Was just speaking to my friend (and soon to be author!!!) about Sanderson–I’ve given her a copy of The Final Empire, knowing that I myself took ages (and two reads) to actually read it. Despite the fact that I’m a casual Cosmere reader at best (as in, I’ve only read the Mistborn books + the various secret projects #1-3), there was so much I could say to recommend him to her. Do you want an author who’s learned and grown over time, becoming more progressive and embracing change and viewpoints? I give you Sanderson! Do you want an author who is really into writing and therefore gets books out on time all the time? I give you Sanderson! Do you want to read works written by a reader’s author, someone who comes up with fantastically imaginative scenarios seemingly every single time? I give you Sanderson!
Again, it’s sort of ludicrous that I’m such a cheerleader without having fully invested in his work, but that’s probably why I like his works so much. They standalone, or weave together, and in each case you’re not meant to feel bad. So you didn’t understand the references to Shards or Hoid and sort of half-remembered what Investiture was? That’s okay! The story holds through regardless, which is a sign of a writer who gets it.
In this Secret Project (#3, if you’re keeping track), we’re introduced to an anime/manga/Kdrama influenced world of Yumi, a yuki-hijo tasked with entrapping spirits (who remind me of nothing more than shiny soot sprites from My Neighbor Totoro) to do various menial tasks for denizens of a very hot world, and Painter, who’s tasked with chasing down nightmares and trapping them via the use of paintings, like some sort of artistic BFG with a mania for bamboo. In a bit that immediately brings to mind Kimi no na wa (a reference Sanderson acknowledges in the afterword), they find themselves waking up on alternate days either in one another’s bodies or in each other’s worlds, one of them corporeal and one of them insubstantial. There is humor, and hijinks, and also a deeper mystery that needs solving. Also, there’s romance!
The reason why early Pixar movies were so amazing (in my opinion, at least) is that they could all be boiled down to one universal human experience, made flesh through any number of fantastical worlds. Toy Story is a quadrilogy that started as a single movie which asked whether it’s worthwhile to care for someone who will inevitably leave. Whether that means a fleeting part of childhood or a relationship that doesn’t work out is irrelevant. You can put whatever you want into the vessel of the film and make it yours.
I’m not saying that this book is necessarily a work of art on par with Toy Story (and Toy Story 2, a movie that I will actually argue might be one of the best films of all time). But Sanderson does a very similar thing, but with possibly a human action as opposed to experience–in this case, what would it be like if you had to spend time with someone and teach them to be good at a thing that came to you like breathing? And their ability to do the thing was also really, really important? I might not even be capturing his point that well–partially because there are other elements that he wanted to try in this novel, including “romance*”–but it does feel like in every novel there’s a grounding thought that provides structure and stability to a wondrous world.
Perhaps sort of like a base of well-balanced stones that can support a tower many layers high 😉
* extra kudos for creating a Romantasy (?) of sorts, sort of for the first time?? which is not to say that there aren’t romance elements in his other works but this is the first one to really center all the weird and blush-y emotions that come from being, well, into another being. Shouldn’t be surprised that Sanderson manages to carry it off with aplomb. But please no high heat Romantasy. I don’t think I could handle that.**
** although I imagine he’d also be great at that
