Book #47 of 2024:
The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson
[Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.]
I’ve read most of author Brandon Sanderson’s published writing, and this Hugo Award-winning fantasy novella from 2012 remains my absolute favorite, a title I’ve returned to and reread on multiple occasions (both as a standalone feature and as part of the Arcanum Unbounded collection). His pet themes are all here: inventive magical systems explained cogently and brought to life with ingenious exploits of the underlying rules, aspirational models of effective leadership, twisty heists pulled off with expert precision, and more. There’s even mention of the tripartite split across the Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual Realms, a theoretical framework that underpins and loosely connects the writer’s various Cosmere stories (though you don’t have to read any of the others first, or even realize that this one is set on the same world as his novel Elantris). All of that in a slim volume of only 167 pages in my paperback copy.
The distinctive Chinese- and Korean-inspired worldbuilding elements are fun too, but it’s the characters who really make this work shine. We start from the irresistible premise of a con artist given a reprieve from her imminent death penalty in order to assist her captors with a secret task, which turns out to involve healing the empire’s ruler from a head injury that’s left him catatonic. Privately she doesn’t think it can be done at all, let alone in the hundred days she’s been granted, but she gambles that playing along will hopefully give her enough time to plot an escape. As she outwardly complies and talks more with the grandfatherly man overseeing the assignment, however, she reluctantly starts to believe in the good that could come of their project if she could somehow manage to pull off a miracle. Simultaneously, he and the reader are learning more about the prisoner and her art, which is far deeper and more philosophically-minded than the simple process of forgery it initially seems.
In essence, Shai’s hand-carved stamps rewrite the history of the person or object that they mark, for instance convincing a shattered window that it’s instead been lovingly maintained or persuading manacle chains that they contain a flawed link that will break the next time they get struck. The blueprint must be plausibly near enough to an observer’s recognized reality for the change to take hold, so if she’s to produce one that will restore the fallen emperor, she needs to know all she can about him to essentially recreate his entire personality from scratch. It’s a sorcery that the imperial advisors consider to be the utmost heresy, though they’re desperate (and hypocritical) enough to employ her services regardless.
What unfolds from there is a deeply humane tale, about as cozy as the genre can get with a looming execution date hanging over the protagonist’s head. It asks profound questions about art and human intention, and it shows how honest individuals who passionately disagree can slowly find a way to see things from the other’s perspective. Perhaps most importantly, it’s a book that believes wholeheartedly in people’s ability to surpass their limits, rise to a challenge, and ultimately prove better than they ever were before — to become the version of themselves that’s needed to meet the present moment. I’m moved anew by its powerful ending, as I find that I am each time.
★★★★★
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