It's been quite a while (about 3 months actually), but I think that the time has come for another Brandon Sanderson book review. This time I will be talking about The Emperor's Soul, a 2012 story that won the Hugo Award for best novella (a novella is a book that's too long to be a short story, but too short to be a full novel). The story follows a thief named Shai, who uses unique magic to create near-identical forgeries of the items she steals. When she tries to steal an artifact known as the moon scepter, Shai is captured and thrown into the emperor's dungeons. Sentenced to death, Shai is given a chance to be set free, she has to save the emperor's life. Put into a coma by an assassin attack, Shai has to create a forgery of his soul, effectively creating a new emperor. She has to study his life, personality, and relationships in order to create a perfect forgery, as her task would be a failure if anyone suspected anything was off.
I loved reading The Emperor's Soul, and I found the short length very refreshing. Depending on the copy you buy (book margins and font size), the book can be anywhere from 90 to around 200 pages long. This is a short book and makes it easy to power out the story in just a few days (or hours if you're really into it). The Emperor's Soul takes place within the same world as Elantris, another Sanderson book I reviewed a while back. However, the stories are not connected at all, and none of the characters are the same. So while I recommend that you read Elantris first, it really isn't important to understand the plot.
I highly recommend that you read The Emperor's Soul. The characters are very well developed for such a small amount of pages, and while the plot is centered around the magic system it still isn't confusing to read (at least it wasn't for me). So go give this novella a shot! It doesn't require a lot of commitment like longer books do, it has an interesting plot, and the magic system is very unique and different from anything I've read about before. Even if you're not a traditional fantasy lover, I'd say this book is worth a chance.
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