I think this book is my second-favorite of the Secret Novels (or Hoid novels), after Tress, and potentially tied with Yumi or just ahead of it. Like many of the Secret Novels you can get through most of it without knowing too much of the Cosmere, although, like many of the Secret Novels, portions of the climax and falling action might sound like nonsense to you if you aren’t caught up with The Cosmere. Although if you’ve read up to Stormlight 5 you’ve likely read all the rest of the Cosmere, if you’re one of those Cosmere readers that reads each series in order rather than in publication order, Stormlight 5 has the many relevant connections to what’s going on in this story. I would also say that Isles of the Emberdark would also be highly relevant to this story.

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.”

2025 was the year I leveled up my TTRPG skills (no pun intended). It started off with my participation in New Game Master Month in February. Kobold Press was a sponsor and had a coupon for the core books so I moved off the free rules and onto the main, published rules. I consumed lots of TTRPG content on YouTube, reddit, and enworld - lots of it focused on being a better GM or a more creative GM. This may have come out already if I published the other end of year blog posts before this one, but TTRPGs ended up eating up a lot of free time and reducing the time I spent on reading, video games, and programming as the year progressed.

Stormlight World Guide: A Lore Compendium and Art Book for Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive by Lydia Suen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even if you are not planning to play the Cosmere TTRPG, this is a must-have for any true Cosmere fan. It’s mostly (80%ish) written as an encyclopedia about Roshar by our favorite worldhopper, Khriss. Lots of great art and great information on all the nations and cities we’ve seen (or just heard of) in the Stormlight archive. There’s a “history” section that’s a nice, condensed summary of the 5 books out so far. (A least in terms of the events of the books, not anything related to the main characters and their journeys)

Isles of the Emberdark by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sanderson revisits the short story about Sixth of the Dusk and turns it into a full novel. This turns out way better than it sounds! We get to see Dusk have more character growth than is possible in a short story (although he has some there). We get to learn more about the future of The Cosmere. All the characters are fun. In fact, if this became a series, it would be so much fun. I can’t say why without spoiling the ending, but it seems to end in a perfect place for a series to begin.

Back in October I made a post about the TTRPG kickstarters I’d backed. Here’s an update:

Backed in 2025

• Humblewood: Beyond the Canopy by Hit Point Press - Part 2 of the Humblewood story. My kids are very excited that this kickstarter is due to be fulfilled this year (for Digital items). While I’m glad we don’t have to wait until next year to play and while it means that maybe the USA tariff issues will be done by then, the fact that physical delivery is 6+ months after digital kept me from ordering the whole physical item she-bang.

Once again grouping a bunch of book reviews into one blog post. Here we go!

An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Just like the Dresden Files (which it my nearest comparison point to this genre), this series does not seem to be read as a series of standalone mysteries a la Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew (or the adult equivalent). This book is full of details that are building on the details from the last two books. This is a series that happens to have an investigator as the protagonist.

As I was looking back over my old blog posts, searching for things that needed fixing in this migration over to the Hugo static site platform, I saw that I used to write brief blog posts about the Kickstarter campaigns I was backing. Since 2013 I’ve backed somewhere around 70 or more kickstarter campaigns. Since I usually don’t back anything that involves hardware, so far I haven’t had any of the campaigns disappear without giving me what I backed. Recently I realized I had backed an inordinate amount of D&D campaigns (I tend to fall pretty deep into hobbies). So I thought I might resurrect my Kickstarter posts to follow along with the D&D campaigns I’ve backed.