Book #109 of 2023:
The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson
[Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.]
This is the fourth and final ‘Secret Project’ release from author Brandon Sanderson, representing the novels he wrote in his spare time during the early COVID-19 pandemic and later dramatically unveiled via a record-setting Kickstarter for their publication. As perhaps expected, it is much closer in feel (and I would say quality) to its fellow Cosmere adventures Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter than the unrelated offbeat comedy The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England. It’s also well-placed at the end of that loose sequence, sending off the entire experiment quite nicely.
The story is set in the cosmere, that interconnected universe that contains many of the writer’s other works, on a spinning world too close to its sun where humanity clings to survival on flying cities that perpetually flee into the night to escape the ravages of the intense solar rays. There a character we’ve met before in The Stormlight Archives appears, on the run from his own dangerous foes, and reluctantly gets caught up in local affairs whilst continuing to look over his shoulder for the much deadlier threat that’s after him. In other words, it’s the timeworn trope of the drifter who comes to town not looking for trouble yet ultimately becoming an unlikely champion for the community, which Sanderson executes with his usual aplomb.
The broader appeal for returning readers is that all of this is set sometime in the future, substantially after the contemporary events unfolding in places like Scadrial and Roshar. (That’s why I won’t spoil the former name of our protagonist, who goes by Nomad here, even though his identity is clear fairly early in the text and the eventual confirmation isn’t played as any kind of twist.) It’s our first official glimpse at this later era, and while the details are largely just intriguing footnotes for now, those are the exact sort of breadcrumbs that have long powered the cottage industry of fans scouring Sanderson’s writing for clues about the larger ongoing narrative and updating the Coppermind wiki accordingly. It’s not my own favorite way of engaging with his fiction — I much prefer the smaller personal scope than the big implied crossovers, at least so far — but it’s still a thrill to see certain pieces clicking into place. If you’ve ever wondered how the shades from the novella Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell fit into the bigger plan for the franchise, this book will help you draw those connections.
But personally, I’m more here for the immediate tale of a weary stranger who forges his own unexpected connections and finds new reasons to keep on fighting another day. The hero and the friends he makes are well-drawn, and their struggles against a tyrant in the inhospitable environment are exciting even outside of any grand serialized implications. An authorial afterword cites the Mad Max films as among the title’s influences, and I can definitely see how elements of Fury Road could have inspired particular scenes and plot developments. Overall a fine read, though probably one requiring a heavy grounding in the relevant cosmere background in order to fully understand and appreciate.
[Content warning for gun violence, torture, genocide, and gore.]
★★★★☆
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