Brandon Sanderson

#1 New York Times Bestselling author Brandon Sanderson brings us deeper into the Cosmere Universe with a standalone adventure that will appeal to fans of 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?******Praise for Brandon Sanderson"Epic in every sense." -The Guardian on The Way of Kings"Brandon Sanderson's reputation is finally as big as his novels." -The New York Times on Words of Radiance"If you're a fan of fantasy and haven't read the Mistborn trilogy yet, you have no excuses." -Forbes on Mistborn"A fresh view of how a world can grow, building new dimensions into the best of the old. Sanderson continues to show that he is one of the best authors in the genre." -Library Journal (starred review) on The Alloy of Law"Sanderson's fresh ideas on the source and employment of magic are both arresting and original [...] Think brisk. Think fun. Enjoy." -Kirkus, on The Alloy of Law"Mystery, magic, romance, political wrangling, religious conflict, fights for equality, sharp writing and wonderful, robust characters...Sanderson is a writer to watch." -Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Elantris

The Cosmere (Secret Project #1)

Tress of the Emerald Sea

Krist

"Whenever one does discover a moment of joy, beauty enters the world. Human beings, we can't create energy; we can only harness it. We can't create matter; we can only shape it. We can't even create life: we can only nurture it. But we can create light. This is one of the ways. The effervescence of purpose discovered."

"#1 New York Times Bestselling author Brandon Sanderson brings us deeper into the Cosmere universe with a rollicking, riveting tale that will appeal to fans of 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? Other Tor books by Brandon Sanderson The Cosmere The Stormlight Archive The Way of Kings Words of Radiance Edgedancer (Novella) Oathbringer Dawnshard (Novella) Rhythm of War Mistborn: The Original Trilogy Mistborn The Well of Ascension The Hero of Ages Mistborn: The Wax and Wayne series Alloy of Law Shadows of Self Bands of Mourning The Lost Metal Collection Arcanum Unbounded Other Cosmere novels Elantris Warbreaker Tress and the Emerald Sea (forthcoming) Yumi and the Nightmare Painter (forthcoming) The Sunlit Man (forthcoming) The Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians The Scrivener's Bones The Knights of Crystallia The Shattered Lens The Dark Talent Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians (co-authored with Janci Patterson) The Rithmatist series The Rithmatist Other novels Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England (forthcoming) Other books by Brandon Sanderson The Reckoners Steelheart Firefight Calamity Skyward Skyward Starsight Cytonic"--

Sarah

The ocean, however, was now as you hopefully imagine it. Assuming you imagine it as emerald green, made up of spores, and bearing endless possibilities.

(Fun tip: Being told "I kept you in the dark to protect you" is not only frustrating, but condescending as well. It's a truly economical way to demean someone; if you're looking to fit more denigration into an already busy schedule, give it a try.)

Honestly same, Tress. I also never choose to be distracted 

Cutting apart a spore-filled flare while distracted wasn't the best of ideas--but admittedly Tress hadn't decided to be distracted. It happened naturally, like a case of the hiccups or the inevitable and relentless entropic decay of the universe.

“You know how rich folk are—they make all this money off people sailing around, selling and buying for them. Then what're they gonna do with the money? Lock it away. What good is locked away money? Ain't nobody going to enjoy it if it's trapped in a vault with Granna's wedding ring.”

“So we've gotta take some. Inject it back into the economy, as a stimulus. To help local merchants, the small folk who are just tryin' to live. We do an important service.”

Her head was full of wisdom like that: the wisdom of complaints. 

Ah yes. Of course. How could he be counted?

Oh, right. I nearly forgot Ulaam. But seeing as he was dead, he barely counted.

Oh, the five senses? Yes, I said I lost my sense of taste to the Sorceress's curse. You thought... you thought I meant that sense of taste? Oh. you innocent fool. 

She took my other sense of taste. The important one. 

And with it went my sense of humor, my sense of decorum, my sense off purpose, and my sense of self. The last one stung the most, since it appears my sense of self is tied directly to my wit. I mean, it's in the name. 

As a result, I present you with Hoid, the cabin boy.

I feel like I’m so out of my depth when I come across these references. Like I feel like I should be going “ah HA I know EXACTLY what this is about” and instead I’m just left with more questions

“I got it from a wizard a few years ago.”

“From beyond the stars”, Fort said. “A very strange fellow. He used it to translate words to our language. I traded hard to get it. It seemed to surprise him when he realized how much it would help. It's hard for me to write the usual way for hearing people, since l can't make some of the shapes.”

