Yumi and the Nightmare Painter: A Cosmere Novel

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No Ontological Inertia: When Yumi steals all the spirits from the Machine, rendering it powerless, it promptly shuts down. Under normal circumstances, it could just be turned on again... except it's been running non-stop for almost two thousand years, so almost all of it has worn away and been replaced by Investiture. Without a constant power source, those parts disappear, and it's left a pile of scrap. One day, Yumi is offered a gift by a spirit—freedom, adventure. Despite her wishes, she declines, knowing her duty. Instead, the spirit begs her for help, and she finds herself in a very strange situation. She is now invisible and intangible in her own world, while Painter has seemingly taken her place. He can see her, but no one else can, and everyone else sees him as Yumi. When they go to sleep, they wake up in his world, where she appears as herself and he is a ghost. Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": It's traditional to refer to painters by title. Obviously, the painters can't refer to each other this way, but Painter has internalized it to the point that he even thinks of himself this way. Gondor Calls for Aid: Akane and her friends manage to bring thirty-seven painters, about ten percent of all the painters in the city, to help Painter when he tells them an army of nightmares is coming. In a variant, no one is quite there because they want to help; most of them are there because they think it might be funny, or because they were bribed into coming with debts called in or favors promised. They're all rather annoyed when they realize Nikaro is involved, and they almost all leave pretty early on. Then the nightmares come. Yumi And The Nightmare Painter has a lot going for it. Sanderson’s flair for vibrant settings and magic is on full display. I particularly appreciated the feeling of being eased into a more advanced Cosmere, where technology becomes prevalent but the magic doesn’t fade away. Sanderson does a great job using Yumi as a sort of bridge between the medieval-ish fantasies of the other Cosmere worlds like Roshar and the futuristic ages the wider universe is creeping toward.

God Is Dead: A normalcy for a book related to the Cosmere. In this case, the reason the planet is so screwed up is because the Shard Virtuosity committed suicide. Or at least, it seems like this is the reason. Design even says you normally don't see things like this except as a direct result of a dead god. But in the end, it was something entirely different, though perhaps Virtuosity could have done something if she had still been alive. Yumi is a yoki-hijo, a sacred caller of spirits who binds them to a task. Her life is regimented to exacting detail, every step ritualized to protect her position. Her gift sets her apart from normal people, and her skill sets her apart from the gifted. All she wants is to live a normal life, for just one day, but her duty binds her too tightly even when she has the opportunity. Brilliant, but Lazy: Painter is actually one of the best artists in his city, but he's too lazy to paint anything more complicated than bamboo. His failure to be accepted into the Dreamwatch despite his talent convinced him that his art was bad and so he stopped trying.

Heroic Sacrifice: Yumi's final battle against the father-machine. She knows that it is the machine's power that is sustaining the shroud and holding her soul in this world, and that if she defeats the machine she will pass on. But she goes ahead and does it anyway, to save Painter and his friends and all the innocents of Kilahito. Suddenly flung together, Yumi and Painter must strive to right the wrongs in both their lives, reconciling their past and present while maintaining the precarious balance of each of their worlds. If they cannot unravel the mystery of what brought them together before it's too late, they risk forever losing not only the bond growing between them, but the very worlds they've always struggled to protect. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is a novel of The Cosmere by Brandon Sanderson, the third of his "secret projects" written during the Covid-19 pandemic. Human Disguise: Hoid used lightweaving to give Design some sort of three-dimensional disguise; apparently the specifics are complicated, but the short version is that it acts like she's made of flesh. selectedStore.City }}, {{ selectedStore.State }} {{ selectedStore.Country }} {{ selectedStore.Zip }}

Ship Tease: It's implied that Akane and Tojin have a thing for each other, though it's not focused on at all. Painter (Nikaro) is a lonely man making his living by trapping nightmares in paintings. He considers himself a lone warrior protecting the city, nevermind the fraternity of fellow painters who work with him. He is not a particularly fortunate man, but he makes his life more difficult by brooding. All he wants is to be important, not realizing that he is the biggest obstacle in his own way.Overall, I enjoyed Yumi. Sanderson crafts a fun and interesting story within the Cosmere. The novel doesn’t crumble beneath the burden of advancing the Cosmere into a more tech-savvy world. It ushers in a new era gently and with a whimsical story told by everyone’s favorite mysterious bard. Hoid: Granted, he did overdo it—his eyes lingered on her the entire time she worked. But don't judge him too harshly. He was nineteen, and I'm a uniquely talented artist. Ghostly Death Reveal: Referenced for laughs during one of Painter's stints as an invisible spirit. As a spren, Design can see spirits, so when she notices him, she drops a bowl of noodles and starts asking him how he died. Brandon Sanderson's reputation is finally as big as his novels' The New York Times on Words of Radiance