Tress of the Emerald Sea - Brandon Sanderson

⭐ 7.0/10

(Originally written by Tim)

In some ways this book reminded me why I like Sanderson - the world building. He puts us on a different planet with some interesting geographical twists and lets it fly. In this one the oceans are made up of spores, with different oceans having different magical properties. The way different worlds and magics connect in his universe is always intriguing to me, and in this book I found the imaginative ideas and spins on things that exist elsewhere in his Cosmere was interesting to me.

The story, on the other hand, was a bit lackluster. The basic idea is admittedly stolen from The Princess Bride, but inverted, where the young prince goes missing the and nobody girl who he loves goes after him. Not a bad idea, but such a1 worn out trope that I had a hard time caring. During the adventures she learns what love truly means and finds herself! Boring. Another thing I couldn't stand is the narration. Like Princess Bride, someone in universe is telling us this story. That someone is Hoid, the lynchpin of the Cosmere (famously shows up in every book, often in disguise), and also maybe my least favourite character. To start I loved him, this mysterious world hopping guy who knows everything, but now he is an avatar for Brandon to tell any joke he thinks is funny. And as I have said before, Brandon's worst skill is telling jokes. The humour is so childish, attempting to use puns and "dad jokes" in ways that are supposed to make you roll your eyes and smirk, but instead I shut my eyes, grit my teeth, and push through. Honestly its so cringey it hurts.

So anyways, Hoid tells us this whole story, so that sucks, because its filled with quips and remarks from this omniscient narrator. However, he also knows everything about the Cosmere, so there are lots of little nuggets of info that sparked my brain. The world is just so interesting! Give me more fantasy and stop writing character monologues where a character realizes they are depressed but find their inner strength or whatever.

This book did have some good fantasy elements, and a lot of time is spent on a boat, which I have grown to like a lot thanks to Robin Hobb. The ending has some nice twists, but it ties a knot on everything so quickly that I felt like I couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to.

The story behind this book is interesting as well, as this is the first of four of the books that sparked the largest Kickstart campaign of all time. Basically Brandon wrote 4 books in secret over covid, meant for this one to be a gift just for his wife (sure), but she insisted he release it broadly. Brandon's quantity is widely praised, and for whatever reason people don't seem to remark on his decline in quality, probably because he is a genuinely nice person. Brandon, if you are reading this, I am begging you. You have chops kid, and people love you. Take some time. Please. I understand you are working on Stormlight 5, the culmination of the first half of your grand epic, the finale before the series makes a huge time jump both in story and publication. I need this book to be good. Take another 3 years and do nothing else. I know you have a lot of ideas in your head. Park them and make an actual book that lets me recommend Stormlight to my friends once again.

I think I worked out some unresolved stuff there. Thanks to Tress for giving me the opportunity. If you are between the ages of 10 and 15, you might love this book. Shoutout to the cover of this book, which I think is genuinely great.