Isles of the Emberdark Full Reactions

[Qianweilian He/him]

17 hours ago, ChipsAHoid said:

Missed Threnody being apparently overrun, can somebody tell me where that was?

The only story we have based in Threnody is the novella Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell.

[ChipsAHoid He/Him]

On 7/5/2025 at 8:25 AM, alder24 said:

Threnody was destroyed by the Evil (which was hinted at in TSM)

On 7/6/2025 at 6:01 PM, Mason Wheeler said:

The Evil overran Threnody and is now spreading anti-Investiture monsters throughout the Cosmere. 

Here, is this just like saying it was a confirmation that it was the Evil destroying it or like did they all flee threnody? I missed it if they said it.

33 minutes ago, Qianweilian said:

The only story we have based in Threnody is the novella Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell.

 I’ve read Shadows, I know threnody still exists in the Forests, but those makes it sound like they got wiped out entirely, which makes no sense to me seeing their later Cosmere significance

Edited July 15, 2025 by ChipsAHoid

[alder24]

1 hour ago, ChipsAHoid said:

Here, is this just like saying it was a confirmation that it was the Evil destroying it or like did they all flee threnody? I missed it if they said it.

I’ve read Shadows, I know threnody still exists in the Forests, but those makes it sound like they got wiped out entirely, which makes no sense to me seeing their later Cosmere significance

IotE ch 27:

Quote

Nobody knew quite what these things were, the entities that had all but destroyed the planet Threnody—then moved out into the cosmere, hunting and exterminating life.

The book confirms that Threnody was eventually destroyed by the Evil. Earlier, in TSM it was hinted at this when discussing Threnodies who left Threnody escaping from the Evil, some of those Threnodies later settled on Canticle. However, TSM left the timing of the escape uncertain so we didn't know it future inhabitants of Canticle left when the Homeland was overrun when the Evil first appeared (before the novella Shadows for Silence), which would mean that the Forests of Hell could still be inhabited, or if it was long time after, which would mean that the Evil stormed the Forests of Hell and drove Threnodies out of the planet entirely. IotE told us that Threnody was destroyed, but we still don't know when Zellion left Threnody to settle on Canticle. I now believe it happened after the novella, when the Evil fully overrun the planet.

TSM ch 15:

Quote

“Strangely, the Chorus—who hold our history—don’t speak of our leaving because of the Evil,” she continued. “No, they say it was the quarreling. The infighting that sprang up among our people. Conflict, hatred. My ancestors wanted to escape that, for it was more pernicious than the Evil itself. Strife destroyed our people.
“During our flight from the Evil, there was more bickering among the people. My group we listened to the preaching of a man: the servant of Adonalsium and the original Lodestar. We left with him to a new land. We chose this.”

 

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

The entire time I was reading, I was like

"OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD ITS A REFRENCE"

and at the end, I read 350 pages (although I was reading on Apple Books on my iphone) and finished it.

[ChipsAHoid He/Him]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

IotE ch 27:

The book confirms that Threnody was eventually destroyed by the Evil. Earlier, in TSM it was hinted at this when discussing Threnodies who left Threnody escaping from the Evil, some of those Threnodies later settled on Canticle. However, TSM left the timing of the escape uncertain so we didn't know it future inhabitants of Canticle left when the Homeland was overrun when the Evil first appeared (before the novella Shadows for Silence), which would mean that the Forests of Hell could still be inhabited, or if it was long time after, which would mean that the Evil stormed the Forests of Hell and drove Threnodies out of the planet entirely. IotE told us that Threnody was destroyed, but we still don't know when Zellion left Threnody to settle on Canticle. I now believe it happened after the novella, when the Evil fully overrun the planet.

TSM ch 15:

 

Ah, thanks, glad there are people out there that pay attention to important things like that instead of “ahhhhhh it’s Huio!!!!!”

[lacrossedeamon]

Technically "all but destroyed" means not quite destroyed. There might yet still be people on Threnody but in like an Ashyn kind of way. Although the Entities leaving the system points to it possibly being wiped clean.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

However, TSM left the timing of the escape uncertain so we didn't know it future inhabitants of Canticle left when the Homeland was overrun when the Evil first appeared (before the novella Shadows for Silence), which would mean that the Forests of Hell could still be inhabited, or if it was long time after, which would mean that the Evil stormed the Forests of Hell and drove Threnodies out of the planet entirely. IotE told us that Threnody was destroyed,

How do you know that the reference in IotE doesn't also reference the initial arrival of the Evil? That destroyed the great culture mentioned in Secret History.

