Tress of the Emerald Sea: Episode 1 of 5 - Brandon's Book Club 

Thank you for having me on for this! I loved working on this project and getting to gush about this book!

I loved the Dougs but the nice touch with it too was when one of them died and Hoid told you his name and a bit about him. It was just this oh shit yeah that random guy we all overlooked because you told us to, he was a person and an interesting person and he died here. I just loved that sort of acknowledgement that all the Dougs are real too.

I love how this conversation ebbs and flows. Such an undulating discussion!

Honestly, one of my favorite, utterly hilarious, lines happens in this beginning section. "[...] with a jaw so straight, he made other men question if they were." I was laughing so loud I scared my cat 😂

This was a great time! I hope to discuss Tress with you all - I loved it so much and can't wait to see what you think.

"I've looked and I wasn't able to find another talking animal in the cosmere." TenSoon: Am I a joke to you?

“Just because you’re grounded doesn’t mean you’re boring.” Definitely feel this!

I was quite taken with the fact that Brandon wrote this book for his wife. I especially loved the description of Tress and Charlie's early love story in this context. Just as Tress was the only one who loved to listen to Charlie's never-ending stories, Brandon's wife must be a truly special glove for him!

When I saw the talking animal I was like "oh cool, now we have talking animals in the Cosmere, nice!!" 😂 i was totally open to whatever Sanderson threw at me

Great job all. My favourite chapter is the Father. When Hoid tells us Len is rich even though it is clear he is very poor. Then he redefines rich. No man it's poor who has friends. The chapter it's such brilliant character development in such a short space. If feels like an entire short story to me. No problems with the rat as it was so clearly a fairy tale. Indeed just immersed me more in the story and inn the puzzle he's immediately represented. Loved the love story. I feel it more closely represents maybe Sanderson's own experience than most. Totally wanted it to work. Loved how it was more about commitment and comfort than anything else. Loved the fairy tale vibe from narrator to talking rat, from hidden Prince to supposed DARK sorceress, from princess Bride to Howls Moving Castle... I see you Sanderson.

Yay! I had such a great time participating in this--thanks everyone for watching/commenting! :D

See, i was perfectly fine with the talking rat. I was just like oh this is new. Let's see where he takes this. And i was happy with the outcome. So yeah, I was a fan of Huck from the beginning. In fact, a t-shirt of Tress with Huck on her shoulder would be cool.

Never minded the “earthy” feeling since Hoid is telling US the story and he tailors his story to his audience 😊

Well that was just delightful. I absolutely adored Tress, so it was lovely hearing a bunch of Sanderfans put some of those feelings to words. I will say, as much as I loved the scene over the spores, I'm amazed that the "first class fathering" didn't at least get an honorable mention. I REALLY wish more fantasy characters had parents willing to take a leap of faith on their kids.

From the setup "It was about gloves" to the payoff "You're my gloves too" had me tearing up the first time. My favorite moment in the first 3 parts. It was just so fitting (pun intended) for Tress being a very pragmatic character and yet so incredibly endearing at the same time. Such an intimate way of expressing such big and often hard to process emotions. Honestly can't say I had a least favorite moment. Huck was a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.

One of my all time favorite ship adventure stories is Voyage of the Dawn Treader, so a talking rat felt very natural in this story. Plus I always loved Reepicheep.

This was such a fun watch! I finished Tress weeks ago, but I think I'm going to have to go back and reread it because of all the comments made. I too was distracted by the brushing of curly hair, but on the cover, she has wavy hair, so I figured it was more kinky than curly. The rat never bothered me, but that's probably due to growing up with Disney. I thought it was actually funny that she had a rat instead of a more "loveable" animal companion. My favorite moment of the first three chapters was actually when Tress' father went out to get help for her. The way that whole scene was described and the ways in which it revealed this family has helped their own community made me fall in love with the story. I knew I was going to like the book, but that's the moment when I knew it would stand the test of time.

What an amazing conversation! Merphy did a great job facilitating, and I found everyone’s comments so interesting! Best books, best readers 🥰

I’ve been so excited for this to come out!! I hope y’all like it!

I'm such a Sanderson junkie. So I was pretty shocked when I finished this book and thought "This might be my favorite Sanderson story." I feel like the way it was released took us all off guard because this is really an amazing book.

I'm right there with you all. Warbreaker is NOW my second favorite Sanderson book. Tress is now my favorite Sanderson book and favorite book of all time.

Lol I loved the talking rat! Since it fit the whimsical tone of the story, I was so totally on board with it ⛵

I don’t get the whole idea of the rat being so far out, as in well of ascension we already saw a talking dog. Granted that was a Kandra, but with that I figured there would be some good explanation. Also I just have to say I love the slight foreshadowing you get with Huck with him calling it the rock

Absolutely! I was yelling NO DON'T BRUSH THE CURLS!

whimsy. whimsy. whimsy. whimsy. The fact this word has been used so much these last few years in awesome. excited for secret history 2. We are all in for a treat. Whimsey is a better story than we know.

