tress_of_the_emerald_sea

Hey, it's Brandon Sanderson. A part of his four book, $41 million kickstarter, Tress of The Emerald Sea basically just gives you what you thought you were going to get. It's not necessarily what you want, but it's definitely what you expect.

This story about a girl named Glorf (nicknamed Tress, but whose original weirdass name is literally never mentioned again?) rescuing a boy she likes by joining a pirate crew is told from the perspective of Hoid, Sanderson's recurring Cosmere character. Sanderson mentions in the authors note that the story was written as a practice for speaking in Hoid's voice. I don't think he's capable of writing a throwaway story, but this feels about as close to one as he could have written.

Brandon Sanderson's legacy is unique in that you know about it before you read his books. Maybe that's a testament to his greatness - it's not often that I hear someone an author before recommending any one specific book. His reputation comes with some pretty specific stuff though - almost to the point of becoming a meme. The sanderlanche, the bland prose, the prolific output, the magic systems, etc., we got all that stuff here in this book.

The readthrough of Tress of The Emerald Sea is colored by these bits of knowledge. The kickstarter books popped out of nowhere, leaving us all thinking "how does he write this much". You'd have to imagine him clacking away at 200 wpm 20 hours a day and dumping his first draft off to an editor and telling them to ship it. How much can he really be saying in this story if he's saying so much all the time. There's a cognitive check going on when you think about him as a writer. No need to look any deeper into this story - it's just Brandon Sanderson. He's not really philosophizing or making much of a statement about anything, he's just telling a fairy tale. And that's fine, I like that. Kinda takes some pressure off.

He's certainly got his patterns (no pun intended). The magic system in Tress fits his formula from his other stories:

There are N types of some element (metals, spren, spores, etc), but the secret N+1th element is special. Some people can harness these elements in certain ways - the main hero is particularly in tune with the special one.

Again, it works for me.

Over all, it is a pleasant read that flies by. I looked forward to getting back to it each day. There wasn't much meat to the story - again, this book drags along the persistent thought "he didn't really take the time to beef this up" because of how quickly he presumably wrote it. Again, it met expectations. Pretty middle of the road Sanderson affair here after all, but it was cozy.