Review: Elsecaller / King Lopen

This pair of short stories by Dragonsteel employees Dan Wells (who is also an author in his own right) and Isaac Stewart (the illustrator of many Cosmere books and head of art at Dragonsteel) was originally created for the Sanderson convention. (Nexus? I think) The first story is about Jasnah and fills us in on what happened to her between when she was on the ship with Shallan and when we see her next in the main books. While it does have some character growth for Jasnah, it was not my favorite short story. A lot of action happens off screen (which is played for laughs), but almost achieves the platonic ideal of journey over destination. It’s so much about the journey that we mostly only see her while journeying after having done some cool stuff in some city (which we hear snippets of). It left me with the feeling of seeing a scene that was cut from a movie after which I would say, “Yeah…that didn’t need to be in the movie.”

By contrast I found the Lopen story more entertaining. It was overtly a comedy and leaned into the ridiculous nature of Lopen’s personality. We also spent some time in Elhokar’s head, which was appreciated, given what he went through in the main books. I felt like he had a better character arc, strangely enough. It’s been a while since I read Dawnshard, but it might overlap with his character growth in that book slightly.

Overall, these stories are so short that I can’t say much more without getting into spoiler territory. I think many Cosmere fans will at least appreciate reading the stories, but I don’t think either is essential reading.

• Cosmere