How did the “3 pie problem” quote not show up in this discussion? 😂 That was the best.

I loved this book club, it made me feel so inside of the talk and satisfied my necessity to talk about the book. I love that Sanderson do this things for the community, just the best writer.

I’m SO happy the brushing of dry curls was addressed!!! I swear I felt my hair start to frizz as I read that part. It was fun to watch the discussion, looking forward to the next video 😊

So, my own takes on these: 1) Did I believe in the romance at first? Yes. In-narrative, because Tress knew all of Charlie's smiles. She doesn't know 'smiles in general', but specifically Charlie's. That told me that she, at least, cared. (Out-of-narrative, it would have been very weird for Sanderson to write a book to his wife, put a romance in it, and then not have the romance work out.) 2) Favorite moment: The sprouter using the box on the first ship. Just.. the harnessing of deadly objects for practical purposes is amazing. 3) Least favorite moment: The revelation of the broken cup. That hit _hard_. I _cannot wait_ for the Cosmere talk. :)

Having not read any Sanderson prior to this, I was not taken aback by the talking rat… I was pleasantly surprised!

On the Doug front, I love that Doug refers to both males and females. Also favorite part is when Tress realizes it's okay to ask for help!

I loved Tress of the Emerald Sea! Empathy is a real super power❤

This was such a treat, y'all. Thanks for joining us!

Probably the hardest part to believe of this whole thing is all the hard copies of the book in plain sight 😂

This set is beautiful omg

I'm still waiting for the limited edition hardback copy of this book that I ordered to arrive before I can start watching these. Edit: I finally got it. Thank you so much Brandon for the transparency about these issues.

Nausicaa is exactly what I thought of with the spores.

I want this for all the books! There are many things that I love about this! love that they filmed this early so we could have it so early after the release. Love the fact they filmed this in the Ammonite club, such a good space for thinking creatively! Love that these creators get some exposure!

I *love* this! It makes me feel more involved with the larger community and helps me parcel out the new book which I would have otherwise devoured.

Bookborn and merphy in one video? Love to see two of my favorite booktubers, one huge, one much smaller, such a great group of people to talk about this

I'm convinced that in 5 years' time, this book will be one of the established Great Works Of Literature with many awards and bestseller records. It's so beautiful and funny and insightful.

Reading this book was like reading all my girlhood dreams put to the page. Thank you for that.

So I read Tress late because I waited to get the hard cover book (so glad I did, such a stunning book) and I live overseas and then on top of that I have a baby so not a lot of reading time, but once I had a quiet moment to start I read the whole thing in 2 days. My husband had to take over with my son so I could keep reading 😅. Overall I loved this book. I really liked Tress's practical nature and as you all mentioned I loved how confident she was right away. I absolutely adored how her parents handled her wanting to go after Charlie. Her parents helping her plan was such a standout point in the book for me. The magic system is also super cool. Oddly I didn't like her cup obsession at first. I found it kind of manic pixie dream girl-esque at first. Oh look, this main character is interesting, she collects cups isn't that odd! But once we saw her going to Charlie for stories and it was clearly a way for her to let him talk the way he likes to (I love to talk so this was super sweet to me). And also how he was sending her cups from each place he went, it started to grow on me more. Also since her general personality didn't fall into the trope I felt better about it.

Love the discussion, especially the different visualizations you each had. As an amateur mycologist it was really cool hearing someone more experienced give her take on how she imagined this unique world. Loads of fun.

I honestly missed that Ulaam was a Kandra for the longest time too. I knew something was interesting about him from his description, and his name was ringing bells in my head. It wasn't until he mentioned The Father that I put it all together.

The only Brandon Sanderson novel I've read is Elantris, his first published book from what I understand. As I have recently gotten into his podcast, I figured I'd try his other work. And this new YT book club has convinced me to start with the most recent publication. Looking forward to reading *Tess of the Emerald Sea* and to following along with these discussions!

Even before it was confirmed to be Hoid telling the story I remember stopping the book, looking up at my wife and saying "Oh my god, This is Hoid telling the story!" The ability to write in a tone of voice is something magical to see happen.

Finally catching up on these books, great discussion!

Such a fun video! Love the idea of the book club. Love Merphy and Bookborn! Can't wait for the rest of the videos.

Charlie being there was convenient. “Doug” as a name seemed like going for the joke rather then realism, but the joke was funny. It also gives a new dynamic to the story when Hood says he actually knew ALL of their names and gives the story of the sailor who died. That! Was worth the set up of “Doug”s.

