Year of Sanderson Review

Posted on October 28, 2023 by erictaveren

Back in early spring 2022 Brandon Sanderson started a Kickstarter for what he’s dubbed The Year of Sanderson. Apparently during Covid he had a ton of extra time and so decided to write extra books on top of his scheduled writing. Jealous much? I know I am. The Kickstarter went on to become the most successful Kickstarter ever, bringing in just shy of $42 million. Dang.

The main draw was the four new novels, but you could spend more and get shirts and tickets and whatnot. I’m not big on acquiring random clutter (though my wife will say otherwise. Depends on your definition of random I guess), so the books themselves are what drew my interest.

The books themselves released once per quarter this year, with the final novel reaching backers this past month. I finished this final novel last week and after several conversations about the books with other Sanderson lovers, I’ve collected my spoiler-free thoughts.

The four books, in order of release, are Tress of the Emerald Sea, The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and The Sunlit Man.

We’ve all been told not to judge a book by its cover, but it seems that is one of the goals of these books. As you can see, each of them has a stunning cover just begging you to open it. It seems silly to rank the books by the covers, but if I had to, it’d be Tress, Yumi, Sunlit Man, then Frugal Wizard.

But that’s not where the amazing art ends. Each book contains a ton of unique illustrations, which for copyright reasons I won’t share here, stylistically appropriate for the story. Because of the intentional style differences it’s hard to compare them, but I enjoyed the Yumi illustrations the most, likely due to my interest in Japanese culture.

Book titles also have work to do, drawing in readers and creating the first promise between author and reader. The blandest title here, though very fitting for the story, is The Sunlit Man. Looking simply at the titles, that’d be the last one I’d grab. The other three are a toss up, each presenting us with information about the protagonist(s) and the world. Great titles.

Now time to get down to the brass tacks. The pictures are great, and can go a long way to enhancing a story (I’m looking at you Axel Scheffler), but ultimately our enjoyment comes down to the story, the writing, and the multitude of feels the words trick our brains into feeling. I probably could break down each one for various reasons, and I suppose if anyone asks I would, but based on my conversations, the ranking is rather obvious.

I’ll start on the bottom. The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England brings up the rear in this four book collection. I wouldn’t say it’s significantly outpaced by the next two, but it’s also not super close. It was an entertaining enough story, but I feel it lacked the character connection you’d expect in a Sanderson book. I suspect the reason for this is what I also view as the strongest aspect of the story: the character’s memory loss. I don’t want to do any spoilers, but amnesia can reveal interesting twists (which this does), but can also make the character harder to identify with (which this does).

Number three and number two were a bit closer, and I think they’ll flip flop depending on who you ask and their style preference. My number three is The Sunlit Man. It has strong characters, central and supporting, a unique world and culture, and is set apart from the others by its breakneck pacing. It also fits snugly into the Cosmere and brings back a fun character (not counting Wit. That dude is everywhere). For those who enjoy action and plot advancement, this is the book for you.

Number two is Tress. Tress definitely reads more YA, which isn’t a bad thing of course, but if you just finished a Stormlight book, prepare for a tone change. In Tress, Sanderson is able to embrace the joy of a sailing adventure, while at the same time working in all the magic, world building, and characterization we’ve come to expect. The plotting and rationing of information is near perfect and, like Sunlit Man, ties into the Cosmere organically, especially following the last Mistborn book. My only critique, and I say this knowing Sanderson considered these books POV experiments, was the POV. The narrator was as entertaining as always, there were just a few logical fallacies that stood out. Maybe I noticed because I was taking a POV grad school class while I read it. Others I’ve talked to haven’t noticed or cared.

That leaves number one: Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. Yumi is leaps and bounds above the other three in every possible way. The characters are crisper. The world is more engaging and integral to the function of the story. The integration with the Cosmere is broader. It was balanced and fun and magical. Each of the other books excelled in a particular area, but Yumi pulled everything together into one fantastic story.

At the end of the day, they’re all fun reads. If you miss out on Frugal Wizard, don’t feel bad. If for whatever reason you’ve only got time for one, read Yumi. If you plan to read them all or have already done so, it won’t be wasted time. Sanderson has always excelled in characterization, magic, world-building, and intricate plotting, and these stories are no exception. If you didn’t back the Kickstarter, find a friend who did. Otherwise, all but Sunlit Man have hit bookstores, and you can preorder Sunlit Man right now.

Happy reading to all you old and new Sanderson fans. Now we just have to wait until November for the next Stormlight book.

Steampunk Research Part Two

Posted on January 20, 2023 by erictaveren

Infernal Devices, Boneshaker, The Anubis Gates, The Difference Engine, Homunculus

I write this at 1:37 PM and so greet you all with a good afternoon, and not in the Will Ferrell/Ryan Reynolds way (unless you deserve it). As of yesterday I finished the last of my research for revising my novel and it’s time to hold myself accountable and report in.

Previously I mentioned three things that stood out in steampunk: Transportation, Science/Magic, and Weirdness. The five books I’ve read since then reinforce those observations with the addition of one more: History.

It just so happened that the books I previously read weren’t indicative of the Victorian locales commonly found in the genre. Of the five I just finished, all but Boneshaker were based in London. For me, this won’t play too much into the writing as my story takes place in a completelyfictitious world, but I do still want to talk about the setting and the history of it.

As a Theatre Arts and English major, I had plenty of exposure to British writers, and of course Britain played a major role in global politics (I’m using that term very loosely as I don’t want to fall down the rabbit hole of colonialism). With that, there is a lot of opportunity in period pieces for authors to embrace or tweak history and historical figures for the sake of the narrative and the world they’re inventing/adapting.

