Ahhh, can you smell that, fantasy fans? It’s a new Sanderson Secret Project hitting the shelves. Smells like worldbuilding, tight plots, and witty banter. (And what do those things actually smell like, you may be thinking to yourself? I’d like to think… a mix of sea-foam, leather book-bindings, and coffee. Why? It’s best we don’t ask these questions. Just keep on reading—and let’s dive right into the story in question!)
Imagine, if you will, a setting similar to Mad Max: Fury Road. Now take the titular character, Max, make him a visitor from another planet who doesn’t speak the language, give him an actual personality, make him likable from the get-go, and we’ve got Nomad, the protagonist of The Sunlit Man. Start him off in a gladiator-like arena, but up the stakes by making the sun-side of the planet uninhabitable, so the denizens of the planet need to be constantly on the move in order to avoid it. Oh, and did I mention that Nomad’s being hunted by a group of alien worldhoppers called the Night Brigade?
Now, if you’re not already familiar with Brandon Sanderson’s work and you’re reading this premise, thinking to yourself, “This sounds pretty neat…” Well, you may want to pump the brakes (at least for now).
You see, Sanderson’s universe, the Cosmere, is a little like the Marvel Extended Universe. The worlds (and hence the books) are all connected to some extent, some more than others. And this one is very Cosmere-heavy. Think of it this way. Can you watch Avengers: Endgame without having seen a single other Marvel film or TV show and enjoy it? Sure. It’s a fun movie. But you’re going to be a little lost on some of the plot points and characters; similarly, when you pick up The Sunlit Man, you’re not going to find all the answers to the mysteries laid out in these pages. Nomad matter-of-factly talks about Dawnshards and spren and worldhoppers without explaining those terms. For some of these concepts, you can glean the meanings from context. Others, not so much. Will this detract from your enjoyment of the plot as a whole? That depends on the type of reader you are. If you like to have every question answered, every loose end tied up, every character nuance explained… this will not be the book for you. If you’re okay with just going along for the ride and don’t think too much about the little details, you’ll have a much better time, but you’d likely have an even better time if you’ve read some of the other books in Sanderson’s “extended universe” before jumping in here.
This said, if you’re already a Sanderson fan and the passing mention of the word “Dawnshard” made you perk up or start breathing heavily (calm down there, Chickens), then this book is definitely for you. A delightful mix of tension, intrigue, and Cosmere lore, The Sunlit Man is sure to enthrall all you die-hard Sanderson enthusiasts. Free up your copperminds and prepare to salivate over hundreds of hints, titillating and tantalizing revelations, and all new mysteries that will have you throwing back your head and cackling “Oh Brandon, you tease!” all bundled into one of Sanderson’s signature fantastic plots. The main character, Nomad, will seem familiar in all the right ways and you’ll be intrigued throughout by the hints of things you know and the things you don’t. (Yet.) It’s just enough to whet your appetite and keep you looking forward to the next book (Stormlight 5, is that you?) while sating your appetite for answers for the time being.
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The Sunlit Man
Speaking of which: the three Cosmere-related Secret Projects (Tress of the Emerald Sea, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and now The Sunlit Man) have all dropped a ton of hints and lore. With Wind and Truth looming on the horizon, we thought now might be the perfect time for a brief recap of everything we’ve learned so far…
WARNING! Beyond this point there be spoilers! Consider yerselves warned, Cosmere Chickens! If ye haven’t read ALL of the three Secret Projects listed above and don’t want to be spoiled, DO NOT PROCEED FURTHER!
Arrrrrr. Ye’ve been warned.
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Still here? All right. Here we go.
Let’s begin with Hoid. He features prominently in both Tress and Yumi, serving as the narrator of both pieces, and shows up briefly in Sunlit Man as well.
In Tress, Hoid’s lost a wager with Riina, an Elantrian, who was disguised as “the Sorceress of the Midnight Sea.” (For more on Riina and the Ire, see: Mistborn: Secret History.) He had bet her that if he could break her curse, she would grant him access to Elantris and the power of AonDor (for more on that, see Elantris). The curse placed on him stripped him of his sense of humor, sense of style, sense of decorum, sense of purpose, intelligence, and sense of self. In order to break the curse, he would need to return to the central room of the Sorceress’ ship on her island, and was forbidden from telling anyone about it. His kandra friend Ulaam was aboard the ship as well (for more about the kandra, see the Mistborn series). At the conclusion of the book, Hoid is granted the powers of AonDor, which I’m sure will be significant later on.
