Title:

Isles of the Emberdark

Author:

Brandon Sanderson

Category:

Science Fiction / Fantasy

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

May 25, 2026

his is the story of a man named Sixth of the Dusk (Dusk for short) who owns two magical birds, called Aviars. One bird, named Sak, has the ability to see into the future - when Dusk is in peril, Sak will project an image of his future corpse, alerting Dusk to the imminent danger and thus allowing him to avoid death in all its various incarnations. The other magic bird is Kokerlii - his power is to suppress Dusk's mental activity, because on the dangerous planet that Dusk lives on, predators hunt their prey by sensing their thoughts. Kokerlii can cloak Dusk's thinking, rendering him invisible to these behemoths.

Isles of the Emberdark is also a story about a "young" dragon named Illistandrista (Starling to her friends). Young is a relative word - Starling is actually 82 years old, but because dragons are immortal, she has a life expectancy that can reach tens of thousands of years. Starling can shape shift between two forms - dragon form and human form. Unfortunately for her, Starling has unbreakable manacles on each wrist that prevent her from assuming her dragon shape, in this book, she is trapped as a human, which limits her magic powers.

There is quite a lot going on in this book, but the basic plot is that Dusk's planet was a pre-industrial society resembling the Polynesian culture on Earth. But the Ones Above have arrived in their spaceships. The space farers offer advanced technology, knowledge and skill - but it is clear to all that the Ones Above (who are actually Scadrians) will take over and loot the planet once an agreement gets signed. Vathi, who is the leader of the planet, is trying to resist the immense pressure that the Ones Above bring, but how long can she hold out?

Dusk is a trapper. He goes to the uninhabited island of Patji to capture the valuable birds. Patji has a myriad ways to kill you at every step - from carnivorous plants to tiny toxic insects to giant lurking predators. But Dusk relishes the challenge. Dusk uses his honed "primitive" skills to survive in an environment that would quickly kill an untrained human. His skills turnout to be unexpectedly useful in other scenarios later in the book.

Starling is on a merchant ship, Dynamic with a misfit crew. Captain Crow is a tyrant, but Starling's dragon skills bring a sense of unity to the crewmembers. There is Aditil, the spore engineer. Ed the arcanist. Nazh who is dead but haunts the ship as a shade. Zeet zi, the pilot, is human, except that he has feathers instead of hair. Chrysalis the doctor is a composite creature formed by a mass of squirming insects that unite into one personality. This setup reminded me a lot of Sanderson's Tress of the Emerald Sea. As I recall, Tress (like Starling), was a plucky young woman on ship with a tyrannical captain (who was also called Captain Crow??) leading a crew of desperate outcasts.

I haven't read Sanderson's Stormlight Archives. I am sure it is a great read, but book 1, The Way of Kings is 1225 pages in paperback! Plus, the Stormlight Archives is supposed to be ten weighty volumes, each over a thousand pages long. I have been too intimidated by the length to begin. So I am not familiar with everything going on in this "Cosmere" novel. The powers of Investiture and sailing the Emberdark had to be gleaned from context. Why the Scadrians don't simply conquer Dusk's planet was not explained. I never got the full explanation of why Starling was trapped in the manacles, perhaps that is explained in one of the other Cosmere novels. But Isles of the Emberdark was still a good read, full of novel ideas and likeable characters. Sanderson excels in his world building; I don't think I have read a bad book from him yet.