A review by vaxildidi
The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson

3.0

Overall probably my least favorite story in the Cosmere. Not that there isn't stuff to like here, nor is it particularly *bad*, and it DOES feel rewarding to have so many Cosmere Easter Eggs (heck, not just Easter Eggs but Plot Necessary Knowledge).

That said, it's almost a prerequisite that you've read basically all of the published Cosmere to understand a lick of what's happening at any point or to truly grasp why some moments/reveals are important or why they should resonate, and any book that comes with homework that isn't advertised as a sequel is a bit of a bait-and-switch for unknowing readers.

Also it struggles from the concept of "if everything is important, then nothing is." Nomad jumps from deadly problem to citywide destruction to deadly problem basically from page to page, and the reader is never given a moment or a second to breathe. While I haven't actually written reviews for any of them, because I read them so close together and so quickly it's hard to truly remember what happened in what book, I mentioned in my review of Mistborn that I felt the Stormlight Archives struggled at times where the books slow down to an almost glacial pace...and Sunlit Man has just the opposite problem. Nothing in the plot has any time to stick or resonate because the second one issue is resolved there are two more.

Negative comments out of the way, the characters in this book are a very cool and it's great to see Nomad and Wit

Spoiler

off of Roshar

and it does lead to a bunch of fascinating questions. Another plus is while I do feel the story is rushed, the plot is a good one, with Sanderson's penchant for new and different ways Investiture works on different worlds coming through as a brightspot yet again.