Review: Tress of the Emerald Sea: A Cosmere Novel (Secret Projects Book 1) by Brandon Sanderson

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** spoiler alert ** #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson expands his Cosmere universe shared by The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn with a new standalone novel for everyone who loved “The Princess Bride.”

The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie. But when his father takes him on a voyage to find a bride and disaster strikes, Tress must stow away on a ship and seek the Sorceress of the deadly Midnight Sea. Amid the spore oceans where pirates abound, can Tress leave her simple life behind and make her own place sailing a sea where a single drop of water can mean instant death?

Note from Brandon:

I started writing this in secret, as a novel just for my wife. She urged me to share it with the world—and alongside three other secret novels, with the support of readers worldwide it grew into the biggest Kickstarter campaign of all time. I’m excited to present this first book to you at last: a different type of Brandon Sanderson story, one I wrote when there were no time constraints, no expectations, and no limits on my imagination. Come be part of the magic.

Dear Brandon Sanderson,

I read this book for a bookclub. The only other book of yours I have read was “Mistborn.” This one worked better than “Mistborn” for me, but still was not a perfect fit.

I thought Tress was a wonderful character and I thought her journey was very well done – both external and internal. I liked how the changes in Tress by the end of the book still left the core of her personality intact. She was still recognizable as the Tress we meet in the beginning of the story, but we also see that she learned things and she learned to apply those things in her life and all of that was told in the light-hearted fun voice. It was a great adventure for the most part. Please note that it is NOT a romance – it has a romantic element and obviously Tress’ quest was to find and save her love and she does that, but for me it was mostly an adventure and journey of personal growth.

I also found the world building to be interesting and very creative. I really, really would not want to travel in the any of the Seas described in this story :).

So, I liked all those things in the story. Here is what I disliked and actually disliked quite a bit. I disliked the narrative voice, or I should say I disliked part of the narrative voice.  See, the book is written mostly in the third person limited and we are mostly in Tress’ head and occasionally in other characters’ heads. One of them is a talking Rat who becomes Tress’ friend and somewhat of the confidant at some point of the story.

Another character is the one who irritated the living hell out of me as soon as he appeared. At first I was very confused when third person limited switched to the first person past.  I was thinking why do we suddenly switched to “I”? Who is that mysterious I? At first I started to think that it was the author breaking the fourth wall – the additional details which were thrown in the narrative for a reason that was unclear to me were weird.

Then we realize that first person narrator is one of the team members on the ship where Tress ended up while trying to find and save her Charly.

I promise you after this revelation I was irritated more, not less, because the details about Tress’ life that this person shares with us? There is no way he would know it, unless author deemed that he must know just because.

And his frequent philosophical asides ?  I disliked those too. Two examples can be seen below.

“What had happened to her ingenuity? Her self-defining thoughtfulness? She grew more and more frustrated as each day slipped away from her, leaving no further progress than frazzled hair and another scribbled-out page in the notebook. What was wrong with her? Nothing. Nothing was wrong with Tress. Her mind was functioning properly. She hadn’t lost her creativity. She hadn’t run out of ideas. She was simply tired. We want to imagine that people are consistent, steady, stable. We define who they are, create descriptions to lock them on a page, divide them up by their likes, talents, beliefs. Then we pretend some—perhaps most—are better than we are, because they stick to their definitions, while we never quite fit ours. Truth is, people are as fluid as time is. We adapt to our situation like water in a strangely shaped jug, though it might take us a little while to ooze into all the little nooks. Because we adapt, we sometimes don’t recognize how twisted, uncomfortable, or downright wrong the container is that we’ve been told to inhabit.”

“Change has an illusory aspect to it. We pretend that big changes hang on single decisions, single moments. And they do. But single decisions and single moments, in turn, have a mountain of smaller decisions behind them. You can’t have an avalanche without a mountain of snow, even if it begins with one bit starting to tumble. Don’t ignore the mountains of minutes that heap up behind important decisions. That was happening to Tress right at that moment. Full realization hadn’t dawned yet, but the glow was on the horizon.”

To be clear, I don’t think there is anything wrong with the philosophical musings in the book per se, but you have to see the difference in tone between the narration while in Tress’ POV and the one which is not. I found it jarring.

Also the annoying narrator is in the story for a reason but I still have no idea what the story gained because of it. I mean I understand what it was supposed to mirror, but the revelation about him just did not work for me as a gotcha kind of thing.

In other words, without this character I would have given the book a higher grade.

Grade: B-

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