A trapper, a dragon, a ghost, a feathered man, and a hive mind meet on an island no one can find in a sea that only sort of exists.

And it’s not even the setup for a joke, but rather a spectacular example of everything the scifi future The Cosmere is moving towards.

We’ve already seen bits and pieces of Cosmere crossovers and magic turned technology, especially in The Lost Metal and The Stormlight Archive, but this is really the first book we’ve gotten where the (magi)tech, interworld conflict, and mixmatched crews from many worlds are front and center–and I love it.

At it’s core, Isles of the Emberdark is a sequel to the short Sixth of the Dusk–which I reread in preparation, although it turns out that wasn’t necessary. The entirety of the latter is included as flashback in the former. so it goes. An islander culture, plants and animals that want nothing more than to kill you and eat you (yes, even the plants), and the cost of being left behind as technology runs ahead.

But this time around, in addition to Dusk, we also have the aforementioned starship crew. I love a good scifi found family story (this reminds me of the Wayfarers) with wacky rather different crew growing together and learning to depend on one another. The more ‘alien’, the better. Emberdark has that in spades. It’s wonderful worldbuilding and I hope a hint of even more to come.

Characterwise, I love Dusk. Full on ‘it wasn’t actually a question, so I didn’t feel the need to answer’ and everything. Starling (dragon¹!) is our scifi point of view and she’s just such a fun positive influence, in spite of everything. We don’t get quite as much of Nazh as I’d like (from Shadows for Silence), but what we do is full of ‘but how does that work. Chrysalis (a Dysian Aimian!) is a favorite ‘weird’ character and a vehicle for exploring xenophobia. And that’s not even everyone²³⁴! It’s just such a mix and I think done rather well.

Overall, this is probably my favorite Cosmere story in a while. I’ve loved seeing how Sanderson has taken the idea of a shared universe with related, high details almost ‘sciency’ hard magic and brought it forward in time–and I’m looking forward to seeing where it can go next.

Onward!