Having read the other three books in the Cosmere series, I figured I might as well finish off the 4th book in the set. While I loved Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, I didn’t quite care for The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England. I wondered if The Sunlit Man would have felt as enticing and engaging as the former rather than a bit jarring like the latter, but it ended up as something in between.
Character Development
7/10
Nomad is a traveller running away from his past and it’s almost beaten over the head of the reader as the story progresses. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, a protagonist with a tragic and haunted backstory can always make for an interesting and engaging character with a hint of mystery and intrigue. However, Nomad’s past is rather too mysterious and makes it a bit hard to really care about him until about halfway through the story. He has a very tormented (pun intended for the story) conscience as he struggles with what is best for him versus what is best for the people he has met and helped. For those with patience, it does have a decent payoff but feels like it lacks some proper set up.
The supporting cast of characters aren’t much better as none of them feel very developed or interesting outside of the character tropes they fulfill. That’s not to say they don’t fulfill these roles well, in fact they fulfill them very well. It’s because they serve the roles of supporting characters for Nomad to bounce off of that makes the story enjoyable at all. Aux is probably the more interesting of them as he tends to get more of a response with a proper back and forth considering their storied history. The others, however, don’t feel more than surface level in how they develop as characters. The main antagonist probably being the most offending of the characters as he’s just very simple and boring.
Plot
7/10
While the pacing of the story is excellent, not stopping too long to be dull and not going too fast to be a blur, it doesn’t quite feel like there’s much substance to what actually happened in the story despite how long it is. There’s a lot of mystery surrounding the main core of the story and Nomad himself that go largely unresolved and unanswered. It seems to be a case where the reader is left to infer what has happened and why some things are the way they are. Luckily some of the major plot points are given clear explanations that aren’t just exposition dumps but interwoven in moments of character development. It really helped that the story is driven by Nomad’s intuition, reasoning and reluctant morality as it felt more compelling that way.
Worldbuilding
7/10
It’s strange how in Tress of the Emerald Seas, the worldbuilding felt exciting and interesting while in The Sunlit Man, it felt oddly not as compelling despite having roughly the same level of explanation. Perhaps it’s because of the whimsical nature of Tress’ story that a lot of the strangeness of the worldbuilding felt acceptable whereas in Nomad’s story it felt a bit lacking. Perhaps because of the serious nature of Nomad’s situation combined with his vast knowledge and need to understand things that made the world feel a bit messy and confusing. That being said, what was provided to the reader made sense for the story to function and created the grim sense of foreboding doom that was required.
Writing Style
8/10
Brandon Sanderson never fails to have a compelling and engaging writing style. However, in The Sunlit Man, it wasn’t quite as strong as his other novels. A main reason for this is likely the way the story was told through Nomad’s perspective. It was a bit too matter of fact and straight forward would have been difficult to continue had it not been for the quips of Aux contrasting the almost rather stoic nature of Nomad’s perspective. Almost every other character came off as rather devoid of personality save for a unique way of speaking. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it lead to a story that read a bit more generic and lacking in the usual charm Sanderson incorporates into his writing.
Score
7.25/10
Raph's Cozy Musings 