Isles of the Emberdark: A Cosmere Novel Secret Projects, Book 5

Isles of the Emberdark: A Cosmere Novel Secret Projects, Book 5 by Brandon Sanderson

A young dragon leads a crew of misfits. She works to help encourage her crew to work together and be happy. She slowly learns how to be a good leader. There are significant areas of trust that need to be overcome. They have struggles as they encounter various other beings in space. The book is a bit long (but shorter than many other Cosmere books.) It stands along well and has some interesting stories that relies more on science fiction than fantasy.

Star Splitter

What makes you you? In the world of Star Splitter, teleportation is accomplished through 3D printing of humans. You are "recorded". the old version is destroyed and a new version is printed. The "new version" as all your memories and is just as much you as the old version. Protocols ensure that only one version of you is around at a time. If something happens to you, they can always print a new version of you from the last saved copy. This allows for a degree of security for people that engage in dangerous exploration.

The book tells the story of a girl who reluctantly was teleported to a distant planet. She didn't really want to go, but her parents thought it would be important for her to spend time with them on their distant explorations. However, things don't turn out well. She wakes up in the "printer" with nobody around. She manages to get out, and eventually finds the only person there was a copy of herself who was printed a short time ago. There are not supposed to be two of them around, but they are also the only survivors. The "older" version of her tells a story (short on details) that everybody else had died and that the printer accidentally got kicked in to produce her. 

The story continues with two intertwined threads. The "old" one tells the memories of the first version as she came to and experienced life with her family and other crew members. The second is from the point of few of the "new" girl and describes her experiences (and interactions with the "old" one.) The "old" girl is hiding things from the new one. (And we know some of the things that are being hidden.) However, there are bits of the experience that "new girl" somehow knows without ever actually experiencing them. "New" lies a lot to old, but she has her reasons. 

There are battles and arguments between the two. Both are almost identical. The vast majority of thoughts and experiences are exactly the same. However, there are significant differences in the last few weeks. How does this change how we are? Can we really hope to hide some experiences from a version of ourselves? Would there be some "thread" that ties all different versions of this self together? If we ever have teleportation these would all be some of the various challenges to overcome. (And this doesn't even include the basic technology.)

Game Changer

Game Changer tries to go super broad, but ends up being too narrow. After a hard hit, a football player notices things are a little odd. It turns out he is now the center of the universe and these hits lead to changes in the universe. Stop signs change colors. His family became rich, but he became a drug dealer. Brown v. Board of Education turned in favor of segregation (because Russian nukes failed), leading to continued segregation and musical stagnation. He finds himself gay and a girl in other cases. The universe goes crazy near the end before he finally ends up with just an injury. If he had the ability to change the course of the universe, why was it so narrow, and why just some of the "hot button" issues of today? And could these little changes really have had such a long lasting impact? Or could unexpected minor changes in the past had a huge impact. There is so much potential for interesting exploration that is squandered in this book.