I loved this book and it is now my all time favourite. The interactions between Tress and Charlie start of the book reminded me so much of my SO, I just had to share it with her. The next day I went on a road trip with the family and we put the audiobook on for the drive and it was just lovely. Dad wants to know if it's possible to commission a book like this one for mum, since he admits he wouldn't be a great writer himself. I didn't really have any issues with a talking rat, since I figured it would be explained and it fit with the fairy tale tone. The third to first person shifting worked really well for me and did a great job of telling us more about Hoid and his voice, but also gave us some really cool story moments. I loved the advanced fathering scene too. Just fantastic. Particularly with mum and dad in the car. I can't wait for secret project 2 and I really hope to see another book with this tone from Brandon in the future.

I loved tress and hope that we get to visit lumar again in the future

I finally got SP1 yesterday and love it so far. My wife made me put it down and go to sleep at midnight 😂 I know there were hiccups in the process of making and shipping it, but thank you, Brandon & Co, for not lessening the quality. It is a stunning book and box, and I am looking forward to the next 3 books even more now. Thank you for inviting us even further into the Cosmere!

I can't believe you all forgot that there is a taking dog in Mistborn! 😄I really didn't think anything of the talking rat, I just assumed that we would get an explanation of how it came to be

In defense of the talking rat... This story is being narrated by Hoid (which they point out at the beginning of the video) and Hoid has has non-human entities that talk in his stortelling. A particularly liked the talking dog who wants to be a dragon.

I loved this so much having people talking about the book and being able to talk to others about this was wonderful 🥰❤ cant wait for the next one

I need this as a movie with Johnny depp as hoid

Brandon and team, I love this book so much! Thank you for making it. I cant wait to get my physical copy once they're in!

I imagined Nausica spores as well. They are light an airy enough to work and large enough you could handle them individually.

Maybe I'm weird but the moment I knew I was going to love the book was when Tress sat and listened to Chuck create a story about a cup she brought to him. And maybe I'm just old, but when the rat introduced himself as Huck I knew who he was immediately.

Probably not something you expect to see comments about, but the opening to this video is just GORGEOUS. The set is so cool and the music gave me goosebumps. Kudos!

My favorite chapter is an odd choice, because all that happens in it was cooking and talking.. 😅 But I just LOVE cultural worldbuilding, and the Quartermaster's culture was SO INTERESTING! I had to stop "reading"/listening (in true Vorin fashion I had this book read to me,) and pace around my room from how interesting I thought it was..

Thanks everybody for putting this together! This is such a stellar companion video to have after reading the book! I haven't read much of the Cosmere yet, but Huck didn't bother me in the least bit. I was all about a little furry friend who could talk! It reminded me a little of Tensoon.

Tress of the Emerald Sea is my first and only non-wheel Sanderson. BookTube kept eluding it's kinship with all time favorite "The Princess Bride" and its being a one shot, so I gave it a go. It was love at page one, whimsical reading that had me laugh aloud more than once. It is ATM Pop's bedtime reader for my almost teen granddaughters. (nearing the end, they love it)

I pictured them exactly from naussica as well!

This is excellent; loving the whole conversation across the board and excited for future sessions

being able to hear a long form story told by Hoid, and one he is a part of, so at times through Hoid, is my new favorite thing. What a wonderfully fun, delightful story. Brandon really knocked it out of the park and I could see this as a really fun anime one off series.

Brain automatically went to Reepicheep (sp?), and I loved him as a child, so the rat was good to go from the beginning.

Congratulations and thanks to those book tubers chosen to discuss the book

That RAFO jumper is so awesome, I need it!!

Oh Murph and Bookborn, yay.

I'm only now reading the first secret project and I love the book club so much. I hope this continues for non secret project sanderson books.

With the talking rat, it’s only in retrospect that I realize how little it initially seems to fit the Cosmere, since it worked so well with the fairy-tale vibe that had been established. Sanderson is so good at introducing new fantastical elements and still having them all seem cohesive, so I never doubted that it would be satisfyingly explained eventually.

Can’t wait til I get my book to go back and watch these!

This is so awesome! I wish I could go to Sanderson's library lair to be part of a book club this cool :D. Tress was a fantastic read - can't wait for the other 3 books this year!

I really love the on-theme table decorations.

Maybe its because I had pet rats as a child, but I was so charmed by Huck the talking rat. A wonderful talking Rat just made the book for me.

I will absolutely be watching and reading along with this when my copy arrives! :)

Just finished the book a few days ago! This is gonna be so cool

Yes! It finally came out 🩷

Gosh as a rat lover, I'm sad face about everyone saying the talking rat was their least favourite parts.

