Tress of the Emerald Sea Reactions (Cosmere Edition)

[Cash67]

Reaction:

STORMS I loved this book!! I had so much fun reading about the spores and how they can all be manipulated… I need a spore master in a future Cosmere book. Also I loved how the gloves are off with Cosmere references, this makes me very excited for SP 3 & 4. 
 

Edit: I think this book further confirms we need Tom Hiddleston as Hoid

Edited January 2, 2023 by Cash67

[+Oltux72]

OK, now to a true reaction to the whole book.

This read like Secret History as told by Allomancer Jak. I loved them, I loved this book. It was better than Lost Metal and Rhythm of War. However, I can see that this is a more extreme style. You either love or hate it. Brandon really used the sauce of Cosmere stuff here. This is a book for nerdy fans.

[The Bookwyrm]

Also, I just realized that in the artwork for Hoid's duel with the Sorceress, the tropical shirt he's wearing has Marewill flowers on it...

[IndigoAjah]

Anyone else get Princess Bride as a starting point for style and content?

Until the Cosmere craziness amped up of course 

[The Unknown Ajah]

18 minutes ago, IndigoAjah said:

Anyone else get Princess Bride as a starting point for style and content?

Until the Cosmere craziness amped up of course 

Yes, and that's a good thing since (Princess Bride is amazing) that was explicitly Brandon's goal.

[+Czernobog]

The incredibly deep ocean on Threnody is called the "Lilting Abyss." Hmm...why would a deep ocean chasm be called rhythmic? My hope now is that the Evil that attacked the Homeworld is a Cosmere kaiju with a penchant for peppy showtunes.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Czernobog
way too many newlines at the end

[estus]

So am I the only one that feels like Fort is the character that's obviously a plant for future importance?  Constant references on his end of hunts, along with what seems like a larger understanding of arcanic theory than is normal.  My suspicion is that he's a southern Scadrial descendant that has given up on some cultural choices... or there's some link between the Maskless & Hunters that develops and we've yet to see?

[FireandAshes]

wanted to add my thoughts to the hoid voice subject. honestly, i wasn’t bugged by it at all, i loved it and laughed out loud a fair amount of times. i’m interested at why references to laptops and vending machines bothered some of you—in my view, why add unnecessary sci fi words to things we already know? just complicates things in my opinion, but obviously this might just be a matter of taste. 

other hoid things— 

1. ulaam’s acknowledgment that hoid is one of the most powerful beings in the cosmere was so cool to me. like, we knew that, but for a character to just say it outright almost gave me chills. (also ulaam is a gem i will protect him with my life)

2. there’s a sort of irony to the fact that we see hoid trying to become an elantrian in the first ever cosmere book, and he only becomes one, it appears, in the newest one, the farthest one in the timeline aside from sixth of the dusk. 

3. his curse? incredible. honestly hilarious and very interesting the way he managed to work around it a few times. 

anyway, i totally agree with the bookwyrm that the amount of what!!!!???? moments in the book were so awesome. brandon knows what he did. 

[FireandAshes]

10 hours ago, Cash67 said:

Edit: I think this book further confirms we need Tom Hiddleston as Hoid

i quite literally could not agree more. 

9 hours ago, The Bookwyrm said:

Also, I just realized that in the artwork for Hoid's duel with the Sorceress, the tropical shirt he's wearing has Marewill flowers on it...

omg really?? i’ll have to look at it again, that’s crazy

[Yomisma]

In Spain that book will be released on January 19. I'm a Cosmere addict, I don't know how I can wait so long.

[+robardin]

13 hours ago, FireandAshes said:

wanted to add my thoughts to the hoid voice subject. honestly, i wasn’t bugged by it at all, i loved it and laughed out loud a fair amount of times. i’m interested at why references to laptops and vending machines bothered some of you—in my view, why add unnecessary sci fi words to things we already know? just complicates things in my opinion, but obviously this might just be a matter of taste. 

other hoid things— 

1. ulaam’s acknowledgment that hoid is one of the most powerful beings in the cosmere was so cool to me. like, we knew that, but for a character to just say it outright almost gave me chills. (also ulaam is a gem i will protect him with my life)

2. there’s a sort of irony to the fact that we see hoid trying to become an elantrian in the first ever cosmere book, and he only becomes one, it appears, in the newest one, the farthest one in the timeline aside from sixth of the dusk. 

