The Sunlit Man
By: THE Brandon Sanderson
My Rating: FIVE OUT OF FIVE STARS
Best for: 16 and up

I’m not ready for the Year of Sanderson to end!

Prefer a video review? Watch here!

And thus ends the last Secret Project of 2023. It’s been the most fun reading year I’ve ever had, and with The Sunlit Man it’s ending is smoky, gritty, bright, and glorious. My kids would say this book is FIRE.

During the down time of 2020, Brandon wrote 4 secret novels. He didn’t tell anyone–his team, his publisher, his fans. He wrote the novels for his wife and kids, and only revealed the existence of these novels in a now famous YouTube vid in March 2022. (–>See the original reveal here.<–) In the video–in the goofy, tongue-in-cheek way of Brandon–he “apologized” for being dishonest with his fans by hiding the novels and announced we could all get them via non-traditional publishing by backing a Kickstarter campaign. His Kickstarter goal was to raise $1 Million in 30 days to get the books published. The result? Brandon’s campaign made $1 Million in less than 24 hours, then went on to destroy all records with the largest Kickstarter campaign in history: over $42 Million in 30 days.

That was March 1st, 2022. In 2023, the first month of each quarter I’ve received a new book, and every other month I’ve received a curated box of fun goodies from Sanderson’s worlds. In January I read Tress of the Emerald Sea. In April I read The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter was delivered to my Kindle on July 1st. That final story arrived at midnight on October 1st: The Sunlit Man.

It’s been like Christmas every month, and I’m not ready for it to end!

As an adventure story, the Sunlit Man is brilliant. But if you’re not familiar with The Cosmere, you’re going to feel like you’re on the outside of an inside joke. So if you’re a Cosmere nube, I recommend you either catch yourself up (start with Mistborn) or–at the very least–spend some time over at The Coppermind Cosmere Wiki to familiarize yourself.

I suspect most who find their way to this review are already up to speed, and you want to just know what to expect from The Sunlit Man. So, here it is:

The Sunlit Man is everything you want from a Brandon Sanderson novel, and I loved it. LOVED it. So much. The fantasy science. The broken hero. The redemption arc. The fight scenes. The weapons. The Cosmere. The Sanderlanche. So, you know what to expect. It’s all there, and it’s glorious.

I’ll also say The Sunlit Man is the most directly Cosmere-aware book of all the Secret Projects. It takes place during Mistborn Era Four, and hints to the really cool things that are in store. It’s packed with super satisfying nods to The Stormlight Archives, and has connections to nearly every other Cosmere world we know of to date. It was SO much fun reading along and grasping the connections. We’re starting to see the future of The Cosmere, and it’s going to be a fun ride over the next few years seeing how the past and the future connect.

You can expect non-gory fighting violence and a couple brief (and chaste) discussions of sex. No language concerns at all, as always. I say The Sunlit Man is best for 16 and up.

This book is FIRE.

Happy Reading!