I haven't read Pratchett, but the book reminded me of Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide quite a bit, and I loved it!

I can't wait till my copy of Tress arrives! That way I can read along with y'all.

So late but this book may just be my favorite work of modern sci-fi/fantasy literature in the past several decades. I only just finished it while on vacation, and I immediately afterward reread the entire thing, annotating the second time around. This was my introduction to the Cosmere and to Sanderson's books in general (my sister gave me her copy after reading it, recommended by a friend, and soon after started Warbreaker, which I plan to read as well.) Adored the Ghibli-esque semi-fairy-tale vibe, with unbelievably lovable characters, logical and fascinating explanations for the mechanics of this world, and just the excellent writing in general. I look forward to reading other Cosmere novels, hoping we get some more of these characters (looking at Ulaam here 😭) and this planet in future projects. Either way, I am delighted with this book, fiercely recommending it to all of my friends, and eagerly anticipating my dive into this world. Thanks for the new favorite, Sanderson. I foresee myself tearing through your other works and rereading this one time and time again- Much luck on future novels!💙

I want to like this but seeing all those books makes me so mad I don't have mine yet. lol

Wow this was great. The first few minutes I was like "wait where is Brandon?" but this was still fun and very well made even without Brandon being there surely will check out the next part... and some of the other channels.

The scenes with Tress’s parents were my favorites in this section. That and Fort.

I thought of the spores as something between powder and sand. It was interesting to hear what others were thinking.

One thing that stuck out to me in this book more than most cosmere books was their focus on puns. Clearly sanderson is fully aware that language and communication is important considering he has developed multiple magic systems in the cosmere to handle the communication of ppls from across the cosmere. I think its well understood that even though Sanderson writes these books in English the characters in these books aren't actually speaking English. Their words are just being translated into the language Sanderson is writing in. It is even obvious that Sanderson is aware that puns and idiom ls don't translate well across languages considering his use of color idioms to signal nalthian world hoppers. This is important because Sanderson sometimes makes puns which are very dependent on which language is being used. Most of these puns happen with Hoid which can be explained away with the idea that he is almost a 4th wall breaking character and may actually know English and knows these puns would be understood in the language these books are written in. These facts make me curious about several things and how Sanderson explains them. The first is "how does Sanderson handle those lines with puns in English when translating these books to other languages like Spanish or any other language? Does he try to find comparable puns in those languages to fit into those lines? Or does he translate those lines directly, completely losing the pun but still having Hoid reference the pun in the writing? Second, how do these scenes work in universe? If Hoid is making a pun in English but is actually speaking Alethi does the pun make sense? Or is he actually making the pun in Alethi and we are getting a comparable pun in English? And lastly when it is other character in the cosmere making the puns in English how is that explained? For example at one point Tress is speaking Ulaam, Ulaam uses the word "fecund" which tress responds with "I can't use that word" obviously meaning that she thought she heard the work "fuck" which is further proven by the fact that when Ulaam tries to explain the word says it actually has a very similar meaning "capable of producing offspring, fertile". This focus on English puns is very interesting to me being bilingual and knowing that idioms and puns do not translate well across languages. Also knowing that none of the characters are actually speaking English makes it even more confusing.

I'm so excited for it to arrive. Ill wait and listen after I've read it :)

That was great! I definitely will be anticipating those. I've been waiting since January 1st - though I did organize a reading group of my own, so it wasn't all just anticipation. Anyway, see you next week!

So my favorite section in this part is actually when Lem traded in all of his accrued “wealth” to get his daughter of the Rock, while I agree that the walking on spore scene was good, her clinging to the moving sip after that was more nail biting. My least favorite part was the lack of information the Duke gave to the citizens of the rock about his sons “accident” the hey this happened I have a spare lets drink just didn’t settle well with me. Huck was off putting but inspired from the beginning in my opinion I knew he would be explained eventually and he was and it worked in the world IMO

Fun discussion. I am enjoting the book very much!

I absolutely agree as well that Tress running across the sea was one of the best parts of this chunk of the book. As for Huck, I didn't mind the talking rat at all. It threw me a tiny bit, but I think my immediate reaction was that this was a story Hoid was telling, so of course it has a talking rat in it. I don't remember which of the panelists commented on this, but I was also completely oblivious to what Ulaam wasn't first. I listen to it as an audiobook and it was either late in the first listening or quite possibly in the second when I realized what he was.

Still waiting on my kickstarter copy of Tress.

That was so fun, thanks for the discussion!

I remember a recent live stream where Brandon was like who is Merphy Napier and now she is here.

Can’t wait for my copy to arrive in the mail!!

I love the Cosmere Finer Things Club!

We've had talking animals in the Mistborn series, talking rat didn't phase me.