[MrHobbes343]

I have changed my secret project rankings because of the power of this story...

 

1. Tress

2. Sunlit Man

3. Yumi and Painter

4. Emberdark

5. That one book about the broke wizard

 

Dusk was super passe about the complete erasure of his lifestyle and ecological devastation of Patji.

 

Also 5 years? I get that a sixty or seventy year old Dusk would not match the pace of the story, but I've seen sewer extensions sit on a city waterboard's docket for longer then 5 years. It takes generations to adapt to new tech if your own culture builds it, the idea that in five years all the people of first-of-the-sun could adapt and easily transition out of a primarily agrarian lifestyle and into a urbanized post industrial culture in less then a decade is to me, frankly bizarre to the point of madness. I love the idea that people are not less intelligent just because they don't have the high tech gadgets, but this is light years of new tech to adapt to.

For example, to jump from outriggers to "modern" fishing boats necessitates; a new naval culture around not being bound by the wind or tide, a new logistics chain for fuel and spare parts anywhere you want to take these boats, new infrastructure for the care and maintenance of the new equipment, a new skill set for small engine maintenance and the mechanics to perform said maintenance, and that's just one fairly narrow application of one technology.

 

And Starling...Well I've already mentioned her more then I care too. Her "I manifest a image of my dragon self" power just was to Otherkin-y for me to do anything but roll my eyes and say "Whatever Brandon...Sure, your dragons are super special". Her crew being a walking list of Cosmere lore teases didn't help the "I'm so special and different!" allegations. (RIP Nazh, long live Nazh?)

 

The Malwish were present... Dejer was interesting as a antagonist in a British talking-down-to-his-sepoy-guide kind of way. The secret police were not interesting at all in the like two scenes they got. The change and adaption of Malwish Mask culture was interesting, but not super revealing.

I felt that the Malwish lacked the malice of real bastards, and that if you are willing to subjugate people and steal whole planets worth of resources then you should be less banal about it. Where is the stoking of religious conflict, the arming of dissident groups, the supporting of rival claimants to leadership? So much more can and was done by real colonial empires.  Overall It read as a Fix-Fic for actual colonialism that made the colonizers like ten degrees nicer then was believable.

 

6/10 only finished it for the lore.

Edited July 16, 2025 by MrHobbes343
An S

[+Oltux72 he/him]

12 hours ago, MrHobbes343 said:

For example, to jump from outriggers to "modern" fishing boats necessitates; a new naval culture around not being bound by the wind or tide, a new logistics chain for fuel and spare parts anywhere you want to take these boats, new infrastructure for the care and maintenance of the new equipment, a new skill set for small engine maintenance and the mechanics to perform said maintenance, and that's just one fairly narrow application of one technology.

They didn't. Dusk's people were backward. The dominant culture was at a tech level of 1880 or so. They went to 1960 or so technologically.

Now that is still a quick jump by modern standards of Europe or North America. But not everybody moves that slow. Look at China.

12 hours ago, MrHobbes343 said:

The Malwish were present... Dejer was interesting as a antagonist in a British talking-down-to-his-sepoy-guide kind of way.

I am afraid I cannot concur. That man was for most practical purposes, a buffoon. To be blunt I consider him the weakest major character Brandon ever wrote. Straff Venture was more interesting.

[MrHobbes343]

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Now that is still a quick jump by modern standards of Europe or North America. But not everybody moves that slow. "Look at China".

Umm...China had a brutal civil war followed by prolonged  famine where 20-30 million people died. Yes at the end of that they had the telephone and the transistor, but I wouldn't say that it was bloodless or quick.

 

Japan modernized in twenty years and became so hungry for resources that it invaded all it's neighbors and committed crimes  so horrible that they are still mentioned today.

 

I'm just trying to point out that when you out-mode a large portion of the work force suddenly, there tends to be significant social and civil consequences.    