I particularly enjoyed how this played out in The Anubis Gates. The protagonist is a literary scholar who is an expert in Coleridge. It’s a time travel book and I’m not ruining anything by saying those characters meet. But that’s not where the literary and historical connections end. Many real-life persons are introduced and historical events help shape the narrative journey. I found myself wondering how much of what I was reading was factual (I knew some parts definitely were) and how much was invented. The fact that there were parts I was unsure of made it that much more engaging.

The Difference Engine was much more liberal with its treatment of historical figures and events, enough that I could lump it into the alternate history genre. But in staying true with the setting and technological advancements it solidly fits with the rest of the steampunk I’ve shoved into my brain the last couple of months. Boneshaker too did this, though in Seattle instead of London. As someone who grew up just south of Seattle I found that personally engaging as well. The author made a point at the end of the book to acknowledge what liberties she took with historical accuracy, giving a look into the massive amount of research that goes into period pieces.

As I pivot from reading to re-writing (and starting up grad school again on Monday), I’ve got not only a stronger idea of the genre that I’m piggybacking off of, but a much better handle of genre expectations, both to adhere to and to subvert. Whereas I was initially really trying to scientifically explain how the technology works in my story, I’ve learned that a lot of that can be hand waved away. Brandon Sanderson used an iceberg metaphor regarding world building that I think can be co-opted for this. He (paraphrasing) said that if you have enough surface level complexity, the reader will assume the unspoken parts of the world are known to the author and also have legitimate explanations/reasons. That works with the technology of steampunk. It’s basically magic, but as long as it’s explained in part, the rest is assumed to work as well.

That’s all I have for today. I try not to make these too long, though if you ask my wife I could go on about these books at some length. I’m starting a class focusing on point of view on Monday, so between that and rewrites my brain is going to be working overtime for the foreseeable future. Enjoy the weekend and I’ll try to have another post soon.

Steampunk Research Part 1

Posted on December 12, 2022 by erictaveren

Reading research progress: Four books down in just over a week.

To get ready for my first round of edits on my novel, which I’ve been describing as steampunk adjacent in regards to genre, I felt I should read a bunch of steampunk books both to find pitfalls to avoid as well as potentially gain inspiration for new/revised content. Since my last post just over a week ago I finished The Lost Metal, The Brothers War, The Steampunk Trilogy, and The Aeronaut’s Windlass. The last two are proper steampunk. The first has qualities for sure, and the second was more of a filler book while I waited for the actual ones to arrive from the library. It too though had steampunk facets to it. Now, what was gained from over 1000 pages of genre-focused reading?

Observation 1: Transportation

Most readers know about the stereotypical airship trope in steampunk. Both The Lost Metal and Aeronaut’s Windlass had them, though the importance of each was drastically different. The Steampunk Trilogy had a nuclear powered train (for a page and a half), and even The Brothers War had flying ships of a sort.

Now I know transportation is integral to movement for most characters in most stories, but steampunk really integrates it into the story and the world itself. With such fantastical devices for their era, steampunk’s modes of transportation are a wonder and a backbone of the genre. And the fantastical thing about them? That’s observation 2.

Observation 2: Science! Or, magic. Or something…

I’m only four books in, so we’ll see how long this holds up, but it seems like in steampunk when you want something cool to exist/happen, just make up a reason for its existence. The Brothers War had powerstones and The Aeronaut’s Windlass had crystals. Both provided power and were essentially batteries in a world that didn’t have power otherwise. The Lost Metal, not strictly steampunk, used magic for their airships, and the most ridiculous of all, in the third story in the Steampunk Trilogy, a seeress’ lactation was used to transport a ship to purgatory (it’s a little more complication than that, but still very weird).

Excluding the trilogy, the science/magic/something that powered their technology was also intrinsically entwined in the culture and the world of the story. If a random thing just existed for the sake of coolness, it would seem like a cheat, but for these stories there is a function that not only allows the coolness to exist, but also colors the actions of the characters and the society.

My initial thought when starting my first draft was that I wanted to make everything theoretically possible. That somewhat went out the window in the prologue, but about halfway through I really pivoted from our reality to the reality of the world I was creating. These stories have definitely shown me how much that diversion is useful and needed in the genre.

Observation 3: Weirdness

The winner here for weirdness is The Steampunk Trilogy. When I was first looking up books to read the warning for this one was that it was weird. It is. So very, very weird. But it wasn’t the only one. Lost Metal has shapeshifting immortals. Brothers War has extradimensional techno-demons. Aeronaut’s Windlass has talking cats and hippo-sized spider-things. Weird.

While they were all weird, they were all enjoyable too. It seems that weird is just part of the genre. In my story I don’t have anything like that. At least not yet. Knowing the precedent is there allows for some creative storytelling. Or not. It’s not like these are exact standards to be followed.

Conclusion:

Of the books, I felt the strongest were The Lost Metal and The Aeronaut’s Windlass. These not only had much better characterizations, but their technologies were integrated into their world in a grander and more seamless way. They presented not only compelling stories, something I believe to be paramount no matter the genre, but a world wholly unique and engaging.

My main takeaways from the readings revolved around technology integration as well as being able to distance myself from the realistic function of that technology. Of course there should still be rules for the technology, but those rules don’t have to obey the same laws of physics that we do. Already I’ve ideas for expanding current concepts as well as a few new ones.

What’s next?

More reading. I just today picked up from the library Infernal Devices, Boneshaker, The Anubis Gates, and The Difference Engine. Until next time, happy reading.