It’s also worth pointing out here that the dragon Xisisrefliel makes an appearance beneath the sea at one point as well (dragons show up so rarely in Sanderson’s books that it’s always worthwhile to point them out).
In Yumi, Hoid’s been trapped as a statue in the noodle shop and is being used as a coat rack for most of the book. This was due to the protection measures that he instituted to prevent other entities from interfering with his Investiture after recovering from Odium’s destruction of his Breaths (for more on Odium, see the Stormlight Archive. For more on Breaths, see Warbreaker). These measures were activated when, immediately upon his arrival, the father machine attempted to absorb his Investiture to power itself. After the father machine was destroyed by Yumi, and the attempts to absorb his Investiture thus halted, Hoid was freed from his stasis. He planned with Design (for more on Design, see the Stormlight Archive) to disguise themselves as astronauts and steal a ship, allowing them to travel to the nearby Iron Seven Waystation (this will likely be coming up again in the Mistborn series when Sanderson eventually gets that civilization to space travel, as planned).
When Hoid’s apprentice Sigzil arrived on Canticle in The Sunlit Man, Sigzil’s spren Auxiliary used some Investiture they had acquired to temporarily reinforce Sigzil’s Connection to Hoid, allowing Hoid to appear before Sigzil as an illusion (for more on Sigzil, see the Stormlight Archive). Sigzil remained angry with Hoid for over past betrayals, feeling as if he had been tricked and used by Wit when he was asked to take up the Dawnshard, and forced into his life of fleeing the Night Brigade. (As of now, we have no idea what most of this is in regards to. It may come up in a future Stormlight novel, or even in another novel in which Sigzil has traveled to another world. We just don’t know.)
Much about Sigzil remains a puzzle: What’s he doing here? How did he get the Dawnshard? Why? What happened to his original spren? Why does he have another one? There are a lot of questions here, and who knows when we’ll get the answers? (Hopefully in December when Wind and Truth is released, but there’s no way to know for certain.) Does Kaladin know he’s here? What about the rest of Bridge Four? The Night Brigade that’s chasing him is from Threnody, of which we know very little…
Phew. Let’s shift gears a little and move over to discussing some of the interesting powers and investitures displayed in the Secret Projects.
I hesitate to call Tress of the Emerald Sea’s twelve varieties of spores, or aethers, a magic system. They’re not really Investiture? Or are they? While each has a very different effect when exposed to different stimuli, I would hesitate to call it Investiture per se—it’s not energy in the same way that most of the other planets manifest it. A note here: spore eaters seem to be at least tangentially related to the aetherbound we’ve seen show up in Mistborn: The Lost Metal (his name was Prasanva).
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter has a pretty fascinating magic system. In the beginning of the story, when the machine is still functioning, we’ve got the hion lines and the yoki-hijo creating a nice dichotomy between technology and tradition. After the machine is destroyed, the hijo will continue to supply the hion lines with power so the surface of the planet won’t get so hot as it used to. It appears that Investiture here won’t be used the same way that it is on most planets in the Cosmere, in which a person harnesses it and unleashes it. (In a way, that’s sort of how it was being used, if we consider the hijo to be Investiture before the yoki-hijo drew them with their stone stacking and then “unleashed” them to be used in specific uses. The hion energy was harnessed and used in a more general sense, in the same way electricity is in the real world.) It is worth noting that the Shard in this system of the Cosmere is Virtuosity, whose primary Intent is artistic talent. Fitting, isn’t it?
Lastly, getting back to The Sunlit Man: The sun that Canticle revolves around emits vast quantities of Investiture, which is wild. It supercharges the growth of plants, but the extreme temperatures also incinerate anything unfortunate enough to be caught out in it. Aside from the sun, Investiture on the planet manifests through simmering stones which Nomad nicknames embers. Such embers are used as power sources and can be injected into people, replacing the heart. People implanted with embers are granted enhanced reflexes and strength. (There are some parallels with heat transfer and transferring breaths if you’re familiar with Warbreaker, too…)
Honestly, this is only a tiny little taste of the wealth of lore that’s to be found in these pages, so let’s discuss: What hints were you most excited about? What mysteries are you most intrigued by? What did you think of The Sunlit Man, and what’s your favorite out of all the Secret Project books?
Sound off in the comments, Chickens, and let us know!