[Through the Living Wrath he/him]

1 hour ago, MrHobbes343 said:

Umm...China had a brutal civil war followed by prolonged  famine where 20-30 million people died. Yes at the end of that they had the telephone and the transistor, but I wouldn't say that it was bloodless or quick.

 

Japan modernized in twenty years and became so hungry for resources that it invaded all it's neighbors and committed crimes  so horrible that they are still mentioned today.

 

I'm just trying to point out that when you out-mode a large portion of the work force suddenly, there tends to be significant social and civil consequences.    

Actually, the reason China had that famine was because they simply pulled all their farmers away from farming and into industry. 

And the reason Japan was resource hungry was because they were an island. Lotsa silver there, but they weren’t like the British, who had rich coal and iron deposits all over.

The thing is, yes, shifting a large portion of the work force is bad, but they weren’t actually technologically backwards. They had subways before the Malwish even appeared, so they already had people doing this. And the Malwish took great pains to give them their own technology, their own power systems, that they didn’t have to actually progress as far to get where they are.

Edited July 17, 2025 by SpiritOfWrath

[ChipsAHoid He/Him]

59 minutes ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

Actually, the reason China had that famine was because they simply pulled all their farmers away from farming and into industry. 

And part of it was losing a war to birds!!!

 

…Not a big part, but in the four pests campaign they tried to eliminate sparrows cuz they eat grain but it messed with the ecosystem cuz they eat all the bugs and now there’s a billion bugs eating your crops oh no

(yeah it was mostly things like introducing poor farming techniques and weak yes men and natural disasters and, yes, mostly what Spirit of Wrath said. But they’re like Australia and lost a war to birds)

[Nitpicking]

IoTE was ... OK. Among the secret projects, I'd put it above Yumi and Frugal Wizard (both lean on the fish out of water trope,which I hate). What everyone said: lore was great, plot not so much.

[+Wax he/him]

Even though I had read SOTH before, it was refreshing to reread it.

love Sixth. Starling was like an annoying 2 year old.

Intrigued by the preview of the space age.

The thing that was a little too convenient was Starling coming out of the pool and talking to Vaathi without the translator was just …. Whatever.

Also, 5 years? How long do Aviars live? Saak ?

 

Edited July 21, 2025 by Wax

[+Child of Hodor]

It felt like two unrelated novellas stapled together. I enjoyed Starling and her crew more than the Dusk sections.  In part because there were more lore drops in the Starling sections. Which makes sense she knows Frost and Hoid and she visited Silverlight at times. 

I agree with what a lot of people have said the villain wasn't very good. Sunlit Man also had a weak villain.  I did like how he was very condescending to Dusk as a lower tech local. That felt very true to life. 

I'll have to go back through all the lore bits. 

[Xaladin he/him]

Humans, Sho Del, Vaxians. What about Singers??

[Knuti]

I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the more I think about it - the book (and that means its story) does not really stand on its own.

Starling and Dusk are two great charakters, hilariously apart in their approach to life, but they do not really confront each other. They meet, get to know each other a bit more by working together, win and the story ends. There are tons of possibilities for further conflict, after Dusk goes on board, but not in this installation. Likewise we get a teaser of Starling's past in the Prologue, but defining issues like the manacles are left in the dark. So the story is like a prequel to another story yet to be written with Starlings defining past as flashbacks.

I enjoyed it for the lore and the enjoyable charakters. But I would not accept it from an author unknown to me and I would never recommend it to someone not deep into the Cosmere. Those deep into tend to find it on own.

[Elegy he/him]

My general feelings are kinda mixed, but in the end I enjoyed reading it.

I agree with what many others said that the plot feels very unfocused. The first part in particular was a pain - as someone who likes the novella and wanted to read it again in the context of the novel, it was impossible for me to get invested in the present or flashback story. I think it would have been better to just handle it like the Edgedancer release with the Lift interlude, just put the smaller work at the front and then get to the main thing.

I was lukewarm on Starling and her crew. None of them (except for Nazh and Crow for obvious reasons, maybe Chrysalis as well) felt really fleshed out. I love the concept of Starling as a dragon apprentice of Hoid and a heroic leader that basically collects castaways in space age, but this book hasn't really sold me on her as a person in contrast to concept. Especially how many scenes were primarily there to beat the reader over the head with how caring and heroic she is felt almost like a parody of the Mary Sue archetype (and I hate to use that word because people are misusing and misinterpreting the term all the time, but here it really does fit), and I have a hard time reading her as a complete, alive person.

