This is definitely the most whimsical Cosmere book I have read before, and I know that was deliberate seeing as this was written specifically for his wife. And the whole thing wears its influences decidedly on its sleeve. The Princess Bride rides strongly through this both in theming and literary styling, with some of the extra Pratchett and Gaiman whimsy thrown in for good measure. Having the whole thing structured as a tale told by Hoid allows for that whimsy to work in the setting though.

Sanderson's big strength has always been his well realised worlds and Lumar, the setting for this novel, is no exception. Every Cosmere planet has its own unique expression and Lumar is its spore seas. Each sea has a different colour spore and each colour spore has a different property. The spores all react with water to cause certain effects - the verdant spores of the Emerald Sea violently sprout vines, azure spores violently explode on contact with water. A series of clever mechanical devices are able to use these properties to create different weapons and tools. Everything here works and makes sense. And the fact that water is the main catalyst creates a brilliant sense of danger - most living things excrete significant quantities of water!

The characters here are also excellent. The growth seen feels properly earnt. This is essentially a coming of age story so that growth is so important. The characters are just engaging, the ships crew have that excellent found family element and the self deprecation that Hoid uses helps balance out having a super powerful immortal hiding in the story.

Considering this story was written as a bonus secret thing for his wife this is hugely impressive and probably one of the best things to come out COVID... Extra bonus stories should not be allowed to be this good.

This is Brandon Sanderson 1st of 4 secret novels

This book is set in the greater Cosmere of Brandon Sanderson but on a new world which we have not yet visited until this book.

This story is told in hoids voice and has a much more YA feel that other cosmere books and as Sanderson has said was inspired by Princess Bride and it certainly has that feel.

This books magic system is certainly different based around these spore seas but feels more like the natural biology of the world more than magic but still having that magical feel to it, its kind of hard to explaine lol. A very magical feeling world without alot of magic

Throughout this book there are numerous cosmere referneces to other worlds, lifeforms, magic systems and technology. I would argue that this is a great introduction to the cosmere, Fans will recognized the references and new readers to the cosmere don't need to know the references

Overall I really enjoyed this book and loved it but falls short of a 5 star review for me personally

only a few complains really. Mainly that there a few references to things that just would not be in the Cosmere including things from Earth, a non cosmere world but also HP Lovecraft references which while cool and awesome as I do like HP Lovecraft, Lovecraft does not fit in with the cosmere. And I don't think Hoid our narrator would know HP Lovecraft

Full reivew coming soon to my youtube channel, will updated review with link when that goes live