Arcanum Unbounded Part IV: Edgedancer by: Brandon Sanderson

 

Arcanum Unbounded is a 2017 collection from Brandon Sanderson collecting all of the short fiction that had been written and published for the Cosmere to that point.  This means there are short stories, novellas, and novelettes featured, all generally longer than one may expect from a typical piece of short fiction.  As such I have decided to split the review for the collection into four separate reviews, generally splitting up by systems, three connected to previously released series and one covering the miscellaneous pieces of standalone short fiction.  This fourth covers ‘The Rosharan System’ section of the collection, containing the novella Edgedancer.

 

Edgedancer is the only piece of original fiction placed in Arcanum Unbounded, written to bridge the gap between Words of Radiance and Oathbringer while exploring a different order of the Knights Radiant.  There’s a sense when reading Edgedancer that Sanderson adores the character of Lift and wanted to use her in a major capacity despite her only appearance being in one interlude in Words of Radiance.  As a character, she is interesting if a bit polarizing.  A young girl of 13, though insisting she’s only 10 and has been 10 for three years, Lift has this generally positive if very aloof outlook to the world.  She’s a girl who is easily distracted by her love of food and is convinced her spren, Wyndle, is actually a Voidbringer coming to bring about the end of the world.  This outlook is polarizing since several readers have found her annoying, however I think there’s less of a realization that Lift as a character is a child, and a rather care free child at that.  This is perhaps the most readers of The Stormlight Archive will get of Lift in one go, and as a novella it is quite long, clocking in at about 270 pages, so those who are already predisposed to disliking Lift won’t necessarily see her redeemed.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this novella was responsible for some disliking Lift even more.

 

What is genuinely wonderful about Edgedancer is the opportunity to really get into Lift as a character and tell a story that’s clearly occurring in the background on Roshar, but wouldn’t fit in the normal The Stormlight Archive sequence.  While food is something that motivates Lift, the main thrust of Edgedancer is an attempt to find another Radiant in the city of Yeddaw because she knows there must be something there.  As a character, Lift is portrayed as being very much on the outside of events but able to use her abilities as a Radiant to get what she wants.  The identity of the Radiant is a twist and if you’ve read the books in the series up to this point the rug pull at the end of the novella is fascinating.  However, as this is a midquel while the worldbuilding is great and there’s a genuine chance to see more of Roshar, this one does have a slight issue of coming down to an ending that doesn’t feel like a proper end to a novel, sending Lift off again towards the events of the next novel.  Edgedancer is honestly the crown of the collection, going back to Sanderson’s best series and world and letting a minor character get a real chance to shine.  9/10.