3. his curse? incredible. honestly hilarious and very interesting the way he managed to work around it a few times. 

anyway, i totally agree with the bookwyrm that the amount of what!!!!???? moments in the book were so awesome. brandon knows what he did. 

Like I said earlier or elsewhere, this falls under the category of the actual author (Brandon) effectively "translating" Hoid's storytelling into terms from our world, which is not a new storytelling device (JJR Tolkien did this).

The problem I have is when that is done on top of Hoid also doing it to his in-world audience, making references to things he clearly knows are beyond/above THEIR heads. It's a little too much, and leads to outright questions about if Hoid is like Deadpool and meta-knows he's a character inside of a story. (Which Brandon has said is not the case, but it really shouldn't even be a question.)

I mean, fine, Hoid is familiar with laptops, vending machines, pro sports teams calling time-outs and playing in stadiums, and it's clear he doesn't expect his in-world audience to know what they are, and doesn't care. Which is already an infuriating pattern for Hoid, but I'd prefer that be in-world infuriating, not infurating to me :D.

But when I read those terms in English, I can't help but wonder: is that because (say) Scadrial of the time of TotES has all these things by those same names, because Hoid has seen them before long ago on Yolen by those names, or is Hoid referring to them in Scadrialese and Brandon is "translating" to our current English?

And wondering in that way breaks me out of the "flow" that is key to enjoying fantasy. Suspension of disbelief, yeah, but also built-world immersion.

If we'd already read Mistborn Era 3 novels showing people with laptops, buying things from a vending machine, going to a "pro noseball" game at a stadium, etc., then such language would be in-world. And maybe it will end up being so in the long run, since evidently Tress' story is later in the Cosmere timeline, close to SotD. But as of right now, reading it in published order, it's jarring.

Edited January 3, 2023 by robardin

[Lightspine]

One of the most fun bits of new magic that I haven't seen anyone else bring up yet is how the Kandra abilities seemed to have progressed. Now that Ulaam isn't constrained to mimicking humans, he also isn't constrained to using just their bones. From what we've seen before, Kandra use human bones as a "scaffold" and have to build the rest of the organs and flesh around them using their own substance. But Ulaam isn't doing that; he's taking body pieces directly from people and utilizing them instead of building his own. This makes sense. If a kandra can steal your bones, why can't it steal your ears too?

It's also a bit confusing as to why the Kandra were doing it the way they were before. Why did they digest the whole corpse except the bones if they could have instead kept the fleshy bits of the corpse, wouldn't that have allowed them to transform more quickly and convincingly? I think the most likely reason is that this is somehow more difficult and "advanced."

I'm also fascinated by what traits might be preserved in this process. It's confirmed that stuff like the ability to roll your tongue is kept when Ulaam takes said tongue, but that makes sense since it relies on the intrinsic muscular structure of the tongue itself. What's more alarming is when Ulaam is asking for Tress' brain:

Quote

“I…barely understood half of what you said, Ulaam,” she said.
“Half? Why, I knew you were smart. Your brain—”
“—is not for sale,” Tress said.”

Excerpt From: Brandon Sanderson. “Tress of the Emerald Sea.” Chapter 28

Can Ulaam access someone's memories if he gets ahold of their brain? That feels like an important and terrifying ability.

Another curious thing is the "salves" that he makes. They might simply be applications of his advanced knowledge of the biological sciences. But maybe there's a sprinkle of magic. Or a sprinkle of Kandra. From my perspective, a Kandra looks an awful lot like a big ball of pluriplotent stem cells. What if Ulaam is basically lacing the "salve" with little bits of himself that reconstruct/graft onto injuries?

[Crvz]

On 1/1/2023 at 11:01 PM, leafelf said:

The quote is: ""I can't. For your own good, you see."... Oh yes. I've said those words. I said them with sixteen other people, in fact."  (edited for clarity).  We also have the quote: "[Hoid] was literally part of secret plot to kill God."  I find this one pretty interesting, since we knew he was involved in killing Adonalsium, but I believe it being a secret plot is new information, though not super surprising.   

Also I just want to say I love the art!!  Especially the one where Hoid is having an epic wizard duel while dressed as a dad on vacation 

This caught my attention. It implies there were a total of 17 co-conspirators.  If accurate, that sets up a lot of interesting questions (did they all know they would create only 16 shards, if so what was Hoid’s long game, etc).  I suspect there are others players and I should t read too much into that quote, but it seemed oddly specific. 