That "wizard" from the stars wasn't me, by the way. I've always wondered who traded the device to Fort. That's Nalthian tech, with Awakened predictive Connection circuits. 

I love how inclusive this is. And he even has fingers that had been broken and were healed improperly to work around, but it’s not said negatively, just a fact of him

“Your words appear for me on the back as you speak. It can even differentiate voices, and puts a mark before them to indicate someone new is talking.”

Now, you might be wondering why Fort didn't read lips. I, like many hearing people, once assumed this was the magical solution for people navigating the hearing world. But in case you haven't heard-pun intended-reading lips doesn't work like it does in stories. It's a messy business, full of guesswork, and is extremely taxing. Even for experts. 

It was Hoid, cabin boy of the Whistlebow. There was no mistaking his gangly figure and his pure white head of hair. Though everyone called him "boy”, he appeared to be in his thirties and evidently of sound mind—until he opened his mouth. 

"My gums sure do like a lickin'!" he said to her, then walked away with a bowlegged gait that made him wobble like a drunk penguin. 

It all felt so much more real now. Was she really doing this? Had she really left her home? What were those strange colorful pigeons, and why were they talking to her? 

This last part was a side effect of the poison the captain had ordered put in Tress's drink. There are, unfortunately, no talking pigeons in this story. Merely talking rats.

He smiled. The man was exactly the sort of person who thought every woman in the room was thinking about him. Which they were, as each desperately hoped he would head the other direction. 

"But a terrible idea executed brilliantly has to be better than a brilliant idea executed terribly. I mean, look at pelicans."

"Ulba, would you say our daughter is more practical than we are 

"Yes, I would normally say that," Ulba said. 

"And would you also say she is more thoughtful than we are?" 

"She is always thinking," Tress's mother agreed. 

"How often does she impose upon people or ask for what she wants" 

"With all that in mind, Tress's father said, "it must be the right decision for her to leave. She will have considered all other options. Leaving the island to rescue the man she loves might sound like lunacy, but if every other option has been discarded as impossible, then insanity might—in this case—be practical." 

It was at this moment that the thought occurred to me that Charlie is fairly likely to be autistic

He’d put off this princess by explaining what he'd had for breakfast in intricate detail, as he’d counted the pieces of the scrambled egg and categorized them by size.

#1 New York Times Bestselling author Brandon Sanderson brings us deeper into the Cosmere universe with a rollicking, riveting tale that will appeal to fans of 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?

It is a great irony that society tends to look down on those who sell their bodies, but not those who lease out their minds.

Most people never live, Tress, because they're afraid is losing the years they have left... years that also will be spent not living. "

Annabelle Gauthier

Beyond that, memories have a way of changing on us. Souring or sweetening over time—like a brew we drink, then recreate later by taste, only getting the ingredients mostly right. You can't taste a memory without tainting it with who you have become.

Kamil Pomykała

But there was someone willing to help. What could I say? What could I do? Only a silver of me was still awake, and it had almost no control. Plus, every time I tried to say anything about my specific predicament, the curse would activate, driving me back and prompting me to do something monstrous, like wear socks and sandals

"I once ate an entire watermelon in one sitting," I told her. "And it gave me diarrhea."

"Doug" is the naming equivalent to convergent evolution. And once it arrives, it stays. A linguistic Great Filter; a wakeup call. Once a society reaches peak Doug, it's time for it to go sit in the corner and think about what it has done.

Brandon Sanderson experiments with a much needed new narrative voice. Unfortunately it's kind of annoying and bad.

Caelan

Lauren R

A very solid book with interesting lessons on humanity, personal growth, and introspection. I unfortunately could not get very absorbed in the narrative point of view, and I believe it is a side effect of this being my first foray into the Cosmere.

Emily McMeans

BrandoSando with another winner! A bit of a str eye ch for any non-fantasy plebeians. Only due to it being in another “world” and boats sailing on spores and things like that. Just gotta workout that left brain a bit, or right brain idk. Mine hardly works anyway. 

A nice straight up start to finish underestimate here novel. Fresh out the cookie cutter, nothing wrong with it, nothing crazy about it. For the Sandersahn fans get in, for you normal folk, skip. 

connor arnette

BrandoSando with another winner! A bit of a str eye ch for any non-fantasy plebeians. Only due to it being in another “world” and boats sailing on spores and things like that. Just gotta workout that left brain a bit, or right brain idk. Mine hardly works anyway. 

