Edgedancer Book Review

Major Spoilers are included in this book review. Please read with caution.

I decided to pick up Brandon Sanderson’s Arcanum Unbounded—a novel containing his Cosmere Collection of short stories—again. I hadn’t read from the collection since last year—2019—when I read Mistborn: Secret History. This time, I revisited the collection to read Edgedancer, a novella that bridged Words of Radiance and Oathbringer—the second and third books of the Stormlight Archive. In the grand scheme of things, Edgedancer read like a fun, snappy, and engaging side-story centered around Lift, a Knight Radiant in training and street urchin. Lift was also an Interlude POV character from Words of Radiance with potential for an upgrade to major Stormlight character in the future, according to Brandon Sanderson.

Let’s talk about Lift’s character first. Lift is pretty damn entertaining with a unique perspective on the world of Roshar. She also loves eating food—the source of her Stormlight abilities—and she will literally kill someone for some delicious pancakes; Lift’s desire to eat food drove most of the story. Of course, this novella was Lift’s story—a character-driven adventure taken to the extreme with all her abnormal antics.

The pacing was also really fast. It was hard to put the book down as each chapter—twenty chapters total in the novella—was short and concise. The descriptions weren’t super dense—unlike The Way of Kings—and Lift’s dialogue was super casual.

There wasn’t much exposition in this novella, but I could still imagine someone reading this novella without the context of other Stormlight Archive books and having a good time with Lift and her delicious pancakes. However, to have the full experience, I’d advise readers to finish The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance before reading Edgedancer for chronological purposes and to have a clearer understanding of Sanderson’s world building.

Overall, I enjoyed spending two days on this novella. I’m excited to learn more about Lift in future books. It was a nice break from the typical 1,000 to 1,300-page novels that Brandon Sanderson usually delivered in Stormlight Archive. Now that I’m armed with that major plot point though, I’m prepared to read Oathbringer. Wish me luck, fellow readers.