[Crvz]

Double post

Edited January 3, 2023 by Crvz
Double post, delete as needed

[+Harrycrapper]

On 1/2/2023 at 1:43 AM, Oltux72 said:

So you are making the assumption that the Kandra scattered immediately after being released from Harmony's service?

 

Dare I suggest Microkinesis?

That raises a fundamental question. We have multiple interstellar empires. Yet we also have multiple relatively primitive planets. So many that many of them are still being discovered. I can see no way this is possibe unless the Cosmere has hundreds of inhabitated worlds. That means that our view of it must be highly skewed towards atypical worlds.

 

I looked up Xisis on the coppermind when his name was dropped in the book to see if we had seen him referenced before. One of the things listed under attributes is speculation that he's a 10th level Awakener because he can control cloth without vocalizing a command.

And it seems to me that a theme of the secret projects is that the cosmere has many more inhabited worlds than most people thought(or at least more than I thought). 

On 1/2/2023 at 10:22 AM, IndigoAjah said:

Well, 2 seas made up of small, spherical solid matter that's all basically unique invested objects and acts like a fluid.

In the postscript, Brandon mentioned that he has some sort of fascination with large bodies of liquids that aren't water. 

[FuzzyLogic]

Loved the book - but need to re-read some Elantris related stuff to understand what the heck Curses are - because that seemed insanely powerful; well beyond anything I can think of in any other magic system I recall. You can both adjust Hoid's mind and convert a person into a rat. What the actual heck?!

I thought the scariest thing I'd seen Brandon do was have Odium altering Hoid's mind via manipulating/destroying Breath (which I had issues with; that for SURE causes harm to Hoid, Odium) and that was high level god-tier stuff... but some Elantrian (however old) was also able to do that?

[PurpurPhönix]

11 minutes ago, FuzzyLogic said:

but need to re-read some Elantris related stuff to understand what the heck Curses are - because that seemed insanely powerful; well beyond anything I can think of in any other magic system I recall. You can both adjust Hoid's mind and convert a person into a rat. What the actual heck?!

I think it's all Elantrian stuff, but because our only written accounts of Elantrian magic are from the Shaod, where Elantrian magic was practically nonexistent we're probably relatively ignorant about what its true power is. But even there we see Raoden do some really powerful stuff, like teleporting hundreds of miles. And we see the IRE make a device that can forge a Connection to a Shard. All in all Elantrian magic seems very powerful indeed

[Werewolff Studios]

12 minutes ago, PurpurPhönix said:

All in all Elantrian magic seems very powerful indeed

Yeah, it's pretty wicked once you have a mastery of the Aons. Because it's basically utilizing the raw power of two Shards, and 'programming' reality itself. As we see, even Hoid's not immune to at least some of it's effects. Will be so wicked once we see it start to clash with other raw-power type magic systems, like Surgebinding. 

[Nerd3.14159265358979]

I thought it was interesting that Hoid seemed poised to "zap" the Sorceress, and talked about them fighting like it could actually happen. Like... can Hoid hurt people now? Did he somehow change his spirit web? He even talks about killing her, and it is entertained by her, at least, as a real possibility. 

[+robardin]

51 minutes ago, Nerd3.14159265358979 said:

I thought it was interesting that Hoid seemed poised to "zap" the Sorceress, and talked about them fighting like it could actually happen. Like... can Hoid hurt people now? Did he somehow change his spirit web? He even talks about killing her, and it is entertained by her, at least, as a real possibility. 

I doubt Hoid can use AonDor to hurt people. But evidently, Riina didn't know that - or wasn't confident enough of that to risk it.

Xisis, however, apparently knows it for sure, as he dismisses Hoid as a threat while admitting to being cautious about crossing The Sorceress.

Not because he couldn't handle her, if push came to shove came to throwdown... But it'd be more trouble than he was willing to take on, for no good reason to him.

[+robardin]

7 hours ago, Lightspine said:

One of the most fun bits of new magic that I haven't seen anyone else bring up yet is how the Kandra abilities seemed to have progressed. Now that Ulaam isn't constrained to mimicking humans, he also isn't constrained to using just their bones. From what we've seen before, Kandra use human bones as a "scaffold" and have to build the rest of the organs and flesh around them using their own substance. But Ulaam isn't doing that; he's taking body pieces directly from people and utilizing them instead of building his own. This makes sense. If a kandra can steal your bones, why can't it steal your ears too?