A nice straight up start to finish underestimate here novel. Fresh out the cookie cutter, nothing wrong with it, nothing crazy about it. For the Sandersahn fans get in, for you normal folk, skip. 

Drew Nerbas

Wow. I understand the Brandon Sanderson hype. This was my first novel by him and to me it was an amazing place to start. The world is so unique and imaginative I’m super impressed. He also kept me on the edge of my seat with the twists that felt like they came out of nowhere. Loved it all.

Jennifer Gosnell

So much fun — and such witty writing. Loved the characters, the dialogue, and the overall plot. I knocked a star off, though, because I found the middle 60% of the book a bit slow. Lot of being on a pirate ship and chatting with the crew. The information in that section was certainly important… I just felt it dragged a bit and was a bit repetitive. Overall, a great read!

I LOVED THIS! I will say the writing style was, while clearly done purposefully, a learning curve because it’s very informal and loops back on itself, but as the book went on I loved it more and more, especially as the narration took on more life and the story got deeper and deeper. I really loved this! in a way it was very unsurprising this was inspired by princess bride and good omens, though the entire book felt very much like stardust to me if we’re picking a neil gaiman inspo. but the characters were so lovable and I just love a story that wraps itself up cleverly and neatly by the end. I love a good ending. this is my first sanderson but definitely not my last!

fris🐝

A short, witty, fast-paced adventure! Gives princess bride vibes 

Maria Fernanda Arnay

I, personally, didn’t get the hype around this; especially as my first read of the very popular Brandon Sanderson.

However! My experience was greatly improved about a third of the way in when I decided to imagine this as a Muppets movie (think Treasure Island, Christmas Carol, etc). I’m not sure how much of that is due to the narrator's performance vs Sanderson’s writing. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it.

Christian West

I, personally, didn’t get the hype around this; especially as my first read of the very popular Brandon Sanderson.

However! My experience was greatly improved about a third of the way in when I decided to imagine this as a Muppets movie (think Treasure Island, Christmas Carol, etc). I’m not sure how much of that is due to the narrator's performance vs Sanderson’s writing. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it.

Vicky  Nuñez 

Rating: 4.5 stars

As soon as I learned about the secret projects I knew I would enjoy them immensely and I'm not surprised to report I loved the first one.

Tres of the Emerald Sea is the whimsical tale of an ordinary girl living in a rock in the middle of the emerald sea whose life is suddenly changed when her beloved gets taken from her and she decides to go save him.
I never wonder what Brandon Sanderson writing a fairy tale would be like but I think this is the closes we are going to get to that. This story was full of charm and adventure while having a really well developed magic system that I hope we get to experience in the future.

A very good start to the secret novels, i can't wait for the rest.

Izabela Borges

This is definitely my favourite book of the year so far, and it will be hard to take its place. I can’t talk much about it without spoiling and writing a wall of text, so my advice is just go read it.
This book is a delight!

Tatiana

Tress of the Emerald Sea: 5/5
HOLY CRAP!!! This book is so good.

Sometimes all you need is a fairytale to pick you up. This book exudes adult fairytales but fixes everything you may hate about children's books. 

Tress was a wild ride from start to finish & it's easily one of my favorite books I've ever read. What a good breath of fresh air. Literally incredible.

Cody Degen

** spoiler alert **
           4-

Liked: world building
Disliked: hoid as narrator, too fourth wall-y, didn't feel so many cosmere tie-ins were necessary

i loved everything about this book. the characters were so lovable and relatable from tress all the way through the crew members on the ship. for some reason despite the title i wasn’t expecting it the setting but i quickly got drawn in and was amazed by the world building, even though it was a little confusing at first, once i got it, it was so vivid it read like a movie. tress was so relatable from her motivations to her sadness and her determination despite her fears and feelings of inadequacy was so great to read. i love love love this book so much. 

lani

I’ve been looking forward to reading this for awhile and it did not disappoint! A modern fairytale, turned slightly on its side with stakes just as creative but non-threatening. It reminds me a lot of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust. Genuinely funny, whitty, and entertaining, it was hard to put this book down!

