Book Review: "The Sunlit Man" by Brandon Sanderson

4/5 stars 

*Spoiler alert!* 

It’s always nice to revisit the Cosmere. The Sunlit Man is the fourth of Brandon Sanderson’s secret novel project now released publicly. While I enjoyed Tress and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter more, personally, I still enjoyed this adventure of a man on the run—Nomad, an apt name—hopping between worlds in the Cosmere. Who happens to get stuck in a place where the sun is deadly and civilization is constantly on the move around the very small planet, known as Canticle.

 

 

In trying to get his bearings and acquire enough power to jump between worlds again—to evade his pursuers, the Night Brigade—Nomad finds himself mixed up in a rebellion against a tyrant known as the Cinder King. 

 

“This man might not be brilliant or clever, though he'd think himself both. Truth was, he didn't need either to be dangerous. Because he had power and power - wielded by a fool - could crush anyone, smart or not.”  

 

The Cinder King has the power to create beings with burning coals as their new hearts—Charred—granting them incredible power and imbuing in them an almost manic need to fight. Fight anyone, anything the Cinder King directs them to.

 

Nomad encounters the Cinder King very early on in the story and finds a chance to escape with rebels who make a strike on the central floating city to rescue one of theirs, a Charred named Elegy.  

 

And yet, he is conflicted about assisting the rebels in their fight against the Cinder King, because what he really wants to do is find a way to get off planet at any cost. But there are parts of himself that he thought lost that are waking up and he can’t resist assisting the people, who call themselves Beaconites. Even if the Beaconites believe in a mythical Refuge on the planet that would allow them to stop running and actually live.

    

 

“We wear away. Ideals are like statues in the wind. They seem so permanent, but truth is erosion happens subtly, constantly.” 

 

The Sunlit Man ultimately becomes about more than a wanderer becoming a reluctant hero, but also one about the intertwined nature of faith and science. Where there are so many unknowns, one must take risks constantly to advance scientific study. And it’s appropriate to need some sort of faith in these experiments leading to something worth comprehending in the end. To find understanding in a universe that often defies understanding, time and time again.  

  

“Even in science, faith plays a role. Each experiment done, each step on the path of knowledge, is achieved by striking out into the darkness. You can't know what you will find, or that you will find anything at all. It is faith that drives us—faith in answers that must exist.” 

 

Overall, I enjoyed The Sunlit Man and its interconnections with familiar Cosmere worlds and am excited to see the inevitable clash of different Cosmere worlds Sanderson is setting up here and in various other of his novels.

 

Happy reading! 

 

--BookOwl