It's also a bit confusing as to why the Kandra were doing it the way they were before. Why did they digest the whole corpse except the bones if they could have instead kept the fleshy bits of the corpse, wouldn't that have allowed them to transform more quickly and convincingly? I think the most likely reason is that this is somehow more difficult and "advanced."

I'm also fascinated by what traits might be preserved in this process. It's confirmed that stuff like the ability to roll your tongue is kept when Ulaam takes said tongue, but that makes sense since it relies on the intrinsic muscular structure of the tongue itself. What's more alarming is when Ulaam is asking for Tress' brain:

Can Ulaam access someone's memories if he gets ahold of their brain? That feels like an important and terrifying ability.

Another curious thing is the "salves" that he makes. They might simply be applications of his advanced knowledge of the biological sciences. But maybe there's a sprinkle of magic. Or a sprinkle of Kandra. From my perspective, a Kandra looks an awful lot like a big ball of pluriplotent stem cells. What if Ulaam is basically lacing the "salve" with little bits of himself that reconstruct/graft onto injuries?

So, as far as borrowing/reusing parts of people instead of the entire skeleton in one go, we already saw TenSoon do something similar even in TWoA - he said he would be able to mix and match bones from separate dog skeletons to get back to the kandra Homeland after Vin killed Zane, with his last dog's body disabled with a broken neck. But TenSoon was noted as a true expert in forming bodies, so it's very probably a skill thing that most kandra hadn't bothered to practice doing.

By Era 2, we see VenDell sporting Breeze's hands - "excellent metacarpals" - and offering to buy Wayne's skeleton and other people's parts, "after you're done with them, of course", though he's still combining them to form a passing-for-human body.

So it stands to reason that by Era 4 or whenever TotES takes place, kandra are even MORE advanced in their body sculpting and parts bin diving. Especially one like Ulaam: it's implied in TLM that he could be as senior as TenSoon (also Third Generation), or at least, MeLaan views him as such in a way that she doesn't VenDell, when she mentions both of them having warned her that "humans experience time differently" when she took up a relationship with Wayne ("TenSoon warned me, Ulaam warned me").

[FireandAshes]

1 hour ago, Nerd3.14159265358979 said:

I thought it was interesting that Hoid seemed poised to "zap" the Sorceress, and talked about them fighting like it could actually happen. Like... can Hoid hurt people now? Did he somehow change his spirit web? He even talks about killing her, and it is entertained by her, at least, as a real possibility. 

50 minutes ago, robardin said:

I doubt Hoid can use AonDor to hurt people. But evidently, Riina didn't know that - or wasn't confident enough of that to risk it.

Xisis, however, apparently knows it for sure, as he dismisses Hoid as a threat while admitting to being cautious about crossing The Sorceress.

Not because he couldn't handle her, if push came to shove came to throwdown... But it'd be more trouble than he was willing to take on, for no good reason to him.

I hadn't thought of that before. But after rereading that part, I noticed that he never explicitly states whether he zapped her or not. It's implied that he doesn't, sure, but I'm certain Hoid can be an unreliable narrator. Dawnshard alterations to your spiritweb are supposed to be permanent, but since this is so far in the future he might have figured out how to change that along the way? 

[StormingTexan]

I really liked this book and you can really tell that Brandon wrote it just to have fun writing something which was really refreshing. I will say at times Hoid's narrating grated on me a bit which is odd to me because I usually like the more whimsical characters like Lopen, Wayne and Lift. It may have just been a little too much? 

I already feel like I need to re-read this which is a pleasant surprise because i have not felt that way with the last couple Cosmere books. 

Anyone else surprised how portable Elantrian magic is? We obviously saw this a bit in MBSH (although this made more sense to me being in the CR) and TLM but both of those had Dor in a bottle. Did I miss what Riina was using? Also whole new respect for Elantrian magic after these last two books. I admit Elantris has always been my least favorite Cosmere book but now I am getting pretty hyped about the sequels. 

I am really intrigued about Aethers even more now. 

Oh and the art in this was amazing. I loved how the spaceship was basically the SpaceX Starship proto. 

