Isles of the Emberdark is Brandon Sanderson’s latest Cosmere release and the fifth of his “secret project” novels produced during the pandemic and independently published via Kickstarter. Set in the Cosmere’s far future space age, where worlds are becoming more connected, it follows Dusk, who was a Trapper (a kind of ranger/custodian) of the deadly jungles of Patji before his planet’s industrial revolution engineered the role out of existence. As he struggles to find a new direction, visitors from the stars arrive promising even greater technological leaps, but their assurances disguise a soft-power takeover that will leave the planet dependent and subordinate in galactic politics. Now a portal to an endless ocean of darkness and Dusk’s traditional navigational skills represent his world’s last hope at establishing its independence.

In contrast to the bloated, unedited feeling of Sanderson’s last couple of blockbuster releases, Emberdark is a lean and focussed piece of literary machinery. It knows how many characters it needs and their personal arcs run like clockwork toward satisfying conclusions. A few carefully chosen themes about progress, politics and embracing change thread through every subplot. The climax brings a whole bunch of things from the first half of the book back in interesting ways. It is a hard work to find technical fault in.

If I felt inclined to nitpick I could talk about some of the secondary characters feeling indistinct and underdeveloped compared to the main cast, I could say there are a reasonable number of jokes that don’t land (a Sanderson trademark, but at least they’re timed better than in certain other books). I might say Sanderson pulls punches in places where he could instead have raised the dramatic stakes, or I could wonder aloud whether the references to Cosmere lore and magic would be offputting to a casual reader or simply blend into the genre-staple technobabble. But I don’t feel inclined to nitpick. I’ve just been on a charming science-fantasy adventure ride with an ending that made me smile.

Is this an ideal Cosmere starting point? Probably not, but I don’t think you’d need to be fully up to date to appreciate it either. And as a side adventure to go between the hulking Mistborn and Stormlight-type epics Emberdark does everything it needs to and a couple things more.