Katie Allard

sera

realized i never left a review after finishing this! (i did talk about it on twitter though) after sitting with it for a while, i can confidently say this has become a new favorite. this book completely took me by surprise. i got it for my birthday in june and went into it knowing absolutely nothing! which worked in my favor i think. i loved it so much. in my opinion, it was a perfect introduction to brandon sanderson's cosmere. there were small references i didn't have context for but they didn't take away from my enjoyment of the story. in fact, it made me more curious to read more books in this universe. 

there are SO many things i can say about this story, i don't even know where to begin. the whimsical world tress lives in was just so fun to read about. i was immersed in such a colorful world the whole time. the world building was one of my favorite parts of the whole book. as well as the characters!!!! each one is so well written and thought out and compelling in their own ways. i love tress and huck sooo much!! and the whole pirate crew. it was a bit of a found family, especially towards the end <3 also, the narration by hoid was absolutely charming and hilarious. 

i was left feeling so happy and full of warm, fuzzy feelings after reading this. :)

I'm not one to DNF books but this book was so bad. I tried so hard to like it too. I started it over TWICE because I really thought I was missing something. The narration was weird and boring and didn't describe anything? So much telling and not enough showing. Super disappointing for such a highly recommended author. Not super motivated to read anything else of his.

I DNF. Got through 72 pages. I don’t like the narrator’s voice at all. The writing style isn’t for me. It’s really serving male author writing female character, and I can’t get into it. 

Sophia 

I am a Brando Sando person and this is exactly what I want from him and he keeps smashing out bangers and I keep consuming them like my life depends on it and maybe it does. Maybe it does. 

I will Stan a talking rat every time. More rats. Infinity rats. 

Apiecalypse Jen

I am a Brando Sando person and this is exactly what I want from him and he keeps smashing out bangers and I keep consuming them like my life depends on it and maybe it does. Maybe it does. 

I will Stan a talking rat every time. More rats. Infinity rats. 

deliciously strange. the postscript says the story was inspired by The Princess Bride and Good Omens and IT SHOWS. now I have to read every Brandon Sanderson book oops.

Howard Lyon

altlovesbooks

"You see, I've discovered that it's all right to need help. So long as you've lived your life as the kind of person who deserves to be rescued."


I'll be honest and say I didn't know what to make of this when I first started it. Aside from being aware that it was a Cosmere book, I went in basically blind, ready for a twisty whirlwind epic fantasy adventure. Instead, I got something a bit more thoughtful, a lot more tongue-in-cheek, and perhaps more fairy tale than epic fantasy. Temper your expectations accordingly; this is more like Sanderson-writes-Princess-Bride rather than 1000-page-Sanderson-Epic-Fantasy. 

(view spoiler)[Tress grew up on a small spit of rocky land in the middle of a green spore sea. No seawater, all green pollen that reacts violently when exposed to water. In the case of green spores, you get a wild vine explosion that can be rather, well, deadly if the water ends up being human water (of which, we have a lot of). There's different colored spore seas, and each of the different spore colors reacts differently when given water. So, content with her life, her crush ends up getting himself kidnapped by the Sorceress of this world, who resides all the way over in the Midnight Sea. What follows is Tress's quest to save the one dear to her, and all that she learns about herself, her resourcefulness, and the larger world she never knew along the way. (hide spoiler)]

It's a bit of a slow burn and took me a bit to get drawn in. I generally don't read a lot of light-hearted stuff, so when I first started this book, I thought I'd have to force myself through. Turns out, given the space and the time to tell a story, this is actually a really good one. The book is told, not from Tress's point of view, but from someone witnessing the whole thing (and who is familiar to anyone who reads Cosmere books), and we get some side commentary from them about the whole thing that I appreciated. It does read very much like The Princess Bride, but with a different take on the story (and that's mentioned in the afterword). I was really into seeing how Tress would get through her next scrape, and my only real minor complaint is that maybe the tongue-in-cheek humor is laid on a bit thick in some places for my personal tastes.

Still, this ended up being a really enjoyable read, and even though I guessed a part of the conclusion, there's still a lot there to be discovered. Highly recommend for Sanderson fans.

What a book! I’m a big Sanderson fan, have been for some time, and this is by far one of the more interesting. Following a character who is just a normal girl is so interesting. It makes it very refreshing from his other titles. I also recommend this for anyone looking for a quick book to read. 

Noah Cross

I thought this book was absolutely charming and lovely and delightful. The story is sweet and has a fairy tale like feel to it the whole time, even though it's very much science fiction. Was it perfect? No. I'm giving it 4 stars because I feel like there were little things I would have tweaked along the way.

Tress, as a character, was very lovely and relatable. She reminded me very much of Sophie Hatter from Howl's Moving Castle, and I loved how her character arch of growth never lost her her kindness and her ability to want the best for people. She was a lovely protagonist.