I really liked Dusk though. It was a bit disappointing that Vathi was absent for pretty much all the story, but Dusk's character development was really satisfying. (Although the overuse of the "It wasn't a question" phrase was really annoying. 30 years of writing and Brandon still can't help but overuse one term or phrase for each book he puts out as if he's getting paid extra for each inclusion, sigh ...)

The middle of the book really had me losing interest, but the ending was extremely satisfying, to a degree that I think I haven't seen Brandon do in a long time. It all just clicked together nicely in a way I've only ever seen Brandon pull off this consistently, and I left the book feeling very happy about how it turned out. He really understands how to build up dozens of little things and ask many questions that seem impossible to answer, and then he ties all of it together and finds solutions for problems in the most unexpected places. Just a blast to see it all come together.

And in general, despite my gripes, it has softened the disappointment of WAT - not because it was better (although it definitely was imo), but mostly because WAT didn't do a good job to win my interest for the Stormlight back 5 at all, while this one really made me excited about the future of the Cosmere as a whole.

There's so many thing that are just the kind of ideas that I always hoped Brandon would implement in a space age Cosmere: Scadrial's dependency on Aether trading and the problems that arise from that, Shadesmar as an increasingly traveled and politically important place but with the increased danger of the Evil entitiies roaming around, the countless factions that are playing 3D chess in the galactical political landscape of the Cosmere beyond the Shards (inc. Xixis, the Aethers, the Sleepless ...), and the Knell as a way to navigate Shadesmar.

Maaan, the book might have had its flaws, but it was very, very good at making me dream about the space age and make clear that Brandon is really cooking something special with that. And as a person who has been wondering about the Cosmere space age for the last 13 years or so, this sure felt like a gift.

Edited August 14, 2025 by Elegy

[king of nowhere]

I wonder if in the more cosmopolitan parts of the cosmere there is a patji's park movie franchise, focusing on people getting chases and eaten by nightmaws, tuskruns, deathants, deepwalkers, and whatever else. with far too many sequels and spinoffs.

would be funny to have it referenced

[king of nowhere]

finished.
i liked the book, a lot.

but it really strikes as too much of a coincidence that sixth explored the emberdark, finds a dozen islands on it, points to one at random (possibly the closest, as he was on a time crunch), and it's exactly the one where cakoban died, while starling and her crew find that old map passed down through millennia and reach the same island within a few minutes of each other.

[Nitpicking]

On 8/30/2025 at 1:06 PM, king of nowhere said:

finished.
i liked the book, a lot.

but it really strikes as too much of a coincidence that sixth explored the emberdark, finds a dozen islands on it, points to one at random (possibly the closest, as he was on a time crunch), and it's exactly the one where cakoban died, while starling and her crew find that old map passed down through millennia and reach the same island within a few minutes of each other.

It's almost as if it isn't a coincidence. Perhaps, in the Cosmere, there are supernatural forces influencing things toward a particular outcome ....

[Argenti he/him]

1 hour ago, Nitpicking said:

It's almost as if it isn't a coincidence. Perhaps, in the Cosmere, there are supernatural forces influencing things toward a particular outcome ....

Yes.... a fatherly god.... 

[king of nowhere]

On 8/31/2025 at 7:09 PM, Nitpicking said:

It's almost as if it isn't a coincidence. Perhaps, in the Cosmere, there are supernatural forces influencing things toward a particular outcome ....

i'm not aware of any cosmere force that can cause those kind of coincidence. if it was the wheel of time, i'd say ta'veren. hoid has the power to be where he needs to be, using fortune in some way. but none of the parties involved had access to it.

[Nitpicking]

7 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

i'm not aware of any cosmere force that can cause those kind of coincidence. if it was the wheel of time, i'd say ta'veren. hoid has the power to be where he needs to be, using fortune in some way. but none of the parties involved had access to it.

Preservation did things about that impressive, IMO.

[king of nowhere]

15 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

Preservation did things about that impressive, IMO.

what are you referring to? i am not aware of sazed manipulating fortune to cause stuff. he helped wax in various ways, but in a "point him in the right direction and give him some stuff" way.