Isles of the Emberdark by Brandon Sanderson, released July 1st, 2025, is the 5th standalone “secret project.” These secret projects take place in the main universe Sanderson writes in, but are also of distinctive stories of distinctive characters. Isles of the Emberdark differs from the other secret projects released in that it is expanded upon from a previous short story called Sixth of the Dusk, named after its main character. It integrates this short story into the novel as flashbacks at the very start and uses them as a base to expand into the main story.
Sanderson has released many books over the years. Recently came out with the end of the first five books of one of his most anticipated series, Stormlight Archive. Furthermore, he’s had many best-selling books and has had an impact on the writing world; he currently teaches a class at Brigham Young University about writing science fiction and fantasy. These lectures mainly consist of writing techniques, how to write characters, and general knowledge about writing within the genre. Isles of the Emberdark, being his most recent novel, implements many impressive writing techniques and creates characters that move the reader.
About the Story
The larger universe in play, the Cosmere, is ultimately a massive series of books encompassing several other series. It’s similar to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in that sense. For example, Stormlight Archive is a major series in this and the longest to date, page-count-wise. The other largest one, which one might compare to Spiderman in its content, is Mistborn, b. But the Cosmere also has many other standalones alongside the other major series propagating it. It’s not necessary to read all of the books, but it does help in better understanding many aspects of these books. Knowing the others and understanding them does help you explain parts otherwise unknown to you. Isles of the Emberdark has lots of these elements, which may make it hard to pick up and read all the way through. The Cosmere has many complicated magic systems, and having an understanding of some of the simpler ones and the main mechanics around them does assist.
Isles of the Emberdark is an epic fantasy fiction novel, focusing on the story of Sixth of the Dusk, a trapper past his time. It starts with, as stated, flashbacks of Dusk. Flashing between the current day and five years back, highlighting a story between Sixth of the Dusk and another prominent character within the series, Vathi. Sixth of the Dusk, or rather referred to as Dusk, is a trapper.
Trappers are a group of people previously in charge of raising and protecting a key piece of magic, birds called Aviar. Aviar can grant powers to the person bonding them, one of the more common powers shields you and your mind from being broken into. Many animals within Dusk’s world have the power to get into one’s mind and hurt someone with it. This book doesn’t expand upon many other Aviar powers; however, one Dusk wields shows him his future fate, showing him his corpse in the event of his death, alerting him of potential danger.. This one is rare and has never been shown to be another of its kind; any other Aviar are either unknown to the reader or simply not expanded upon as those two.
In the modern day, those trappers are no longer needed. But, when they were, they would be tasked with raising and protecting those Aviar. The Aviar are only able to live on certain islands called the Pantheon. The Pantheon is practically a massive archipelago composed of many islands, thought to be gods by the people. Trappers dedicate themselves to one specific island and protect and raise Aviar on the island they are dedicated to. They also scout them and face the danger the island presents. One island, however, reigns above the rest; the Father of the Pantheon, Patji, also brings about the most danger to the people who trap it. Dusk, however, has dedicated himself to Patji and traps on it before the present day. Starting the book, Dusk meets someone from an expeditionary force attempting to expand into Patji, where the story officially begins.
Writing
Sanderson has always been an exceptional writer, often going above and beyond and writing immersive worlds and characters. One of his best traits is his worldbuilding, especially within his main writing universe, the Cosmere. The characters he writes in this book are no different. Sanderson establishes them early on and develops them through the 400 or so pages that this book takes part in. Another major character who’s only introduced halfway through the series is developed and established well by the end of the series.
The book isn’t without fault; many elements in the book aren’t explained at all and are given to you at face value. These elements are presented in other books, so without that experience, it leads the reader to be unknowing of certain things. This is what makes me knock the writing down for people unfamiliar with his works; Isles of the Emberdark has lots of elements that tie it back to the series as a whole. Simply put, it’s better, rather than as a standalone, but to read it and then keep reading books within the Cosmere. Or just outright staying away from it until you’ve read at least some of the Cosmere works before it.
Even with those faults, I’d still highly recommend it to both new readers and experienced readers. The book is worth it to pick up and reading all the way through. Whether or not this first experience will lead you to read more Cosmere is up to you and your thoughts on the book. I would, however, highly recommend expanding past what you already know with this book and thinking more about the world outside of it. If you ever do try to expand outwards, though, I’d suggest starting with either Mistborn: The Final Empire or Way of Kings if you are ready to dedicate yourself to a longer series. If you decide to go with the former, go through the first era, the first three books, and stop there. You can keep going if you’d like, but the second era is very distant from the first and, I’d argue, needs more background knowledge. For the latter, however, just the first book is over a thousand pages long, so if you’re ready to put yourself through that, absolutely do it.