 

[agrabes]

On 1/2/2023 at 11:34 PM, FireandAshes said:

wanted to add my thoughts to the hoid voice subject. honestly, i wasn’t bugged by it at all, i loved it and laughed out loud a fair amount of times. i’m interested at why references to laptops and vending machines bothered some of you—in my view, why add unnecessary sci fi words to things we already know? just complicates things in my opinion, but obviously this might just be a matter of taste. 

other hoid things— 

1. ulaam’s acknowledgment that hoid is one of the most powerful beings in the cosmere was so cool to me. like, we knew that, but for a character to just say it outright almost gave me chills. (also ulaam is a gem i will protect him with my life)

2. there’s a sort of irony to the fact that we see hoid trying to become an elantrian in the first ever cosmere book, and he only becomes one, it appears, in the newest one, the farthest one in the timeline aside from sixth of the dusk. 

3. his curse? incredible. honestly hilarious and very interesting the way he managed to work around it a few times. 

anyway, i totally agree with the bookwyrm that the amount of what!!!!???? moments in the book were so awesome. brandon knows what he did. 

For me - it bothered me because it breaks immersion in the world and because Hoid's voice when he's just being "him" is annoying.  Hoid has this way of being cocky that is very annoying to me.  I think it's because we're supposed to think as an audience that Hoid is cool, funny, and sophisticated because the writing is never skeptical of him (if that makes sense), but he comes across to me as full of himself.  

The reason to add "unnecessary sci-fi words" is to separate the world of the story from the real world.  The Cosmere is supposed to be a world with no ties to the real world - it's not something like The Expanse or The Lord of the Rings which are (from the perspective of the story) events that are part of the real world.  So, it doesn't make sense to include cultural references to our real world and it feels really out of place.  It's the same reason that in Mistborn Era 2 Tarcsel invented "incandescent light" and not "the light bulb", or why people have "guns" and "rifles" but not "Colt .45's" or "Remington 1873 Repeating Rifles."  It makes sense that the same kinds of things are going to exist in a fantasy world as the real world, but there are neutral ways of referring to them to say "yeah, this is pretty much that, but it's not exactly the same as what we have and this world has its own history of how they invented it."  Basically the "unnecessary sci-fi words" are normal practice for Sanderson, so it feels bad he didn't use them here.

Also, Sanderson's style of "whimsy" is mostly like nails on a chalkboard to me.  I can barely tolerate Lift.  Wayne and Lopen are not tolerable in 85% of their on screen time.  I have a hard time explaining exactly why all this bothers me.  I think it's because it feels like fanservice and also kind of like breaking the fourth wall - or at least knocking on it.  Basically, it's taking the kinds of jokes and memes that SFF fans make about SFF characters, but giving those lines to the characters themselves.  I think the intent is to make it feel like a putting up a flag and having the characters recognize that the scenarios in their world are sometimes a bit ridiculous.  Some authors can pull this off really well and make it feel natural, others can't.  And it is a matter of taste too.  Sanderson's way of doing it is not to my taste, but other authors can do similar things without weirding me out.  The example that comes to mind is Jim Butcher - for me he can get away with characters bumping up against breaking the fourth wall because of his style of writing, but Sanderson can't.  At least not for me - I know there are plenty of people who enjoy Sanderson's humor and I'm not trying to say people who like it are bad or something.  But it is just not for me.

Edited January 6, 2023 by agrabes

[skaa]

Rating: 8/10

I've always liked Brandon's shorter works and Tress was no different. I think reading the preview chapters last year really helped with this one, because now I was able to easily immerse myself in the story fully expecting its whimsical YA nature.

I thought the laptop scene was funny and interesting and was clearly foreshadowed by Fort's tablet. 

Too bad the book didn't have an Ars Arcanum. I just wish we could at least have a complete list of the twelve Aethers, but that's just me being an Arcanist. Brandon is probably saving that for the actual Aether world, anyway.

As for negatives, well, I think at this point I already expect cringey jokes from Brandon's "witty" characters. It's just his little quirk, I guess. It didn't really bother me much. After reading the ebook I also listened to the audiobook and I didn't like it. It's my first Michael Kramer audiobook and I guess I'm not a fan. I kinda wonder what it would have been like if Kate Reading did this instead (though they probably wanted a male voice, with Hoid being the narrator).

Edited January 7, 2023 by skaa