WARNING: Do not read this book unless you have read every single other Cosmere book...!

The latest addition to Sanderson's cosmere is a strange book. On the one hand, it has probably my favourite character he has ever written in 'Sixth of Dusk'. On the other hand, the parallel storyline with an idealistic and juvenile dragon ('Starlight') at the helm of a shoddy spaceship with a motley crew of misfits is the worst storyline he's ever written.

The overarching theme is a classic one. A "primitively" developed society, with rigid customs, sacred rituals and a strong emphasis on orally related myths meets the devastating machinery and bureaucracy of heavily induatrialised and imperialistic societies. Caught between a rock and a hard place (two cosmere-spanning superpowers in a cosmic arms-race, ready to suck the natives dry of their most precious resource), our main protagonist, Sixth, sets out on an impossible mission to save his home from what seems like inevitable ruin and future exploitation of his people. All the while he reconciles with his suddenly frail and obsolete position in the new world-order.

Doesn't that sound great? Well, yes. And it is! Now here's the bad news:

The story has great potential, but so much of it gets wasted on pages upon pages of cosmere-lingo-gobbledygook. All people on Starlight's crew are from different cosmere planets. And you really already need to know what's going on on all the planets to be able to follow what "superpowers" they all possess. There is some exposition, but none of it happens in-action, it's all explained in dialogue. In the end it turns out it doesn't really even matter what her crew does, because everything gets resolved by our two main protagonists.

The main antagonist is also a ridiculous caricature of an SS officer obsessed with efficiency, and progress (both of his own advancement and that of his empire's future success in state of the art tech-imperialism).

And as a final note of personal grumblings: I don't like it when high fantasy meets sci-fi space opera tech mumbojumbo. I like my fantasy with swords and magic. And I like my sci-fi with wildly imaginative tech. And I'm really sad to see that this is the direction Sanderson is taking his cosmere (of which I have read every single book so far).