While I did figure out the plot just shy of half way through the book, it didn't take away from my enjoyment of it at all. I thought the plot was very well thought out and I think the endings Sanderson crafted for each character of this little found family that calls itself a crew were very fitting.

The two things I would have changed: there were several smaller lines that felt a little misogynistic, especially coming from a male author out of the mouth of a male narrator for a female main character. They really were minor lines, most of which were in the first half of the book, but they gave me pause. I also had a lot of questions about the spores and how exactly that worked. I feel like talking about them might verge into spoiler territory, but there was a question of how the volume of the oceans worked in my brain and how the moons worked exactly with the planet. It's sci-fi - I know - so there's gotta be a degree of suspension of disbelief, of letting the world breathe and just be without answering everything. I know. But every time more was explained, I felt like I was railing against the logic of the world. But that takes away from the whimsy of it, so I eventually just let it go.

In any case, one of the inspirations for this book was Good Omens and the writings of Sir Terry Pratchett and you can absolutely feel that in the writing. The philosophy nuggets you get, especially in the second half, were just so in Pratchett's vein of rhetoric. I fully recommend giving this a read. I feel like this would be appropriate for any age of reader middle school age and up. If you're okay to watch Pirates of the Caribbean, you'd be okay to read this book.

Kirsten Simkiss

I thought this book was absolutely charming and lovely and delightful. The story is sweet and has a fairy tale like feel to it the whole time, even though it's very much science fiction. Was it perfect? No. I'm giving it 4 stars because I feel like there were little things I would have tweaked along the way.

Tress, as a character, was very lovely and relatable. She reminded me very much of Sophie Hatter from Howl's Moving Castle, and I loved how her character arch of growth never lost her her kindness and her ability to want the best for people. She was a lovely protagonist.

While I did figure out the plot just shy of half way through the book, it didn't take away from my enjoyment of it at all. I thought the plot was very well thought out and I think the endings Sanderson crafted for each character of this little found family that calls itself a crew were very fitting.

The two things I would have changed: there were several smaller lines that felt a little misogynistic, especially coming from a male author out of the mouth of a male narrator for a female main character. They really were minor lines, most of which were in the first half of the book, but they gave me pause. I also had a lot of questions about the spores and how exactly that worked. I feel like talking about them might verge into spoiler territory, but there was a question of how the volume of the oceans worked in my brain and how the moons worked exactly with the planet. It's sci-fi - I know - so there's gotta be a degree of suspension of disbelief, of letting the world breathe and just be without answering everything. I know. But every time more was explained, I felt like I was railing against the logic of the world. But that takes away from the whimsy of it, so I eventually just let it go.

In any case, one of the inspirations for this book was Good Omens and the writings of Sir Terry Pratchett and you can absolutely feel that in the writing. The philosophy nuggets you get, especially in the second half, were just so in Pratchett's vein of rhetoric. I fully recommend giving this a read. I feel like this would be appropriate for any age of reader middle school age and up. If you're okay to watch Pirates of the Caribbean, you'd be okay to read this book.

I can’t remember the last time I related so strongly to a book character. This is a story about a girl coming out of her shell, and there’s a lot that she has to figure out and navigate. And it’s a painful process. Removing ourselves from our comfort zones is scary, and we hit a lot of bumps along the way, some bigger than others. We experience increased irritability, anxiety, and depression. But we also share a great deal of empathy and kindness and compassion (yes, those words have been used by people with no family relation to describe me). We feel deeply. But with all of that comes a change for the better. A desire to experience more and expand our horizons even if we’re dead scared. I’m not saying we’re exact replicas, we’re not, but the last 4 years of my life have felt a lot like what Tress is going through, and her ending gives me hope that I’m heading in the right direction. The story was fun to read, I copied several quotes, there was an excellent twist at the end, and the worldbuilding was perfect. Sanderson didn’t info dump, which I appreciate, but I think we’ll get to learn more about the world in future books. He wrote a beautiful note to the reader on the back of the dust jacket and inside the pages. I love that he wrote this book all for himself before his wife persuaded him to share it. I understand the desire to hold onto treasures for yourself to cherish, but I’m so so thankful he chose to publish this book. I’m not giving it a full five stars because I don’t know if I’ll go back and read it, but it definitely deserves the hype.

Tress of the Emerald Sea The Cosmere (Secret Project #1)

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