This month we read Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson for my IRL book club.
Brandon Sanderson (I listen to a podcast where they call him Brando Sando and I don't know why, but it tickles me in just the right place) is the author of a lot of books set in his expanded fantasy world of Cosmere.
Tress of the Emerald Sea is a standalone book set in this world.
Okay, here's the deal. Tress lives on an isolated island. When her beloved, Charlie, the duke's son, is captured by the Sorceress in the Midnight Sea, Tress decides to go after him. The seas in this place are dangerous, though. They are created by spores (not water) that rain down from the twelve different moons of the planet. The spores are unstable, reacting to water in an explosive way. However, ships sail these seas.
She befriends a talking rat named Huck and manages to be a perfect sailor who eventually worms her way into the heart of all the crew onboard the pirate ship the Crow's Song, which is naturally captained by Crow, a spore-eater. Can Tress save Charlie? Can Tress save herself?
Look, did some of this backstory bore you? Oh, good, I'm not alone.
The book is told from the POV of Hoid, the cabin boy who is under a curse placed on him by the Sorceress that makes most of what he says nonsense. And why did Brando Sando need to have a dude intermediary? Because Brando Sando is not a good enough writer to write female characters. It is my big beef with this book. Because Hoid is not reliable (he's under a curse placed on him by the Sorceress), how does he know what Tress is thinking or doing? He doesn't. So Tress becomes one-dimensional and we spend too long trying to figure out if what Hoid is saying is at all important.
But something happened at the end that I did not expect and I felt REALLY DUMB because it was sort of obvious in retrospect, but it made me reevaluate my stance on Sanderson's writing - that stance being that he's a plodding author whose dialogue is clunky and his sentence structure is a crime against humanity. However, maybe I'm wrong? The ending of this book tells me that I'm wrong. Maybe. Actually, no. He's still not a great writer, but he's great at plot. That's fair, right?
Also, this book has so many preachy moments in it. I don't need that.
Eh. This was going to be 2/5 stars, but I bumped it to 3/5 stars because the ENDING. It really got me.
Lines of note:
Tress didn’t want to act suspicious, so she didn’t execute her plan at first. (location 1532)
Just. How did this make it through editing? SUSPICIOUSLY!!!
Hat mentions (why hats?):
He was wearing a traveling coat and even a hat. The duke considered hats improper wear except during travel. (location 371)
One figure in particular—standing right at the prow of the ship, wearing a hat with a tall black feather—looked ominous. (location 936)
With the black-plumed hat, their face was lost in shadow as the sun shone from near the horizon, silhouetting them. (location 945)
Captain Crow—judging by the plume in her hat—had harsh lines for a face, with tan skin and a scowl deep as the ocean. (location 987)
...wind blowing the black feather in her hat. (location 1269)
Her hat hung on a peg by the door...(location 2608)
She took her hat off the peg, went out the door, then locked it behind her. (location 2621)
the captain in her plumed hat (location 4089)
“Tell me…what is your opinion on tiny pirate hats?” (location 4481)
He’d been sitting there making a list of all the hats she owned. (location 4675)
She pulled on her hat, wavered for a moment, but then decided. (location 4896)
stolen Huck’s tiny pirate hat (location 5303)
Or, if trees won’t fit, maybe some paintings of dogs wearing hats. (location 5317)
The captain soon emerged onto the deck of the Two Cups sporting a long captain’s jacket and a hat with a plume. (location 5484)
Also, the only thing he was wearing was a tiny pirate hat. (location 5502)
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Have you ever read Brando Sando? Do you care about spores reacting to water? Do you even know what that means?
I don't read fantasy anyway, so this book would have been a NO for me, but the TERRIBLE GRAMMAR you pointed out would have killed me if I *had* been reading it. (As it was, it hurt me plenty.)
ReplyDeleteBrando Sando -- snort!
ReplyDeleteListen, I abhor poorly edited books as much as the next guy, but I don't think "act suspicious" would have given me pause! Am I growing softly in my old age? (Just kidding, that was a mean adverbial joke.) "Act suspicious" is CLEARLY wrong in this case, I get it. I just... well, perhaps you have already lost all respect for me.